The Broward Sheriff’s Office has fired six more deputies and disciplined 11 others for their response to the horrific homicides of a Tamarac woman and two others earlier this year.
During a news conference Friday, Sheriff Gregory Tony told reporters the failures were twofold: deputies did not properly investigate multiple domestic violence complaints prior to the triple homicide and deputies violated active shooter policy by waiting too long to reach the shooter.
In all, Tony has fired or suspended 19 BSO deputies or staff in connection with the handling of the long-running domestic dispute between Mary Gingles, 34, and her estranged husband, Nathan Gingles, 43.
READ MORE: Broward Sheriff's Office fires former head of Tamarac unit after triple homicide
On February 16, 2025, Nathan Gingles, of Lauderhill, shot and killed Mary Gingles; his father-in-law, David Ponzer, 64, and Andrew Ferrin, 34, who lived in the same neighborhood as Ponzer during a shooting rampage in Tamarac, says BSO.
“It is painful to say this, but it is the truth — we failed Mary Gingles, David Ponzer and Andrew Ferrin."Broward County Sheriff Gregory Tony
Court records show Gingles faces three counts of murder in the first degree, one count of violating of a domestic violence injunction, one count of interference with custody, one count of kidnapping and two counts of child abuse without great bodily harm. He has pleaded not guilty.
“It is painful to say this, but it is the truth — we failed Mary Gingles, David Ponzer and Andrew Ferrin. I am heartbroken by their deaths, and I am sorry that we didn’t do what we should have done to protect them,” Tony told reporters on Friday.
He said BSO had “multiple opportunities to protect Mary during the months preceding her death when she alerted us to the domestic violence she was experiencing.”
“The deputies and detectives assigned to investigate these cases failed their training and, ultimately, failed to handle Mary’s repeated cries for help with the urgency required,” Tony said.
Mary Gingles, according to Broward court records, feared her husband for more than a year before the slayings and had sought a divorce from her husband. She had gotten a Broward judge to issue a domestic violence restraining order against him in 2023 and again on Dec. 30, 2024 — less than two months before she and the others were shot and killed.
She wrote in her December 2024 court petition that her husband’s “violent history, his flagrant disregard for rules or laws, and his telling our daughter that he is going to kill me” left her “fearful for my life.”
A 246-page internal investigation revealed the failures in the Tamarac division of BSO to follow up on the domestic violence complaints from Mary Gingles. There were at least 11 contacts between BSO and Mary prior to the killings, the records show.
BSO's internal investigation, said Tony, also revealed a sergeant had violated the agency's active shooter protocol by deploying deputies to a “rally point” instead of immediately responding to the shooting in the Tamarac neighborhood.
“In an active shooter situation, seconds matter. They’re the difference between life and death,” Tony said. “I promise this community and the families of Mary Gingles, David Ponzer and Andrew Ferrin that we will learn from these failures. Their deaths will not be in vain.”
“They could have been at that house within two minutes, max, running cold three,” Tony told reporters. “There was no traffic on those streets that night.
“There was nothing to obstruct their ability, in a marked unit with lights and sirens, and the powers and authority invested in them from this state, to get there and do the damn job.
“So it’s absolutely unacceptable” he said.
