Kurt Hoffman attacks former boss Tom Knight over response to 2020 protests

Kurt Hoffman, Tom Knight.

Sarasota County Sheriff Kurt Hoffman has cut an attack ad slamming predecessor Tom Knight’s campaign for County Commission

In the new ad, he slams his former boss for how he handled Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.

“I was Tom Knight’s chief deputy for six years,” Hoffman says directly to the camera. “When Knight took a knee in front of Black Lives Matter protesters and pulled our deputies out of the schools, he lost my vote.”

Hoffman endorsed Sarasota County Commissioner Neil Rainford, the appointed incumbent in the District 3 race. The sitting Sheriff appeared in a Rainford ad airing on cable and network broadcasts in Sarasota and praised Rainford as a conservative. Rainford faces Knight in an Aug. 20 Republican Primary.

While an endorsement from a sitting Sheriff would be notable regardless, Hoffman surprisingly criticizes Knight’s tenure as Sheriff for 12 years, when he served as Chief Deputy for the agency for half that tenure.

The narration comes as an image of Knight shows up with the words “Liberal Tom Knight” plastered in front of Black Lives Matter protesters, and briefly an image of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi taking a knee at a 2020 protest.

But the incident Hoffman references was at University Town Center (UTC) in University Park a week prior to the Pelosi event shown. Shortly after the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minnesota and as riots were breaking out in some cities, Knight as Sheriff participated in a protest in Sarasota County. On June 2, 2020, deputies shut down a public intersection of University Parkway and Cattlemen Road, and Knight addressed the crowd, as reported at the time by ABC 7.

Hoffman’s appearance in the latest ad angered Knight, who posted a video in response calling his former Chief Deputy an “actor and a fake.”

The ad marks a significant public schism between the career law enforcement leaders. When Knight announced in 2019 he would not seek re-election, he immediately endorsed Hoffman as a preferred successor. Knight said he even encouraged Hoffman to move from Charlotte County to Sarasota County so he could run for Sheriff when Knight retired.

But Knight said he hasn’t returned to the Sheriff’s Office since attending Hoffman’s swearing-in ceremony and that Hoffman won’t shake his hands at events.

Hoffman did not return calls and texts seeking comment.

Knight said regarding the UTC protest in question that the Sheriff’s Office had some intelligence that agitators from outside the area intended to incite a riot on private property. He approached protestors and said he would participate in the event.

“Leadership is not easy,” Knight said. “Sometimes you do things you may not personally agree with. I didn’t agree with them being on private property and trying to start a riot, and I told them they had a right to peacefully protest. But it didn’t have to happen on private property or destroy or hurt anything or anyone. And we never had any arrests.”

Knight said he learned the importance of defusing violent situations as a highway trooper in Miami during the Elián González protests in 2000.

“No one ever picks a fight until the cops show up,” Knight said. “If I had lined up 100 deputies in riot equipment, the message would have been sent that we are here for a fight.”

More significant to the ads, Knight said Hoffman was present for all discussions and never objected to the Sheriff participating in the event. But he also said Hoffman never was on the front lines during the tense protests, and that instead fell to the Sheriff and city police leaders.

Rainford said it’s important to showcase the support from Hoffman.

“We have the best Sheriff in Florida,” Rainford said. “I’m running against a former Sheriff and I think there’s a stark contrast between the two.”

He noted Hoffman supported Rainford’s candidacy out of the gate, before Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed Rainford to the post following the death of former Sarasota County Commissioner Nancy Detert.

“The previous Sheriff caved when it came to Black Lives Matter and gun legislation in the past,” Rainford said.

Of note, Knight opposes the opening of a new Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office headquarters that Hoffman has planned. Rainford said the facility is necessary to address growth in the county.

The winner of the Republican Primary advances to a General Election against no-party candidate Shari Thornton and a write-in candidate in November.