Gov. Rick Scott has ordered flags in Florida to fly a half staff Friday following the execution of an American journalist with state ties in Iraq earlier this week.
Steven Sotloff was a Time reporter who was once a journalism student at the University of Central Florida in Oviedo. He had been a prisoner of the militant group ISIS, which currently has control of parts of Syria and Iraq, and who have been the subject of air attacks by U.S. military forces in recent weeks.
“Ann and I join all Floridians, and Americans, in grieving with the Sotloff family today,” Scott said in a release. “Those who murdered Steven are evil, and evil must be confronted and destroyed.”
Flags will be flown at half staff at local and state government buildings, installations and grounds throughout the state. How all other flags are flown are up to the owners of those flags.
