Dispatch records obtained by the Miami Herald indicate Broward County deputies who arrived on the scene of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting were instructed to form a perimeter instead of confronting the shooter who murdered 17 people.
The order came from Capt. Jan Jordan.
Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel had said publicly that active-shooter training instructs officers to immediately confront the shooter or shooters. Forming a perimeter is secondary.
The documents show the shooting lasted approximately 6 minutes and was likely over by the time officers arrived on the scene. In a press conference revealing (now former) school deputy Scot Peterson stayed outside rather than confronting the shooter, Sheriff Israel said Peterson should have “went in. Addressed the killer. Killed the killer.”
From the Miami Herald:
The Broward Sheriff’s Office captain who initially took charge of the chaotic scene at a Parkland high school where 17 people were killed told deputies to form a perimeter around the deadly scene — which they did instead of going in to confront the shooter, according to a partial BSO dispatch log obtained by the Miami Herald.
Capt. Jan Jordan, commander of BSO’s Parkland district, gave the order, the log shows, identifying her by her police call sign.
Broward Sheriff Scott Israel has said BSO training and nationwide active-shooter procedure call for armed law enforcement officers to confront shooters immediately rather than secure a scene.
The document raises fresh questions about the department’s handling of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14.
Before being appointed to command Parkland, Jordan was assigned to BSO’s civil division, which serves subpoenas and injunctions, according to her online biography. She was previously with the Fort Lauderdale Police Department, where Israel also worked.
According to The Herald, the BSO, “did not directly dispute that Jordan issued a stand-down order. Nor did the agency confirm it.”
Fox News has more details:
What appears to corroborate all of the sources’ allegations of bad commands is a portion of the February 14 dispatch log obtained by Fox News that appears to indicate there were several orders for crews to stage and form a perimeter. The logs appeared to indicate that at the same time these commands were given, law enforcement still had not located the active shooter and even a responding air crew refused to take off — apparently in fear of being shot down — because it was not established the shooter was in custody.
One law enforcement source said it still was an “extremely” active shooter situation since authorities had not located the shooter and critical emergency aircrews were not taking off. The source said deputies and police should be have been rushing in to neutralize the threat versus staging or setting up a perimeter.
Jeff Bell, the president of the Broward County Sheriff’s Deputies Association, said it wasn’t clear how many officers were already on the scene or in the school when the first perimeter and stage command came out. But Bell says unless “50” officers were already inside then it was a bad command to order staging. “If that is the correct log at ten minutes, that we were more concerned with the perimeter than finding the shooter, it was a bad command. It could have stalled our officers or cost lives.”
Bell said he estimates the dispatch log obtained by Fox News is 99 percent accurate.
Fox created the following timeline of the shooting and law enforcement response based on the dispatch records and other available information:
According to multiple reports and police information, Nikolas Cruz entered Building 12 on the campus of Marjory Stoneman around 2:21 p.m. and began firing. Law enforcement tells Fox News the shooting lasted about seven and a half minutes.
According to a portion of the dispatch log, there was a call that came in at 2:23 p.m. from a female student about shots fired.
At 2:25 p.m., more “SHOTS FIRED” were recorded by responding officers or witnesses.
At 2:26 p.m., the log indicated another call came in advising the shooting was coming from “THE 1200 BLDG.”
At 2:26:56 p.m., Cruz was still firing, according to units on scene. “UNITS ADV SHOTS FIRED” the log read.
At 2:29 p.m., the log indicated responding officers did not know where Cruz was. “UKNOWN SHOOTER LOCATION,” the log read.
At 2:30 another active shooter call was logged, that a mother of a student advised, “HE HEARD SHOTS FIRED HE IS IN 11th GRADE IN A MATH CLASS UNK ROOM NUMBER.”
At this point, eleven minutes after it was believed Cruz first opened fire, the log indicated one of the commanding officers started ordering responding officers to begin forming a perimeter, which one law enforcement source said would go against all training to first neutralize the threat.
At 2:32 p.m., the dispatch call log indicated the first command to form a perimeter was issued, “17S1…NEED PERIMETER.”
Sources told Fox News the 17S1 insignia on the log that day is important because it is the insignia, or code, for who was making the commands. 17S1 stands for 17 Sierra One.A short while later, as the dispatch log indicated the whereabouts of the shooter was unknown; the first command to “stage” apparently was given.
2:34:48 p.m., “17S1 STAGE SIDE SAWGRASS.”
Then, three minutes after that staging order, the log indicated the scene was still active as emergency aircrews indicated they would not go because it hadn’t been confirmed the shooter was in custody.
2:38 p.m., “AIR RESCUE ADVISED NOT LAUNCING UNTIL CONFIRMED SUBJ IS IN CUSTODY,” the log read.
At 2:47 p.m., 15 minutes after the first command to form a perimeter was issued and 13 minutes after the first command to stage was issued, the log indicated the SWAT team entered the school.
At 3:02 p.m., the log apparently indicated the 20-minute delay in surveillance that law enforcement was using to track down Cruz. “20 MIN DELAY FROM CAMERA HE EXITED THE BUILDING RUNNING SOUTH,” the log stated.
At 3:03 p.m. the log stated, “VIDEO SHOWS HE POSS MIXED WITH KIDS.”
At 3:10 the log indicated Nikolas Cruz has been identified by a baseball coach, “POSS STUDENT NICHOLAS CRUSE 43 FROM BASEBALL COACH.”
At 3:16 the log indicated Cruz was identified again. “UNIT ADV ON DISPATCH 11A THAT THE SUBJ IS POSS A WM NAMED NICHOLAS CRUZ, WM LSAW A BURG SHIRT, BLK SHORTS, WAS LAST SEEN ON S/E END OF THE SCHOOL…” the log stated.
The lack of response to numerous warnings about Cruz’s behavior and promises to shoot up a school prior to his murderous rampage and the local law enforcement’s handling of the shooting itself are both cause for concern. We’ve discussed the many issues at length here.
Despite it all, Sheriff Israel refuses to resign.
For what good it will do, the Florida House opened an investigation, subpoenaing Broward County Schools and law enforcement.
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Comments
Even if the shooting was over when they got there they could have gone in and rendered aid. Perhaps one or more of the 17 who died could have been stopped from bleeding out.
I may sound like a conspiracy theorist, but: The FBI/Police intentionally ignored pleas and warnings about Cruz, not only from the public, but from Cruz himself. The actions of the police, once on the scene, were ridiculous and did not follow protocol. I find it difficult to believe that anyone or any group can be this inept by accident, it’s as if they, through their willful negligence, wanted a school shooting to take place
It is difficult to understand how so many red flags were ignored. I am definitely not a conspiracy theorist, but we have here the most incompetent group of law enforcement officers and agencies on the planet or something more. Sadly, I lean more toward incompetence. Congress needs to investigate the FBI’s role in failing to avert this tragedy, and the good people of Broward County need to elect a new sheriff. This guy seems to be corrupt to his toes.
Obviously you missed it – Broward County SD has ALREADY been the subject of a large number of investigations – the Florida AG conducted dozens of criminal misconduct investigations into the BCSD in the past few years, and Israel was already investigated at least once for giving political cronies cushy payback jobs – he gave an 80k a year job doing ‘community outreach’ to the husband of his campaign manager, for instance.
What did I miss? I said he sounds like he’s corrupt to his toes, but a flurry of accusations that go nowhere don’t make that point, right? As an elected official, these things matter, but as far as the law goes, he’s been either cleared of wrong-doing or has otherwise escaped justice (if he’s guilty). He’s either so plugged in that he’s pulling strings way above his pay-grade, or [fill in the blank]. Either way and given his numerous refusals to step down, the only way he leaves office is if Broward county voters vote him out. And they can’t’ do that until 2020.
I wonder if Florida has any recall provisions.
Only for members of municipal or charter county councils. (20 of the state’s 67 counties are charter counties.)
these LEOs were all ‘trained’ during the 0bama admin –
what more would you expect from Holder – Fast&Furious – DOJ.
Broward county is a (D) county.
Broward County was one of three counties in the nation “pivotal to an Obama victory” in 2012.
— Broward Democratic Executive Committee on Thursday, April 11th, 2013 in a press release
Benghazzi replay ?
The only thing more counterproductive than an FBI investigation of a case where FBI mis/mal-feasance is a factor would be a Congressional investigation where malfeasance, misfeasance, cowardice, stupidity, and contempt for the American people can be assumed.
It’s just like the miracle school grade improvements. When you see them you can figure they’re phony. They’ve cherry picked students, they’re cheating on grading or tests or they’ve lowered the standards.
Here it’s clear they lowered the standards so as to arrest fewer minorities. Why did St. Trayvon have burglary tools and stolen items on him with no repercussions? Same reason our little shooter had forty or so calls and no arrests. To make their stats look good.
Tie funding to results in Democrat controlled areas and you’ll get cheating one way or the other every time.
A year ago I would have called you a conspiracy theorist. After what’s been unearthed in the past few months I’m pretty sure you’re probably right. Discovering the depth of corruption in our government has been a severe blow to me. I’m taking nothing for granted any more.
I was a HazMat responder and trainer (on the national level with many awards) for twenty years. When we responded or trained, we saw two different kinds of behavior that was based on who was in trouble.
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When we responded to a private concern, the owners cooperated with us and everything went smoothly. Everything was done by the numbers and the responses usually went quite well.
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When we responded to government facilities, there was almost always a bunch of bureaucratic nonsense going on. Quite often managers who were assigned positions of leadership and who rarely attended any training before hand (they were too busy and important) would often get involved and start issuing directions that made zero sense. These were people who were in charge and their egos let you know it.
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At one point I was on the city where I lived fire department’s HazMat team as well as the emergency response team from the government site where I worked. After a mock event where management was breaking their arms patting themselves on their backs for the fine job they did, I asked the question of how many times did we have to violate protocol, kill the victims, and so forth, before we stopped complimenting ourselves and recognized the need to learn. (For example, we had two security officers walk throughout the HazMat scene without any protection only to hop into their cars and drive away taking who know what contamination where. Additionally, we had a victim (thankfully a mannequin) that was poisoned to death by shoving large amounts of contaminant laden glass into a bleeding chest wound, was frozen to death after being allowed to remain in his car [with no windows since they had been broken by the firemen in their effort to see if he had a pulse] in his shirt sleeves in 10 degree F weather for over an hour, poisoned again as he was dropped off the backboard and into a large puddle of toxic waste, and then castrated as he once again fell off the backboard only to have someone one grab him by the crotch [unclothed since he was being decontaminate at the time] to get him back onto the board [not fatal, but funny and inappropriate in the extreme]). I pointed out several of the most egregious violations from protocol, how they lost control of the event scene, and how they exacerbated the event’s severity whereupon I was removed from the meeting. The next day I was removed from the emergency response team even though it was a HazMat team and I was the only person on the team with a technical background and nationally recognized credentials.
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When you are dealing with governments, never underestimate the egos of those involved nor their ability to make incredibly stupid decisions. In this case, this is only the start as everyone tries to muddy the event in an effort to hide what everyone did wrong. With everyone pointing fingers at everyone else, it will be difficult to determine exactly who was responsible for what. In these situations, the entire department needs a good housecleaning.
First, I hit the down button by mistake. Sorry.
I agree one thousand percent with your take. I have found in my long government career to never ascribe an evil conspiracy to that which is usually the result of incompetence and stupidity.
The Progressive Fascists want as many mass shootings as possible because each is a new opportunity to eviserate the 2nd amendment and thereby disarm society. The proof for this is how insistent they are in maintaining free fire zones at schools.
Let’s imagine “gun free zones” are abolished. Let’s further imagine that this results in a precipitous drop in the number of mass shootings, possibly eliminating them entirely in schools. What would be the fallout from such a turn?
The wind would go out of the sails of the anti-gun movement.
This is why they can’t contemplate any solution to gun violence other than gun control – they fear that alternative ideas may actually prove to be solutions, and, having largely abated the problem, would leave their agenda without the traction it needs to advance. Right now, that traction comes from mass shootings, particularly in schools, and all of the latter take place in gun free zones.
The left says the NRA encourages mass shootings, but it’s the left’s anti-gun agenda that benefits from them. So who is encouraging them, if by no other means that discouraging experimentation with alternatives to gun control? The left is not interested in solutions to “gun violence,” it’s interested in gun control. They don’t care if gun control doesn’t solve the gun violence problem because their goal isn’t the safety, it’s the “control.”
“Jordan was assigned to BSO’s civil division, which serves subpoenas and injunctions.”
To paraphrase Inspector Callahan in The Enforcer: “That’s a high price to pay for being stylish”
What she ordered done at the scene sounds like it would be consistent with how she might handle a residence location at her former job. If you’re trying to serve someone, you want to make sure he or she doesn’t run out the back while you’re knocking at the front, and there’s no reason to go rushing inside because lives are not at stake.
Israel says he deputies were properly trained, and they may have been. But they were given inappropriate orders and mistakenly followed them knowing they were wrong. This is done by cops who are more concerned with their careers than the lives of the citizens they’re supposed to be protecting.
Supposedly she is SWAT qualified, so she has had the training. Though it is possible her only actual SWAT experience is on paper.
Two points
1) Jan Jordan promotion to captain seems to be the equivalent to a affirmative action promotion (promotion of a female vs promotion of most qualified) https://www.sheriff.org/Pages/Profiles/Jan-Jordon.aspx
2) Command should be in the field, not at HQ. It should be standard procedure to immediately transfer command to scene. It is nearly impossible to assess the dynamics on the scene if you are not on the scene.
At 3:02 p.m., the log apparently indicated the 20-minute delay in surveillance that law enforcement was using to track down Cruz. “20 MIN DELAY FROM CAMERA HE EXITED THE BUILDING RUNNING SOUTH,” the log stated.
WTH? What does this mean?
It turns out that the video surveillance feed, at the school, was on a 27 minute delay. So, there was no real-time surveillance of the incident. That is why they could not initially find Cruz’s whereabouts on camera.
The order to establish a perimeter cam after Cruz had stopped shooting, though his whereabouts had not been established. At that time it would be good tactics to begin deploying some type of perimeter while the initial units swept the school, starting with the building where he was initially reported. Tow things need to be done, as simultaneously as possible. The first is for units to sweep the interior of the school and attempt to locate and neutralize the shooter. At the same time, a perimeter should be established in the hopes that an armed shooter can be seen leaving the building. An armed shooter, at large in the community is just as dangerous as one inside the school.
In order to determine whether the order to establish the perimeter was appropriate or not will require more information on the number and location of units.
Is a delay like that normal? What would be the purpose of that? It makes NO sense. Hey! Look! That girl was getting raped 27 minutes ago!
This stinks beyond what my olfactory senses can even begin to comprehend.
It seems MORE likely to me that they are BS’ing us with this 27 minute delay because they had access to the video yet failed to do something specific for 27 minutes.
It’s been reported the delay was to allow the SRO to ‘handle’ crimes committed by certain protected groups, then erase the recordings prior to them being stored. In this case, ‘handle’ means stopping the crime, but with no record, arrest, or citation.
Short answer is no a delay like that is not normal, it also defeats the purpose of having the camera’s in the first place.
I said it the other day when Peterson (the deputy that stayed outside the school), got a lawyer and then said publicly that he thought he had done a good job.
The second he said that, I predicted EXACTLY this – somebody told him to not enter the building.
They tried to quietly make Peterson a scapegoat and act like he was just a coward that didn’t do his job, and the public backlash was too much for him.
I predict within a week Peterson is going to give an interview and publicly throw somebody under the bus – and after his slimy grandstanding and blame-shifting, I feel its highly likely going to be Israel.
Not quite correct. Reliable reports place Peterson at his vehicle directly outside the building in which the shoot was actively shoot. And, he was reportedly there for 3-5 minutes, while the shooting was going on. He should have been inside the school building when the order for the establishment of the perimeter was issued, not behind his car outside.
Accurate timelines are very important in analyzing these events.
I’m glad they set up a perimeter so he couldn’t get away. &$@! they couldn’t even do that right. SMH
If you could have a textbook case of “every single thing they did was wrong”, this would be it. Departments across the country will be using this as an example of what not to do for years.
“Despite it all, Sheriff Israel refuses to resign.”
He can’t resign. He has to stay in control to block the truth as best he can. Look at how bad this is getting with him blocking the door. What happens if the door swings open? Prison?
Do not lose sight of the most important factor in this incident. There was no access control and insufficient security [one deputy] at the school to stop this attack. Even if the Sheriff’s office had done everything right, it is not clear that they could have stopped Cruz from taking a rifle to school, entering and opening fire on the students. After all, Omar mateen made threats to shoot people on several occasions and was even interviewed three times by FBI agents and he still shot over 100 people in the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando.
LE fell down on the job. But, there were many other people who made no attempt to prevent this incident. The Broward County School Board being one.
This is the most important thing that should come out of this whole tragedy, but you know “GUN CONTROL! SCREEEEEEEE!”
Also, I refuse to believe that a veteran law enforcement officer could not tell whether the shots were coming from inside the building or outside. In my experience most people would be able to tell the difference.
Reporters had been looking for confirmation of a stand down order from the beginning. I suspect Sheriffs deputies leaked the stand down order to the media off the record or anonymously. Florida AG Bondi avoided confirming the stand down order when directly asked by the media last week as she continued her investigation into the handling of the school shooting. Can’t wait for the media to confront Sheriff Israel when he parks his Lamborghini police car and he answers for his less than spectacular leadership. Then again as Sheriff Israel says ‘Lions Don’t Care About the Opinions of Sheep’.
Oh goody! Form a perimeter and make sure the SOB does not get out.
A perimeter with 4 men has some gaping holes in it or in this case since they were near shoulder to shoulder in front of the school one giant gaping hole.
this proves he really doesn’t care about the children. Which means “thw children” are not his motivation for attacking the Second Amendment. So what do you think is his true reason.
On a related note, we’re about to see how far everyday Americans have fallen in Frank Herbert’s Dune series, the Devolution of the once formidable Freeman was marked the first time a Fremen sued another Freman, i e he took it to court instead of challenging his rival to a face-to-face encounter that would have included violence.
If America still has its balls, this disgrace of a sheriff won’t survive the month. If he does then Americans are a bunch of pussies he won’t stain their cells with blood to protect Liberty.
Go for it, killer!
But you won’t, of course. You’re all stupid talk. A flacid fantasist sans balls.