The hits keep coming at the Broward Sheriff office after the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL. The Miami Herald has reported that paramedics begged the office to enter the school to save the wounded, but the captain at the scene said no:
Michael McNally, deputy chief for Coral Springs fire-rescue, asked six times for permission to send in specialized teams of police officers and paramedics, according to an incident report he filed after the Feb. 14 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting that left 17 people dead.But every time McNally asked to deploy the two Rescue Task Force [RTF] teams — each made up of three paramedics and three to four law enforcement officers — the Broward Sheriff’s Office captain in charge of the scene, Jan Jordan, said no.”The [BSO] incident commander advised me, ‘She would have to check,’ ” McNally wrote in the report released Thursday by Coral Springs. “After several minutes, I requested once again the need to deploy RTF elements into the scene to … initiate treatment as soon as possible. Once again, the incident commander expressed that she ‘would have to check before approving this request.’ “
Thing is, even after the officers arrested the gunman, the sheriff’s office kept telling the paramedics they couldn’t enter the building.
The Miami Herald pointed out that gunshot victims can bleed out fast, which means they need prompt medical attention. These special RTF teams have permission “to treat victims under the protection of police officers in situations where a shooter has been pinned down or fled but has not necessarily been captured.” SWAT medics went into the school instead of the RTF teams.
The commanders used school security footage to monitor the situation, but the video was on a 20 MINUTE DELAY. No one knew that at the time. The shooter fled the scene “roughly six minutes after opening fire at 2:21 PM.”
The Miami Herald continued:
In his report, McNally, who had been ordered to act as a liaison between Coral Springs fire command and BSO, also claimed BSO’s command post was severely dysfunctional. Communication was difficult, McNally said, because he often could not locate Jordan, BSO’s district commander for Parkland.”The command post was inundated with too many people and made it impossible to establish and function,” McNally wrote, echoing criticisms of the disorganization and lack of a unified command structure that plagued BSO’s response to a deadly shooting at the Fort-Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport last year.At least three additional fire-rescue incident reports released Thursday by Coral Springs confirmed that BSO had denied requests to send in the rescue teams. Coral Springs provides fire service in the city of Parkland. BSO provides law enforcement.
McNally admitted that Jordan did not know for sure if the RTF teams would have been any help inside, but he also pointed out that she “couldn’t have realized that when she repeatedly denied his requests.”
Officials arrested the shooter at 3:40 PM. McNally stated that Jordan still denied permission for his team to enter the school.
As I said, this is only the latest criticism of the Broward Sheriff Office. They had four deputies on campus while the shooter still fired his gun and Jordan only told her ream “to form a perimeter around the school.” They also denied medical air rescue.
For our coverage on the Parkland School Shooting and Broward County, see here.
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