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Report: Parkland School Admin Ignored Warnings Of Vulnerability To School Shooting

Report: Parkland School Admin Ignored Warnings Of Vulnerability To School Shooting

Two security monitors banned from school for failures reported in media

https://youtu.be/boDkEOq-QEk

We’ve been covering the Parkland shooting here at LI, and it doesn’t look good for either the school itself or the Broward Country Sheriff’s office.

Adding to the controversy, a retired Secret Service agent has come forward to report that he told Stoneman Douglas High School administrators that the school was vulnerable to a school shooting.

This was two months prior to the Parkland shooting, and the school admin did next to nothing.

The Sun-Sentinel reports:

Two months before the massacre at Stoneman Douglas High School, a retired Secret Service agent warned administrators that the school could be vulnerable to a gunman.

Gates were unlocked. Students did not wear identification badges. A fire alarm could send students streaming into the halls. Active-shooter drills were inadequate, he said.

The retired agent, Steve Wexler, said he made his point by strolling through the school with Post-it notes, attaching them to places his bullets or knife would land if he were an intruder. No one stopped him, he said.

In an interview with the South Florida Sun Sentinel, Wexler said he was invited to analyze the school’s security and presented his recommendations to four staff members.

“I said, ‘This stuff is blatantly obvious. You’ve got to fix this,’” Wexler said.

Demonstrating the school’s vulnerability to a shooter, Wexler strolled around Stoneham affixing Post-its to faculty and staff to indicate the ease with which they would become victims.

The Sun-Sentinel continues:

. . . .  Wexler said he sat down with Reed, the assistant principal; Porter; School Security Specialist Kelvin Greenleaf; and Sandra Davis, the social studies teacher who had made the call inviting him on campus.

For the next hour and a half, he said, he laid out what he perceived to be security recommendations and pointing out weaknesses, his notes scribbled on yellow sheets of a legal pad.

. . . .  Wexler said he is aggravated that administrators ignored or minimized most of his recommendations. “Where on the food chain did that information die?” he asked.

He said he knows of only one suggestion that was implemented before the shooting — campus security staff began to patrol the front parking lot.

Greenleaf and Davis could not be reached for comment about the meeting in December. Reed and Porter said they would not comment.

Watch the report:

This news comes just days after the revelation that two Parkland security monitors have been banned from the campus. One warned of Cruz’s presence on campus and then drove away when the shooting started and another hid in a janitor’s closet.

K5 News reports:

A Marjory Stoneman Douglas coach who saw Nikolas Cruz step onto campus before the Valentine’s Day shooting and another coach who hid in a closet that day have been barred from the Parkland, Fla., school. The men served as unarmed security monitors for the school.

Andrew Medina, a baseball coach, saw Cruz arrive on campus Feb. 14 wearing a backpack and carrying a duffel bag, South Florida Sun Sentinel reported last week. He told detectives he watched Cruz head to the building where 17 people would be killed moments later at the school.

“I’m telling you I knew who the kid was,” Medina told investigators. “Because we had a meeting about him last year and we said, ‘If there’s gonna be anybody who’s gonna come to this school and shoot this school up, it’s gonna be that kid.’”

Medina radioed another coach and security monitor, David Taylor, about Cruz, saying “keep your eyes open.” When Taylor heard gunfire, he hid in a janitor’s closet.

Nadine Drew, spokesperson for Broward County Public Schools, told USA TODAY that Medina and Taylor “have received administrative reassignments away from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School until further notice,” because of “information that has recently appeared in the media.”

Watch the report:

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Comments

Failing to plan is much like planning to fail.

But we gotta ban those AR’s. That way, we can continue with our incompetence till the next time around. Makes me sick to my stomach. Good on the news media for digging this up. ‘Bout time.

    JohnC in reply to Marcus. | June 10, 2018 at 10:52 pm

    From day one many people in the Parkland school system and local government have had a vested interest in making certain everyone screams for the NRA’s blood and not theirs.

Perhaps we’ve got to import a bunch of immigrants to die for American students who refuse to die for themselves

Parkland was essentially a big leadership failure, yet the “leaders” still have their jobs.

    rdmdawg in reply to Exiliado. | June 11, 2018 at 11:21 am

    “failure”

    I hate getting all conspiratorial, but wth? It was almost as if they *wanted* a shooting to happen, and everything that led up to it was *exactly* the wrong thing to do to prevent a shooting.

    Creating the circumstances for yet-another active shooter? Check.
    Ignoring the many warning signs before it happened? Check.
    Having an anti-NRA campaign all set up and ready to go? Check.

    Hell, the security cams were set to a 20-minute delay, what on earth good could come from that?

We knew he was bad news. Here to kill the students. It was our job to stop him, so we hid in a closet. Blame the NRA.

So if the shooter had been wearing his ID badge, then what?

Some of this is security theater. The shooter’s documented run-ins with law enforcement and school personnel are the big problems; no one wanted to make the decision to remove him from the school.

    rdmdawg in reply to hrhdhd. | June 11, 2018 at 11:25 am

    Agreed, if this retired secret service agent never recommended arming the security monitors, just about everything he did and said was moot.

    Also, I can’t quite blame the monitors for escaping the situation, it would’ve been suicidal to confront an active shooter while unarmed. You can say “It’s their jobs to!” all you want, and be smug believing you would have done something different, but we all know that’s a lie.

    CKYoung in reply to hrhdhd. | June 11, 2018 at 8:40 pm

    I believe the intent of the badges is identification at the entrances for proper admission into the school. Also post incident identification of actual students vs. unauthorized suspects. I agree this is security eye candy, and not a true security measure. If badges ARE implemented, I believe some sort of electronic feature is necessary such as RFID/CAC technology. Limiting entry points suggests making certain exits into one way features. Having diverse egress will always be necessary, but without other security features this is problematic as well. A perpetrator simply needs an unarmed cohort on the inside to pull the emergency alarm and either gain entrance as fleeng students open it, or take out fleeing students once they are clear of the exit. I believe a combination of metal detectors, facial recognition, Shot Spotter(TM) technology, and armed/armored security can be a huge deterrent or lead to much better outcomes. I’m sure there are other measures I’m missing, but obviously doing nothing isn’t a solution.

    notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital in reply to notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital. | June 10, 2018 at 9:31 pm

    THE BUZZ
    Adam Putnam’s office stopped reviewing concealed weapons background checks for a year because it couldn’t log in

    FL

      And this impacted the Stoneman-Douglas shooting how? Not saying it was a good thing to issue concealed carry licenses without one of the checks, but it had no bearing whatsoever on Cruz (not old enough for a concealed carry license, was not one of the reported less than 400 people given a license without the NICS check).

      But as an off-topic comment, at least it involved FL government and firearms.

      It’s unclear as to whether the concealed weapons permits were still being issued, or whether they just weren’t responding. Is the permit deemed valid unless the State actively objects? Or must the permits be formally issued?

      In the first case, it is certainly negligent for not objecting when the State should have. In the second case, it would be outright fraud to have issued permits without examining the applicants. Which one is it?

      As your article notes, there were two other background checks still being performed. Also, the missing check (NICS) would still be performed if the person went to buy a gun.

      So… troubling, should not have happened, and something to learn from, but not as end-of-the-world as some people would have you believe.

Worse, they ignored warnings and evidence of anthropogenic climate change that would force a reality break in one of their students.

rabid wombat | June 10, 2018 at 9:53 pm

Foreseeable?

If so, actionable. The whole thing was flawed from the beginning. Progressivism killing through “good intentions”

    murkyv in reply to rabid wombat. | June 10, 2018 at 11:08 pm

    Sounds like the Broward county taxpayers got precisely the liberal government they voted for.

    Now, they will get to pay for it when the hundreds of millions in lawsuits are filed.

inspectorudy | June 10, 2018 at 10:24 pm

Reading these articles about the failure of one or three different people at different levels of security is like that the survivors of the Titanic worrying about a leak in the lifeboat. Every level of administration, law enforcement, teachers, students, parents and finally the killer himself. EVERYONE failed! But the solution is to blame an inanimate object. This is a microcosm of our government. It is failing at every level and the politicians are all focused on an external source but they are the problem. Overspending is the culprit but they will blame everyone else but themselves.

    I like the way you think.

    oldgoat36 in reply to inspectorudy. | June 11, 2018 at 8:10 am

    Many times our nature is to deflect blame from our own actions, or inactions, but reality should cause us to look at the results of things which we had a part in creating, both good and bad. Politicians do not do this, they deflect because admission to having done something poorly means reelection is tougher.

    When things go horribly wrong, the easiest thing to do is blame something that also has the interests of a political group to ban or regulate. This makes those in charge of this murderous rampage less guilty than the object, with the side benefit of having some drum to beat for further political goals.

    Sickening. I honestly don’t understand how the politicians can sleep at night, they have to know at some fundamental level that they are causing harm to our society, but power is more important than improving society, and its less work to blame the guns than it is to look at the causes of these breakdowns.

We’ve decided this summer we are going to have the “conversation” with the Principal at our daughter’s school.

Give these guys a break. They were UNARMED SECURITY MONITORS. The one ARMED guard refused to engage the shooter.

    MarkS in reply to dunce1239. | June 11, 2018 at 7:53 am

    If someone thought it necessary to arm only one security monitor, then why not arm them all?

      hrhdhd in reply to MarkS. | June 11, 2018 at 8:26 am

      The armed one was a sworn law enforcement officer. It appears the others were coaches/teachers, who aren’t allowed to have weapons on campus. In FL, no weapons are allowed on campuses unless carried by worn law enforcement officers.

        TX-rifraph in reply to hrhdhd. | June 11, 2018 at 9:14 am

        If that is Florida law, then publish the name of the sponsor of that bill if you can. These legislators and their supporters need to be held accountable for the environment they create.

        Mac45 in reply to hrhdhd. | June 11, 2018 at 9:17 pm

        Actually, 790.115(2)(a) does not limit the carry of firearms on a school campus only to law enforcement officers. It allows a person to carry a firearm on school grounds IF the weapon is authorized [to be carried] in support of school-sanctioned activities. So, it is possible, under the statute for the school system to authorize a person to carry a firearm as part of a security function. In fact, in 2014, AG Pam Bondi issued an advisory legal opinion which supported that position [ http://www.myfloridalegal.com/ago.nsf/Opinions/7FFE00456E3E7ACD85257D9700777752 ]. It is the school system which chooses NOT to have armed employees. And, it is all about liability issues. A sworn LEO assigned to a school by his department is indemnified by the LE, not the school system.

It always seems to be the same pattern. Some heinous crime is committed and the Left immediately comes out attacking guns, gun owners, the NRA, and so forth. This receives all sorts of attention and many act as though it is a situation where whoever is the most inflammatory, the most hateful, the most angry, is the one who wins.
>
Then, as more and more information comes out, it become abundantly clear that it was those involved with local law enforcement, those involved with the security of the location, and so forth, who were the ones who messed up and set the stage to allow the crime to happen. Of course most never hear about the follow up investigations that shows the failures of these people and organizations so they only remember the initial hate fest towards guns, the NRA, and gun owners. As a result, failure gets rewarded and nothing ever seems to get fixed.

    ss396 in reply to Cleetus. | June 11, 2018 at 9:26 am

    Heard anything recently about the Las Vegas shooting? The press sure clamped a lid on that one, and right quickly too. Biggest mass killing, and not a peep after the first week or so; that is, after it came out that maybe that security guy was up there at the start of the killing instead of at the end. BAM!! The press goes silent and the story goes dark.

blah deblah | June 11, 2018 at 6:54 am

All the evidence suggests those in authority wanted the attack to happen.

    oldgoat36 in reply to blah deblah. | June 11, 2018 at 8:22 am

    This is a fear I have, that while I don’t go deep six on conspiracy for these shootings, I wouldn’t put it past our politicians to make things easier to happen so they can attain their agenda.

    I believe the left wants to rid the country of guns as it makes change of our government far easier. The optics of gun owners making a stand and being taken out by forces of our government is a hard sell. Using and exploiting events like this to push their goals is far easier, and it’s difficult to go against a student (like Hogg) without it blowing up in your face.

Paul Bahlin | June 11, 2018 at 8:40 am

Nothing happens with politicians absent an identifiable constituency for action. So if you have a multifaceted solution to some Gordian knot it’s a none starter. There are no votes for locked gates, armed security, student badges. NRA, scary guns, meaningless background checks, etc., come out of the gate with easy pluralities.

Paul Bahlin | June 11, 2018 at 8:49 am

I taught in middle school for a bit. I’ll never forget the time we had a fire in a freight elevator shaft. Really just a smoking electrical panel.

It was 10 below zero with a howling wind. The entire school emptied onto the grounds. To keep the kids warm each class huddled, like penguins. We huddled and jumped in place for over 30 minutes with no coats. Nobody had the stones to go against policy and make the decision that they were safer inside than out.

With every school shooting I’m reminded how dumb this was and what great targets we made. Brain dead policies eradicate independent, sensible, action

    TX-rifraph in reply to Paul Bahlin. | June 11, 2018 at 10:17 am

    “Nobody had the stones to go against policy and make the decision that they were safer inside than out.”

    You may find Stanley Milgram’s research interesting if you are not already familiar with it.

    It is scary how many people accept “authority” when it does not make sense (see Milgram). How many stayed outside at Parkland because that moron who was “in charge” told them to stay out?

    I am not criticizing you. I am trying to build on what you described. I lived up north and I could feel the cold you are talking about as I read. If you had acting logically, you would have been punished — I guess as a counter-revolutionary.

      CKYoung in reply to TX-rifraph. | June 11, 2018 at 9:36 pm

      Those follow on deputies knew active shooter protocols, but deputy peterson effectively paralyzed them with his radio traffic and verbal commands. The paramedics wanted to enter but were also paralyzed by peterson. The Coral Springs officers weren’t contaminated by these initial commands, therefore weren’t subject to the groupthink gripping broward county deputies.

A couple of things here.

First is securing the school facility. Do not think for a single second that the School system and the School Board did not make a conscious decision NOT to harden schools in Broward County. The School Board system has done more than one study on school security, following school shootings, over the years. The school system KNEW the vulnerabilities of these schools. They made a conscious decision NOT to spend the money necessary to secure the school. It is largely a combination of the fact that statistically school shooting incidents are extremely low and a “it won’t happen here” delusional mentality. Of course, when it does happen here, well then everyone is in CYA mode.

Second, the security monitors are just that, security monitors. They are unarmed teachers whose job it is to notify the office of any security concern. When the monitor who spotted Cruz called the other monitor on his radio, this should have been picked up by the office and the School Resource Officer [Dep. Peterson] who also have radios. Not confronting or attempting to stop Cruz might not be heroic, but taking action was not part of the monitors’ job.

Well, I guess that schools are in summer recess, at the moment. I wonder if we will see any meaningful security enhancements in the fall.

Hey, where’s Hogg in all this?
cuttin’ class as usual.