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.
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.
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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