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School Shooting Tag

Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg has spent the last month and a half criticizing 2nd Amendment supporters in the most grotesque terms. His latest tirade accused those who disagree with him as "sick f**kers":
"I’m beyond exhausted," Hogg said. "I get to a certain point where I just get so tired that I keep going. It creates a positive feedback loop in some ways — the more stress and work I put on me, the more stress and work I can deal with."

During the slaughter at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, several of the Army Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps cadets acted heroically to save the lives of their classmates.

What in the world is going on at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School? Tuesday, two students were arrested for bringing weapons to school (one brought a knife, the other brought a razor), a third was arrested for making threats on Snapchat, and a Broward County deputy assigned to patrol the high school was busted sleeping in his patrol car when the brother of the Parkland shooter was trespassing on school property. The officer was suspended with pay.

Last month, Kemberlee asked, What in the world is going on with the Broward County Sheriff’s Department?, and this week we learn that Broward Country school officials and at least one sheriff's deputy recommended in September 2016 that the Stoneman Douglas High School shooter be involuntarily committed. In an almost unbelievable twist, the sheriff's deputy who recommended Nikolas Cruz be committed for psychological evaluation under the Baker Act is none other than school safety officer Scot Peterson.  That's right, the same Scot Peterson who was forced to resign after reports surfaced that he hid outside the school while Cruz carried out his bloody rampage unhindered.

The more we learn about the law enforcement response, or lack thereof, to the Parkland school shooting, the worse the situation gets. Scot Peterson, the armed school deputy who stayed outside while 17 people were murdered claimed he heard shots outside of the school, which would explain his failure to engage the shooter. Peterson resigned after being placed on unpaid suspension for his failure to act.

The latest Florida school shooting is not just tragic, but as one reader pointed out, atrocious. Atrocious because every law enforcement agency involved ignored eleventy billion (approximately) red flags. As more information becomes available, it's looking more and more like there are some serious problems within the Broward County Sherrif's department. We've chronicled several of those here, here, and here.

The subject of school safety has become a hot topic after Nikolas Cruz murdered 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL. Arguments in favor of strict gun control are based on the claim, among other things, that there is an epidemic of school shootings that have increased in the past several decades. Northeastern University released a study Monday, however, that calls that assumption into question. The study that found schools are still the safest spot for children. The study also found that school shootings aren't as actually common as portrayed in the media and are not as common as decades ago.