Sheriff defends Parkland response
Fields questions about Feb. 14 school shooting before state commission
Broward Sheriff Scott Israel defended his agency Thursday against critics who called its response to the Parkland school shooting timid, chaotic and directed by overwhelmed officers who failed to take effective command.
Israel stood before the state commission investigating the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and blamed bad communications and a possible lack of courage by some deputies for a performance that many observers found lackluster, particularly compared with the more aggressive performance by the Coral Springs Police Department. And he vowed to discipline any deputies found to have failed to do their duty.
He was asked about his agency’s written policy on active shooters, which says that deputies “may” rather than “shall” go in after the shooter. Some commis-
sioners said this gave license to former school Deputy Scot Peterson, who took cover until well after the shooter was gone, to avoid confronting him, as he engaged in the attack that left 17 dead and 17 wounded.
“I’ve been involved in writing policy probably 35 years, and we agree that Scot Peterson’s response was egregious, outrageous, unacceptable,” said Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, a member of the commission. “But words matter, and according to your policy, he didn’t have to go in.”
Israel said he personally had the word “may” inserted.
“I want an effective tactical response, not a suicide response,” he said. “The goal of any agency’s response is to save lives. ‘May’ allows a deputy discretion. It allows him or her to think on their feet.”
Israel attempted a defense of his deputies who hung back, saying they simply didn’t know an active shooter was on campus.
“At this point, based on what I know, I don’t have any reason to believe that any member of our agency knew there was an active shooter,” he said.
But Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, the commission chairman, pointed out that Peterson had announced shots were fired and several deputies reported that they heard gunshots.
Gualtieri brought up the performance of sheriff’s Sgt. Brian Miller, who was the highest ranking officer there early, who “was in command and should have been in control.”
“He sat up on Holmberg Road for 10 minutes,” Gualtieri said. “He heard gunshots and he didn’t move. He never got on the radio. He was the first supervisor on the scene, and he never moved, even after deputies and officers were going into that building. That man never moved, until he moseyed on down to the Sawgrass to the command post. And that man was the first sergeant on the scene. There was no radio issues, no communications issues. He didn’t act.”
After the meeting, however, he said that in fairness to Israel, the commission knew more about the details than the sheriff did because he had not seen the results of the commission’s investigation.
Israel said he would look at the results of the commission’s investigation, when its report was ready, and take any necessary disciplinary action.
“If we find out that one or more deputies chose a path of inaction, they will be disciplined,” he said. “And they will be disciplined swiftly, as I did with Peterson and with others.”
Okaloosa County Sheriff Larry Ashley, a member of the commission, brought up the performance of the initial supervisors, including Capt. Jan Jordan, who had been described by other law enforcement officers at the scene as disengaged and in over her head.
“Nobody seemed to take control of the scene,” he said.
Israel blamed bad communications, which all parties acknowledged were terrible, with the sheriff’s office operating a radio system that became overwhelmed and sometimes ceased to function that day.
“You can be in command, but that doesn’t mean you’re in control,” Israel said. “I spoke to Capt Jordan that night. She was extremely frustrated. She referred to her radio as a brick. You can be in command, but you can’t control the men and women you work with if you can’t communicate with them.”
During the investigation, it emerged that sheriff’s deputies could remember little of their active-shooter training, particularly compared with their counterparts from Coral Springs.
“It’s not a budgetary issue,” Israel said. “We train 1,500 deputies. We put them through active-killer training every three years. You can’t train courage and you can’t train performance.”