Officer honored

Coral Springs policeman lauded for preventing attack at school.

Officer Jeff Heinrich recalls scouring the crowd of students at Coral Springs High, racing to find the teen with the gun.

It couldn’t have been busier on campus that Monday in October. About 1,500 students were eating lunch in and around the cafeteria.

Then came a big break: A school administrator spotted a former student who was trespassing. Heinrich patted down the teen and took away the loaded 9 mm handgun.

For preventing a tragedy, Heinrich was named Officer of the Year on Wednesday. Heinrich on Oct. 10 stopped the teen from giving the gun to another youth, who planned to do harm, police said.

“Coral Springs High was minutes, maybe seconds away, from becoming another Columbine,” said Deputy Chief Clyde Parry, referring to the 1999 high school massacre in Colorado, where 13 died and 24 more were wounded.

Parry said Heinrich “prevented that from occurring. Jeff was a hero that day and saved countless lives.”

Heinrich, 46, speaking publicly for the first time about his efforts that day, is matter-offact about his accomplishment. “We do our best,” he said.

“It worked out great for us,” he said. “It’s part of our job. … Were we lucky? Absolutely.”

Heinrich is a 20-year veter-

an who has worked for four years as the school resource officer at Coral Springs High School. It’s also the school he graduated from. “I love the school,” he said.

According to police, the events on Oct. 10 unfolded like this: Heinrich got a tip from students that there was an armed student on campus talking with another male student.

He had a description of two students — one armed with a gun — and Heinrich was looking for them both. He checked the patio area first, scanning the crowds quickly, and a school administrator spotted the former student, Ryan Trollinger, then 17.

That stopped Heinrich in his tracks. He knew that Trollinger, who was chatting with kids at a lunch table, wasn’t supposed to be there. “I’ve known him from the past,” Heinrich said.

When Trollinger saw Heinrich he began “absolutely trembling — beyond the ordinary nervous.”

Heinrich stopped him and found the handgun with a full magazine. Trollinger was going to pass off the gun to a second teenager who Heinrich also found, police said. That teen was planning on “committing a massive school shooting,” Parry said.

Heinrich pulled the other teen out of a secondfloor classroom. Police said they found a “Terror Day” journal that he had written; the manifesto detailing his plans was in his pocket.

On April 26, Trollinger was sentenced as a juvenile to 15 days in detention for having a weapon, “which is equivalent to adult lock-up — very jaillike,” said Broward Chief Assistant Public Defender Gordon Weekes.

Trollinger also was required to attend an in-patient therapy program as part of his probation, his driver’s license is suspended for a year, he has to perform 200 hours of community service, he’ll have a curfew when he gets out, and he is ordered to have no contact with anybody involved, including the witnesses.

The other teen was sent for psychiatric evaluation and was not charged with a crime.

Weekes said although prosecutors sought a stronger sentence for Trollinger, he said it was fair because it “balanced the needs of the child and addressed underlying issues. That’s what we should be striving for — addressing the behavior so it doesn’t reoccur.”

The three students credited for reporting that someone brought a gun on campus received a standing ovation from city commissioners at a meeting in November.

Police credit Jose “Daniel” Salazar, who saw the gun, as well as his friends Sinclaire Caprio and Alejandra Palma because all three reported it. Two of the students said they initially thought about leaving the school out of fear, but instead went back inside to help.

Heinrich