Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
$1M tab to guard scene of shooting
3 deputies on site paid for round-the-clock shifts at Stoneman’s 1200 building
The biggest piece of evidence in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High massacre — the three-story building where most of the victims were killed — will cost taxpayers more than a million dollars a year to preserve while the shooter’s case goes to trial.
Broward Sheriff Scott Israel has assigned shifts of three deputies — mostly earning overtime — to round-the-clock duty guarding the 1200 building at the Parkland school, Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Veda ColemanWright said.
Two deputies are assigned to the building at any time and a third roams the campus, providing relief as needed for the two others, she said. The deputies are on 12-hour shifts and are in addition to the campus’ school resource officers.
The Sheriff’s Office said it did not have information on the cost of the details. However, assuming the average base deputy salary for 2017, the price would come to about $1.3 million a year. The money would come from the sheriff’s taxpayer-supported budget.
The average deputy earns $69,472, excluding overtime, or $33.40 an hour. That jumps to $50.10 an hour when it’s for overtime. At that rate, the three-deputy detail cost is $3,607 a day, or $25,250 a week.
State Attorney Michael Satz requested
that Israel preserve the scene of the Feb. 14 carnage in case it is needed at gunman Nikolas Cruz’s trial. It’s uncertain how long the security will be needed, but it could be years.
The Stoneman Douglas shootings, which killed 17 and wounded 17 others, are different from most of the nation’s mass shootings — such as at Columbine High, Sandy Hook Elementary and Orlando’s Pulse nightclub — in that the assailant survived and is expected to go to trial. The alleged shooter in the May 18 massacre at Santa Fe High School in Texas where 10 students and faculty were killed was also taken into custody.
The most recent similar situation to go to trial, the 2012 Aurora movie theater shootings where 12 people were killed and more than 70 wounded, took three years before a jury returned a guilty verdict against gunman James Holmes. He was sentenced to life in prison.
The Century 16 theater building where the shootings took place was not closed to preserve it as evidence at trial and was refurbished and reopened to the public six months after the tragedy.
Constance Simmons, a spokeswoman for Satz, said prosecutors want to be able to use the Stoneman Douglas building at trial.
“Mr. Satz said it’s imperative for the jury to be able to walk through and see what was done,” Simmons said. “The goal is for the jury to go through and see what steps Cruz took.”
The school district’s plans to tear down the building will have to wait.
Simmons can’t say if the three years it took in Aurora from massacre to verdict is a good estimate for the time that security will be needed at the Stoneman Douglas building, or if the trial could drag on longer. She said if Cruz is found guilty, the building probably would not be needed for the sentencing phase. It’s currently a deathpenalty case.
Simmons said the state attorney requested the building be secured but left it to the sheriff to determine how.
“We don’t tell them how to secure a building, We don’t tell them how many officers,” Simmons said. “That’s not within our jurisdiction.”
Broward Commissioner Michael Udine said the county and sheriff’s office should come together to request the state pick up the cost of guarding the building.
“It’s a state piece of evidence. The state should pay for that,” Udine said.
Simmons said it is a Sheriff ’s Office responsibility.
While it is common to have a building crime scene secured for a week or two, this is the first time prosecutors can recall asking for something that could take months or years.
“It’s really hard to compare this to anything that’s happened in Broward County before,” Simmons said.