Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Administrators dispute MSD report
Lawyer claims three assistant principals were scapegoats, portrayed as incompetent in Parkland shooting
A report examining the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High has unfairly allowed three assistant principals to be portrayed as incompetent cowards, their lawyer says.
Jeff Morford, Denise Reed and Winfred Porter were reassigned from their assistant principal jobs in November as the result of a scathing report from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Public Safety Commission that criticized their actions before and during the shooting that killed 17 people.
The three administrators are now working at district offices. Principal Ty Thompson, who was not at school at the time of the shooting, was also criticized for being uninformed about student threats, but he has kept his position at the Parkland school.
A letter from lawyer Christopher Whitelock says the administrators cooperated with an investigation the commission conducted but believed the intent was to achieve a “new perspective on student safety.”
Instead, they became victims of politics and retribution, Whitelock, representing the Broward Principals and Assistants Association, wrote in the Feb. 12 letter to Commission Chairman Bob Gualtieri. The commission’s report contains “omissions and misinformation” that has allowed Superintendent Robert Runcie to scapegoat them for his administration’s failures, the letter contends.
“As a result of their participation and this process, District Superintendent Runcie has now elected to discipline these administrators under the pretext that they were somehow directly responsible for the murders and injuries on February 14, 2018. This is both false and unfair,” Whitelock wrote.
Last month, the school district retained the law firm Cole, Scott, Kissane for $200 an hour to investigate the three administrators’ actions related to the massacre. The investigation is expected to be concluded in April, district
spokeswoman Cathleen Brennan said Friday. School district officials declined to comment, citing pending litigation from the administrators.
Gualtieri said Friday he hadn’t had a chance to fully review the letter.
“I’ve glanced at it, haven’t digested it,” said Gualtieri, who is also the Pinellas County sheriff. “Clearly there needs to be a very thorough investigation. I’ve said it before — I have concerns about Morford, in particular, and others. But that needs to be thoroughly investigated by the district.”
A student told commission investigators that he and another student went to Morford to report killer Nikolas Cruz’s odd behavior, including researching guns on a school computer and remarking that he liked to “see people in pain.” According to the student, Morford told him he should Google the word “autism” and promised that he wouldn’t have to worry about Cruz because he was being withdrawn from the school. Morford disputed the student’s account.
Cruz was kicked out of Stoneman Douglas in February 2017, and Morford refused to let him back, according to an email Whitelock cited in his note. That was despite a district culture of leniency that made it hard to keep out problematic students, Whitelock wrote.
The Dec. 4, 2017, request to readmit Cruz came from James Snead, who took in Cruz after his mother died in November 2017. Snead was also working at the time as a school district consultant on the $800 million bond program to renovate schools.
“Is it possible for him to return to MSD? If so, what will he need? I understand he is 19 and an adult. I am just trying to see if it is possible. Nikolas is prepared to do what is necessary to return to MSD,” Snead wrote from a district email account. His email signature listed him as a lead cost estimator for Atkins, a company that oversees cost controls for the district’s bond program.
Morford responded, “I am sorry but Nikolas will have to continue his schooling at an adult school if he wants to finish his high school diploma.”
Whitelock asked why Snead’s connection to the district wasn’t revealed to the commission, saying that Snead also was aware of Cruz’s affinity for guns.
“If the district had revealed this evidence, it would have revealed ... to this commission that the very person who rejected this inexcusable return request in December of 2017 was Mr. Morford, the very person Mr. Runcie is falsely blaming for these murders and for an alleged lack of accountability,” Whitelock wrote.
Jim Lewis, a lawyer for Snead, said his client had no questionable motives when he sent the email.
“Mr. Snead was trying to do the right thing and get him back in school. It was the obvious place because it was close to home,” Lewis said. “For whatever reason, [Morford] didn’t let him back in the school so [Snead] made arrangements to send him to an alternative school.”
Snead left the district in August 2018, according to his LinkedIn page, and became director of operations for a Deerfield Beach-based company. He no longer lives in the area, Lewis said. Snead couldn’t be reached for comment.
The letter to the commission also defends Porter and Reed, saying both called for “Code Red,” or an emergency lockdown, despite the commission’s report that said that only a security monitor called a Code Red minutes after the shooting started. Reed ran toward the 1200 building, the site of the shooting, and helped protect students by directing them to the band room, Whitelock wrote.
Porter created a safety plan for the school, despite having no training from the district on how to do that, the lawyer wrote. He also brought in a former Secret Service agent to provide active shooter training weeks before the tragedy, the letter says.
“The administrators like Mr. Porter who love MSD were simply doing the best they could (and more) with the limited tools, resources and leadership provided on safety,” Whitelock wrote.
The same three administrators filed suit against Runcie in late November, citing similar concerns. The suit claims Runcie took “illegal and politically motivated disciplinary actions” when he removed them from the school Monday and placed them under internal investigation.