Parkland security monitor saw shooter
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A video interview with a campus security monitor at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School provides new details that might prompt another round of what-if questions about the Valentine’s Day shooting that killed 17 people.
The video released by Broward County prosecutors this week was recorded shortly after the shooting. In it, Andrew Medina told detectives that he saw Nikolas Cruz get out of an Uber with a large bag and make “a beeline” toward the freshman building shortly before it became a killing scene.
Medina told detectives that he recognized Cruz, who was wearing a backpack and carrying a duffel bag, as a troubled former student, and he immediately radioed another unarmed security monitor to “keep your eyes open.” That monitor entered the other side of the building, and then hid in a janitor’s closet when shots rang out, Medina said.
Neither monitor was armed with anything but a radio. The Broward school district said Wednesday that Medina and the other monitor have been reassigned from Stoneman Douglas while their actions are reviewed.
After the shooting at the school in Parkland, many politicians including President Donald Trump have said more trained armed personnel should be stationed at schools to protect students.
Medina said Cruz turned to look at him as Medina approached the building on the golf cart.
“I’m telling you, I knew who the kid was,” Medina told detectives. “Because we had a meeting about him last year, and we said, ‘If there’s gonna be anybody who’s gonna come to this school and shoot this school up, it’s gonna be that kid.’”
Medina said he heard 15 loud bangs shortly after the suspect went into the building, and he then drove his golf cart to pick up Scot Peterson, the armed school resource officer.
“You could kind of feel the percussion coming out of that building, the echo Andrew Medina, center, is interviewed by detectives from the Broward County sheriff’s office following the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida. Medina, an unarmed campus monitor, told detectives he watched Nikolas Cruz get out of an Uber and head straight to the building where 17 people would be killed.
coming out of doors of the building,” he told detectives.
Some parents say that Medina should have called in a “Code Red,” which would have triggered a massive law enforcement response and immediate lockdown of the school.
Andrew Pollack, whose daughter Meadow was killed, called The Associated Press to say Medina should be fired.
“All he had to do was say ‘Code Red.’ He was trained to say those words, and he didn’t do it. That’s
the incompetency of the Broward school district,” Pollack said.
Medina, who also coaches baseball at the school, told the detectives he didn’t know that Cruz was carrying guns in the bag, and he added that as he drove the cart toward Peterson, he radioed others on campus about “suspicious noises.”
Medina said he was wary of calling a “Code Red” without certainty about what was going on.
“I wasn’t going to yell a (Code Red) because I didn’t — I didn’t really visualize a gun, and I didn’t really see the shots,” Medina said. “We’ve been doing this training at the school, you know. Don’t yell it unless you get a really good visual.”
He said he and Peterson then heard more shots as they approached the freshman building, and the deputy told the unarmed Medina to “get out of here.”
Medina said he then drove to the front of the school. Surveillance video showed Peterson taking up a position outside the building, which he never entered.
Vilified by the Broward County sheriff, Peterson resigned and retired. He was branded a coward and remained silent, until a recent interview for NBC’s “Today Show.” Peterson said he didn’t know where the shots were coming from and thought it might have been a sniper shooting out from the building.
Part of Medina’s job as a monitor at the school with more than 3,200 students was to unlock gates before each school day ends. That’s what he was doing when he saw Cruz emerge from the Uber.