Parkland shooting panel: Arm teachers
Commission criticizes response of school, police in school shooting
The report says the Broward County school system and sheriff ’s office were unprepared for the attack.
A Florida investigative panel charged with studying the rampage that left 17 people dead at a Parkland high school last year recommended arming teachers, reigniting debate over the controversial strategy that has drawn vigorous support from President Donald Trump.
The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission criticized the response of school staff and the Broward County Sheriff ’s Office to the carnage Feb. 14.
The commission’s 15 members issued a unanimously approved, 439-page preliminary report Wednesday aimed at preventing similar attacks and improving the response should they occur. The report and its recommendations were sent to the governor’s office and Legislature for consideration.
“All stakeholders ... should embrace the opportunity to change and make Florida schools the safest in the nation,” the report says. “There must be a sense of urgency – and there is not, acrossthe-board – in enhancing school safety.”
Florida law allows districts to train and arm administrators and other staff. Teachers must have a military or police background to carry a firearm. The committee argued that teachers are often the first line of defense in school shootings and encouraged legislation to arm more of them.
The report recommends that the Legislature approve a bill that would allow teachers “properly selected, thoroughly screened and extensively trained to carry concealed firearms on campuses for self-protection, and the protection of other staff and students in response to an active assailant incident.”
In the days after the shooting, Trump suggested 20 percent of teachers should have the ability to “immediately fire back if a savage sicko came to a school with bad intentions.” Highly trained teachers would serve as a “deterrent to the cowards that do this,” he said. “Far more assets at much less cost than guards.”
The state teachers union does not support arming teachers, and some law enforcement leaders balked at the proposal. Former New York City Police Commissioner Bill Bratton called arming teachers “the height of lunacy.”
Richard Myers, executive director of the Major Cities Chiefs Association, said few police chiefs back such proposals.
The report says the Broward County school system and sheriff ’s office were unprepared for the attack by Nikolas Cruz, who had been expelled from the school. Sheriff ’s Deputy Scot Peterson, the school resource officer, was among deputies criticized for failing to immediately confront Cruz. Sheriff Scott Israel was blamed for not requiring his force to confront active shooters.
Israel told the commission he had eliminated the policy requiring deputies to confront active shooters because he didn’t want deputies charging into “suicide missions.”
Cruz, then 19, entered the building armed with a semiautomatic assault weapon, smoke grenades and a mask, authorities said. He allegedly fired more than 100 shots before the gun apparently jammed, and he walked out of the building amid the chaos.
Cruz was taken into custody walking through a nearby neighborhood a short time after the shooting. A grand jury indicted him on 17 counts of firstdegree murder that could result in the death penalty. He is also charged with 17 counts of attempted murder.