District on defense in probe of Fla. school shoot
The Broward County, Fla., school district’s repeated, emphatic — and it turns out, false — statements that Nikolas Cruz had not been in a controversial disciplinary program fit a pattern of an institution on the defense and under siege.
Facing significant legal and political exposure over the Feb. 14 shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the district has tried to keep information from the public and put out untrue and misleading statements, frustrating parents who say this is the time for maximum transparency.
The district is fighting in court against the release of school surveillance video. It flatly refused to provide any records regarding the shooting to the news media, in a possible violation of the state’s open-records law. Superintendent Robert Runcie has blocked critics, including parents, from his Twitter account. More than two months after the shooting, a Broward sheriff’s detective told a state commission on school safety that he was still waiting for the district to provide all of Cruz’s disciplinary records.
The worst came last week, when Runcie acknowledged that his forceful denials that Cruz had been involved in the Promise program, which is intended to provide an alternative to the arrest of students for minor offenses, were wrong.
“It would appear that the district is more interested in protecting their programs than they are the students and teachers in our schools,” said Ryan Petty, whose daughter Alaina was killed by Cruz. “As a father, I would ask the district to please be completely transparent so we can make sure this doesn’t happen to any other children in any other schools in Florida.” Andrew Pollack, whose daughter Meadow was killed in the shooting, said he was surprised to learn that the district still has not provided all of Cruz’s records to investigators. At a meeting of the state commission set up after the shooting to improve school safety, Pollack asked a Broward sheriff’s detective whether all of the records had been provided.
“I believe that some of the items we are seeking to get from the school board, we have received some,” Detective Zachary Scott said.
“But I do not believe we’ve received everything yet.”
From the school district, Pollack said, “there’s no honesty at all.”
School district spokeswoman Tracy Clark said the district has provided accurate information to investigators, the press and the public as fast as possible and “any suggestion that the district is not being forthcoming is either based on a misunderstanding or misinformation.”