Slays ‘uncovered’
Parkland computer-redaction flub
School officials in Florida need to sign up for remedial computer courses.
Authorities in Broward County, Fla., tried to literally cover up parts of a report on the Parkland school massacre — but failed because they didn’t know that the sections they blacked out became visible when pasted into another computer file.
A local judge had ordered sections of the report, written by a consultant, to be redacted to comply with the privacy rights of Nikolas Cruz, the accused killer of 17.
But the public got to see the entire document because of the computer foul-up, the Sun-Sentinel newspaper reported.
The report said the district generally followed federal and Florida rules, including providing special education for Cruz after he was kicked out of day care at the age of 3.
He eventually wound up at Marjo- rie Stoneman Douglas HS.
And staff there misstated Cruz’s options when he was facing expulsion in his junior year, according to the report.
When he asked to return to Cross Creek school for special education, which he had once attended, the district “did not follow through,’’ the report revealed.
In part because of this, the SunSentinel said, Cruz had no counsel- ing or special-education services for the 14 months leading up to the mass murder.
Before the report was made public, Broward Schools superintendent Robert Runcie had said that when Cruz turned 18 he had rejected special-education placement.
But the consultant’s report revealed for the first time that Cruz had wanted to return to special education but his request went nowhere, the newspaper said.
Cruz bought a rifle three days after being forced to withdraw from Marjorie Stoneman Douglas. A year later he returned and used it to kill 14 students and three coaches.
Runcie insisted he had wanted to make the entire report public, but could not because of the judge’s orders.
“I didn’t even know that [restoration of redacted sections] was possible,’’ he insisted.
Cruz’s lawyers called the report a “whitewash” commissioned by the school district to clear itself.