Recent revelations have changed the narrative of who bears responsibility for the atrocity at the Parkland high school.  Of course, the primary responsibility is upon the twisted young man who performed the evil deed.

But there were failures in the school system policy, the social system, and the criminal justice system. A wise, retired LAPD cop has this to say.

39 COMMENTS

  1. “It was a lame performance. While Sheriff Israel was hailed as a hero at CNN’s town hall, to the wider world he has been revealed as a dimwit, one who is ill equipped to weather the maelstrom he has entered. He is sadly typical of the modern police executive: neither especially bright nor innovative, but willing to adapt his principles or abandon them altogether so as to deflect blame onto to others and remain in the good graces of his political patrons. In Sheriff Israel’s case, his political patrons will soon realize he has become an embarrassment, and in due course he will be cast adrift. May it happen quickly.”

    Spot on, from many miles away and without all of the local knowledge of the deficiencies of this so-called Sheriff who understands little of the legal and historical relationship between the Sheriff and those he deputizes.

  2. Seems this morning and late yesterday afternoon it has come to light that NOW the deputy did not enter the school because of possible gunfire on the schools athletic fields. How many more times will the story change?????? For all involved to cover their keisters

  3. “People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” – George Orwell – but he never lived in Broward County did he.

  4. Mass,

    Thanks for giving us this article from the LAPD retired cop. Very interesting. Was hoping you would have some comments on this tragedy. Perhaps you will have more on this in the coming days and weeks.

    Thanks for you efforts in these articles.

    Bob

  5. Mas,
    I will be contacting both my senators and representatives regarding another knee jerk reaction to evil and it’s attendant mayhem. I support the arming of some “qualified” individuals who work within our vulnerable school systems and indeed any other “free fire zone” we designate as gun free zones. After 911 the Dept. Of Homeland Security initiated a program which armed pilots in the cockpit thereby hardening them to would be terrorists. It became known as the Federal Flight Deck Officer program. I went through the testing and screening as a pilot for major airline and secured my deputation in Artesia, New Mexico in February of 2005(now retired) It is an excellent program staffed by highly motivated individuals who impressed me with their dedication and professionalism! I was required to qualify every six months with my weapon and required a recurrent 2 day attendance in classroom and simulation every 5 years. This program was voluntary and quite successful! Events, past and current, involving school systems, colleges, and university campuses seems to suggest that there would be persons within those communities that could accomplish the same thing. Hardening our school campuses seems to me to be just as important as hardening our cockpits. This concept always reminded me of the old sign hanging in a shopkeepers window…”This premises protected by Smith and Wesson three days a week…you guess which three!” Vis Vertas Veritas

    • Info I’ve read recently ahd the perp in this school shooting taken into custody at that school by Israel’s “finest” boobs because he was found with a KNIFE at school. That is a “weapon” by law, he SHOULD have been prosecuted for violation of the GFSZ Act. But the Coward COunty Sheriff’s Office, under direction of this Israel dirtbag, was on a campaign to secure federal money for “reducing” their high arrest rates of teen agers. What happened? The charges were rediced to some inane thing.. causing a public disruption, or some such worthles prattle. At that point he SHOULD have been charged with a felonyand prosecuted. Now, he’d not be able to pass a BGC. In other words, disabled to possess firearms, Thus Sheriff Isreal’s department’s decision to take the money” instead of enforce already written law is precisely what eneabled this dirtbag to buy his firearm. One more case of “blind Mother Justice in a pile of manure” And seventeen people now slowly decomposing beneath the daisies.

      Another recent article details the politics of corruption in Miami Dade County, and Broward, which abut each other.Bothout for federal ObamaBux for “reducing arrest rates in the school system” by giving Get Out of Jail Free cards to real criminals, thus reducing paper arrests but not the drime which SHOULD lead to those arrests. Seems Israel’s department have made some important records “go away” to “clean up’ their county to quailfy for the ObamaBux. It was precisely this programme that led directly and proximally to a certain young thug (the kinyun’s If I Had A Son son) being on the streets instead of in the county’s GreyBar Hotel. If memory serves aright, this thugpunk met his untimely but well deserved death just days after his most recent release from police custody, having been doung at school with stolen jewelry and burglary tools in his backpack. The jewelry was not entered into safekeeping as “evidence” nor was there any attempt to confirm its exact origin, as that would require an explanaition of how M-D sheriffs came into possession of it. SO it disappeared along with the thug’s record of detainment. Had Miami Daade SO done their job, the one they’re hired to do, Martin would have been behind bars (a decided plus) instead of peering into windows on that town when he was suspected of being up to no good by the good citizen George Z. Martin would still be alive (not sure that’s a plus), and George’s life would not have been turned upside down and inside out (a decided plus).

      The twisted and corrupt politics of these two neighbouring counties, and the way LE REFUSE to deal with it according to law, need to be exposed to the sunshine of public scrutiny, and charges laid against public scoundrels like this Isreal character for their malfeasance, failure to perform, and perjury (swearing to uphold the laws and enforce them, instead playing the public for fools to their own gain. This is a web of corruption and scandal nearly the equal of FBI/CIA RussiaGate FISA court scandal.

    • Glad to hear from some of our brave FFDOs…I was just telling someone here at work that the same type of program could be put into place across the country for teachers (although I wouldn’t want it to be a federal program per se).

      I need to make a version of that sign for my homestead, too!

      TXCOMT

      • Well the federal program I went through was top notch. Certainly not a mess of bureaucracy ! The failures of law enforcement, mental health professionals, Florida’s version of child protective services are revealed to us with more sickening facts every news cycle. I maintain that excluding colossal ineptitude by multiple agencies, the hardening of our schools would be a logical first step, pc culture aside!

  6. FAILURES in the systems ? 17 DEAD CHILDREN AND ADULTS. AS MANY WOUNDED. All these cops will retire on 6 figure pensions in sunny Florida. Laugh, eat, drink. Play with the dog. Walk on the beach. While the dead children are now slowly decomposing in their graves. Latest story is how Sheriffs Deputies blocked EMTs from going into the school. After they begged the deputies to go in. But all these cops will enjoy fishing trips in the Keys. Birthday parties. See the latest movies. While the dead slowly decompose in their graves.

    I can only remember the stories my Dad told me of the iconic NYPD officer, Johnny Broderick. Seems that age is now despised, mocked, ridiculed and seen as so out of touch with the sensitivities of MODERN times. So glad I’m an old guy and my time is running short.

  8. I knew something was up with that short Sheriff.
    I just talked to a good friend of ours running for
    Sheriff in Oregon. He guessed that the Dimwit liberal
    excuse for a Sheriff put the aforementioned Deputy (Barney Fife type)
    in the job in order to let him goldbrick his way to retirement.
    I would like to see the Parents claw back every cent both the Sheriff
    and his motley crew of pals were ever paid.

    I the future voters should check out the NADS hanging from any
    potential Sheriff.
    Furthermore, he sealed his fate when he blamed the NRA for his
    outrageous ineptitude.

    Stick a fork in him…..he’s done.

  10. Our current Sheriff where I live told us that this guy in Broward County was a Liberal really leaning left so far that he was about to fall off the left side. Now that we know he campaigned for Obama we know exactly what he is. He wanted this mayhem to go on because secretly he wants to help the liberal wackjobs get rid of all the guns so that the terrorists and criminals can do a complete takeover of the country. Why else would Obama have done early release on criminals from our prisons and tried to close Gitmo. If anybody thinks he did it to save money, I have some waterfront property to sell you real cheap.

  11. Jack Dunphy is always on the mark. So good to get HIS astute perspective on this guy and the situation. Thanks, Mas.

  12. “In Sheriff Israel’s case, his political patrons will soon realize he has become an embarrassment, and in due course he will be cast adrift. May it happen quickly.”

    The sooner, the better.

  13. Lots of people are heaping scorn on the deputy or deputies who failed to act in a timely manner to stop the Florida school shooting. However, the deputy denies that he is a coward and points out the positive things he did. Basically, he is saying that he followed procedures. See this link:

    http://www.firstcoastnews.com/article/news/nation-world/florida-deputy-denies-he-was-a-coward-during-school-shooting/507-523447661

    I suggest that we should not dismiss the deputy’s comments as just CYA.

    As I have noted before, the left-wing / right-wing split originates from basic assumptions made (usually subconsciously) by human beings. Leftists assume that humanity trends toward goodness. That people do wrong ONLY under the influence of external social or environmental forces. Right-wingers (or conservatives, if you wish) assume humans trend toward evil and that it takes EFFORT on the part of humanity to do good.

    The effects flowing from these assumptions are PROFOUND. A human’s entire worldview and political thoughts are shaped by the difference. It is as profound as the assumption of innocence in criminal law. As everyone knows, the assumption made in criminal law is that an accused person is INNOCENT until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Support, it was the other way? Suppose we assumed that every accused person was GUILTY until proven innocent beyond a reasonable doubt? Think what a profound difference that would make in the criminal justice system. Well, the good versus evil assumption that separates left-wing thought from right-wing thought makes an even greater difference in worldview.

    The Broward County Sheriff, Scott Israel, is clearly in the left-wing camp. His views on firearm prohibition are enough to show that. In addition, his office worked with Broward County schools on an Obama-era program designed to “go easy” on non-white students that misbehave. Some speculate that this is the reason that the murderer, Nikolas Cruz, could “run afoul” of the law over 30 times and yet still have a clean enough record to go buy an AR. See this link:

    https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2018/02/26/how-obama-and-holder-changed-broward-county-law-enforcement-for-racial-reasons/

    It is common to say that, under stress, a person will react as he trained. The Liberal Sheriff of Broward County spent years training his deputies to go easy on misbehaving children. To react with a soft touch. He spent years training his deputies to think like left-wing pacifists. Why on earth is anyone surprised that they failed to act aggressively to this crime? After all, you will react as you train!

  14. Isn’t it interesting the James Hodgkinson attempt at mass murder didn’t inflame the left for gun control? Cuz, maybe it was a liberal trying to murder conservatives/(some) republicans?

    Federal reporting agency=FAILED. Local law enforcement=FAILED. Mental health reporting agency=FAILED. The demented individual needed “help” and should have been quarantined from society, he wasn’t. That is the fault of the “GOVERNMENT” at every level.

    Yep, “CHANGING THE BALANCE OF PUBLIC OPINION” is an understatement!

    Stay safe, Larry.

  15. As a retired police officer and a man who in Gods name would be able to stand outside while you’re hearing gunfire inside a freshman school building knowing children are dying.

    We have seen numerous civilians stop and utilize deadly force to save law enforcement officers lives and these people have little to no training. How can a cop with 36 years under his belt not go in? Then 4 more deputies arrive they don’t go in? In the movie theater shooting in Aurora Colorado we saw the first responding Aurora city officer rushed into a dark movie theater filled with dead bodies in search of that madman.
    Then to make matters worse the far left sheriff
    Israel speer headed a huge gun control push instead of taking partial responsibility for his agency’s huge failures.
    As gun owners we’ve certainly been demonized terribly.

  16. It is my understanding that in the Sandy Hook incident the police waited for five minutes outside evaluating the situation before entering. The guy who shot-up the gay bar in Florida, after exchanging shots with an off-duty policeman hired as security guard had at least a half hour before the police entered.
    It isn’t necessarily cowardice on the part of individual officers, it is departmental policies put in place for usually political reasons.
    It simply isn’t the job of the police to protect and defend us no matter what it says on the side of the patrol car, it is ours alone.

  17. I’m not surprised at your articles author and by association, your defense of the cop. The rest of us are not impressed. I know your part of the officer survival thing but the focus on saving people instead of your ass is what we want. The defense of the cops going in as a group is all about officer survival. It’s obvious they really don’t expect to actually confront a killer.We already know we can’t expect cops to save us.

  18. I don’t know what the stated or written policy of the Broward County sheriff’s Department is for a active school shooter. I know that my department’s policy immediately after Columbine was simple. First officer goes in immediately. No waiting for backup, no hesitation. We received no special training for the scenario as the thinking was, as a police officer, all of us should be ready to respond, one on one or against multiple threats by ourselves until back up arrives, as a normal day to day possibility of our job, unless immediate action was not necessary. If the call for service was for shots fired inside an occupied school, upon arrival you did not wait to hear the shots yourself, you reacted based on the information you had before arrival.

    Having said that, though it was my understanding that my department’s policy was SOP for every law enforcement agency in the country, the more we are learning about sheriff Israel, I’m beginning to believe there may be a disparity between the “written policy” and the actual expectations from the “leadership”.

    While I personally can’t give a pass to any law enforcement officer who fails to take action when they have the tools available (weapon) to come to the defense of the defenseless, I am awaiting confirmation on reports the deputies were ordered to stand down if they had no body cam to record the confrontation. If these reports are confirmed, while not an excuse for their inaction, it will at least bring condemnation to that wormy sheriff who so readily threw his deputies under the bus. I feel his policies will be exposed by the rank and file of that department after they saw how quickly he shamed a deputy who may have been following orders.

    • Dennis – Here is a link to the written policy for the active shooter procedure for Broward County:

      https://www.politico.com/states/f/?id=00000161-ce88-d3a7-a5e1-eecd4aad0000

      As you can see for yourself, it says that a deputy “may” go in (alone) to stop the attack if he has “real-time intelligence” as to the shooter’s location. However, it does not REQUIRE the deputy to go in to stop the violence. It uses the optional word “may” instead of the affirmative word “shall”.

      So, despite whatever Sheriff Israel is saying to toss his deputy to the wolves and to cover his own rear-end, the written policy did not REQUIRE an immediate entrance to stop the shooter.

      • The Sheriff’s written policy may not require that.

        He’s an elected official. We’ll see what his constituency thinks about that, next election.

        Same for the voters in Clark County, Nevada.

        Somehow, we’ve moved from “One riot, one Ranger” to “Our primary goal is to go home safe at night.”

        No, that’s not what we’re paying them for. Do the job, or look for an exciting new career as a barista.

      • TN_MAN,

        I’m not surprised. My department’s simple policy, first on scene, first inside immediately on arrival, may have been modified since I retired 13 years ago, but if so, I’ve not heard about it. When implemented, we were told this was a nationwide policy. I admit that I was a little puzzled reading the linked article when he discussed their training on LAPD to form teams before entry as it violated the immediate entry philosophy. To the point that I Googled his name hoping to find if he had possibly retired prior to Columbine. Couldn’t find that info, but appears the name used for the article is a pseudonym for an author who writes drawing from his LAPD background/experiences.

      • The link you provided is clear that the decision to go in is completely at the deputy’s discretion (may, not will). While I still question the deputies’ decisions not to go in according to the Broward County Sheriff Dept’s SOP, sheriff Israel has some ‘splaining to do. It is his SOP. He has plainly misled the public.

      • Dennis – the Broward County active-shooter procedure is a soft one. By that, I mean that it is a document that encourages a slow, cautious response rather than an aggressive one.

        It is typical of the general left-wing “soft-on-crime” approach. Since leftists believe that (1) all humans are inherently good and (2) that external social and environmental factors are what influence humans to misbehave, then (naturally) leftists have a mindset that tends to be “understanding of” and to “excuse” criminal behavior. You see, deep down, all leftists believe that it is never the individual’s fault for the evil that they do. So, it seems harsh to really hold them accountable, doesn’t it?

        Do you think that the leftists blame Nikolas Cruz for these deaths? If so, you have not been watching much CNN or MS-NBC! The Left CANNOT blame him because it would violate Left-Wing ideology to do so. No, they view him as just another “victim” in this mess. Society failed him and did not provide him with the proper Left-Wing conditioning that he needed. He was not able to let the “Good Person” that he really is (inside) shine forth because of this failure. So says Left-wing ideology.

        No, the failure of society to support him COMBINED with the OBSCENE proliferation of firearms in America is what lead him to commit all these shootings. It was the guns, the gun industry and their NRA attack dog that caused these deaths! That is EXACTLY what the Leftists think! Even worse, that is what the Leftists BELIEVE in their HEARTS!

        I think it likely that the Broward County Left-wing leadership (including the Sheriff’s Office) created a climate in which the “soft-on-crime” thought-pattern was standard.

        I say it again, why on earth does anyone expect the deputies to act aggressively when they have been “conditioned” (for years) by that kind of climate?

  19. Interested in your perspective on LA’s active shooter protocol. I went through the training in 2000 and it was the four man diamond pick up team. I understand it has evolved to first cop on scene (tactical situation permitting). Dunphy’s description of a special squad at LAPD seems odd as my understanding was that it was to be a pickup squad of the first cops there. The LAPD thing seems to miss the point of quick reaction. Or was this a training operation?

  20. They make a big deal about how big magazines are, and how quickly guns can fire, but if someone does not present an armed response to a mass shooter, the fact is that weapons from the 1800’s would do.

    If the deputies are going to hang around outside and give the perp extra minutes to shoot, what does it matter what he is shooting with?

    A person with an 1858 Remington percussion revolver, and some extra cylinders, could have murdered as many people while the Sheriff Dept waited.

  21. Recently I saw a video where a small drone delivered a shaped charge to the forehead of a mannekin. Maybe, in the future, schools will have airborne drones patrolling the grounds. At the detection of gun fire, they will be able to fly to the gun holder’s forehead, and deliver a shaped charge into the gun holder’s brain stem.

    Of course, I’m sure such a system will be terribly expensive. My vision of the future is more Mad Max and Flintstones, not so much The Jetsons. But most of my predictions turn out to be wrong, so maybe we will have robots doing most of our work in the future. But can our wealth continue? [America is broke.] That’s where I have my doubts about science fiction becoming science fact.

    • @Roger Willco – I doubt that anyone would ever be willing to use drones that deploy lethal force in schools. There would always be the fear that the drone would malfunction and blow the head off of an innocent student. Even the flying drones, used in the Middle East by the US Military to target terrorists, are under human remote control. The decision to use lethal force is always made by a human even when targeting a known terrorist.

      However, I could imagine a system where non-lethal force is used. Sound sensors, placed around the school, could triangulate the position of a shooter (by the sound of the gunfire) and then send in the drone. The drone would be under the control of a central computer that is smart enough to recognize (from the sound of gunfire and the shapes of people holding weapons) who is the shooter. The drone would be feeding video and sound data to the central computer to support this analysis. School resource officers or police officers could be equipped with coded radio tags so that the system would recognize them as “Friends” rather than “Foes”. The system would be programmed to not target “Friends”.

      The identified shooter could then be squirted with pepper-spray and a cloud of smoke released at his location. The idea being to hinder the shooter from laying down accurate fire at the students and to give the students time to escape the area.

      Such a system could (theoretically) be built, programmed and deployed using current computer, sensor and drone technology.

  22. I’ll add one more comment to clarify what I think may gave been the dynamic at work in the flawed response to the Florida School shooting. Perhaps this analogy will help:

    At the start of the movie “PATTON”, the American army had just fought its first engagement with the Germans in North Africa. The Americans were beaten so badly that the commanding general was relieved and General George S. Patton (God help us!) was sent in as his replacement.

    During one scene, Patton was discussing the recent loss with General Bradley. Patton made this observation:

    “Do you know why these men got the hell kicked out of them? A blind man can see it with his cane. They don’t look like soldiers, they don’t act like soldiers, why the hell does anyone expect them to fight like soldiers?”

    I suspect that something similar was at play in the Broward County Sheriff’s Office.

    Do you know why the Broward County deputies were so slow to intervene in this active-shooter incident? A blind man can see it with his cane. The ultra-liberal Sheriff of Broward County trained his men to the left-wing standard of being half social-worker and helf community-organizer. The deputies were not trained as police officers and they certainly were not trained to be warriors. Why the hell does anyone expect them to react like warriors?

  23. The warrior ethos has always been to rally to the sound of the guns. History is replete with examples of one man turning the tide of battle and even changing history. Horatio At The Bridge is one example. Audie Murphy climbing on top of a burning Sherman Tank and taking on an entire company of Wehrmacht soldiers with the tank commander’s M2 .50 caliber machine gun is another (When asked why he did such a foolish thing, he replied, “They were killing my friends”).

    There was no warrior ethos that day in Florida. Self preservation ruled the day. “My first responsibility is to go home safe at the end of the day.” The motto on the fender of almost every police car in America reads, “To protect and to serve.”
    Really?
    Or is it, “To hide on side streets with a radar gun, or in the back of a dark parking lot near a bar waiting for someone to leave.”

    Today I read the words of a female Chief of Police, and I paraphrase: “If you aren’t willing to attack an active shooter, please resign immediately.”
    Well said Chief.

  24. Some additional information that reinforces my point that left-wing ideology is the foundation of the problems in Broward County, Florida. This article make for a very interesting read:

    https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/02/incompetence_wasnt_the_problem_in_broward_county.html

    Mas, I know of your interest in the Trayvon Martin / George Zimmerman case. What do you think of the connection made, in the article, between Trayvon Martin and Nikolas Cruz via this Obama-era Promise Program?

  26. Greg Ellifritz posted this article (http://www.activeresponsetraining.net/commentary-on-contemporary-policing) on his web site. It was written by a friend who is a first line supervisor and departmental firearms instructor with 20 years experience in law enforcement. In it, he makes two assertions and discusses their consequences. The first is that the role of police officer has expanded far beyond straightforward law enforcement. The second is that society has become so uncomfortable with the use of force that it would rather tolerate violence against innocent victims than use force to stop it. The consequence is that too many police officers are ill equipped, by temperament as well as training, to face violence on the job and perform poorly when they encounter it.

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