PARKLAND, Fla. (AP/WSVN) — Almost a year after the Parkland school massacre, a commission investigating the tragedy has released an initial draft of its report which gives tentative approval to several recommendations for school security statewide.
The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission is in Tallahassee this week finalizing their recommendations that aim to make future campus shootings more difficult. Their top finding is to provide more funding for school security, and they want to create a permanent body to oversee security of schools.
The commission is also calling for all schools to have single points of entry, that open gates be staffed, that all classroom doors remain locked, that every district have a permanent body to oversee security at schools and have active shooter policies and staff training.
Commission members said a “code red” procedure is imperative to ensure safety on campuses. They said this is something Broward County Schools failed to do.
“People on the third floor who were not treating this as an active assailant response, that were in no man’s land in that hallway, were shot and some were killed because of where they were when they shouldn’t have been there.”” said Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri as he discussed the Feb. 14 shooting.
The panel, which was appointed by Florida Gov. Rick Scott, also recommended hard corners in classrooms and to limit non-essential visitors. They also recommended that teachers have intercoms in their classrooms and that districts allow law enforcement to live-monitor camera systems.
The commission further advised there should be effective communication between lockdown areas and administrators. They will ask districts to install bulletproof windows and doors. In addition, they said, districts should consider metal detectors at campus entrances and train faculty in “stop the bleed” procedures. Commissioners are also demanding more training for school resource officers, and they should have immediate access to their weapons.
For security monitors, the commission wants more defined roles. They said the one at Stoneman Douglas did not do enough.
“He could have stopped it. He’s the one, he’s the one,” said Max Schachter, whose son was one of the students killed in the shooting.
The commission concluded law enforcement agencies should be able to communicate with each other. The Broward Sheriff’s Office and Coral Springs Police had difficulties on the day of the shooting.
“There are 67 counties in Florida, but ultimately I’d like to see 67 regional communications systems,” said Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel.
The commission further stated that districts need a policy that requires personnel to report suspicious student behavior to an administrator.
“The entire school needs to have the culture that everybody is responsible for security,” said Schachter.
Finally, the commission recommended that mental health providers should warn others of threatened harm by a patient.
The report criticized several sheriff’s deputies for not doing enough, including Scot Peterson, the school resource officer on duty at the time of the Parkland shooting.
“We look forward to the takeaways from the report to see how we can improve as an agency and how we can do things better, certainly,” said Israel.
For grieving parents like Andrew Pollack, the commission’s report is a start.
“They’re only recommendations. That’s the problem with that, recommendations,” he said. “You can’t enforce it with the school boards or the superintendent in Broward until it becomes legislation.”
Commissioners are aware this is a lot to ask of districts, but said this is what it’s going to take to keep schools safe.
“If they go against it, that’s their business, but I’m not in this to make friends, I’m in this to protect kids,” said Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd.
The commission was formed after the shooting that left 17 dead. It must file its initial report to Scott, incoming Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Legislature by Jan. 1.
DeSantis has his own public safety advisory committee, which includes members of the Parkland community. Several of them have said they would like to see Israel lose his job.
When asked if he is afraid of that possibility, Israel replied he is not.
The initial draft of the commission’s report is over 400 pages long. If you would like to read it in its entirety, click here.
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