PARKLAND, FLA. (WSVN) - Authorities have released some recordings of the 911 calls made during the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School as new information comes to light.
Calls from the Feb. 14 shooting show confusion and fear as the dispatchers work to understand what was going on in the school.
The Broward Sheriff’s Office has released about 50 minutes of 911 calls, Thursday.
In one call, a student could be heard whispering to the 911 operator: “Someone’s shooting up the school at Stoneman Douglas.”
In another, a woman can be heard saying to a student at Stoneman Douglas during the shooting, “I love you, I love you, it’s mom… It’s OK, it’s OK. I love you, it’s going to be fine. Can you hide somewhere? Can you play dead? You need to. If he shoots, play dead.”
One person said they were calling 911 on behalf of a mother whose daughter was in the school at the time of the shooting.
Another mom was reading texts to dispatchers from her daughter and said, “There were three shot in her room. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.”‘
A Parkland resident who lives near the school called 911 to tell dispatchers he could hear several gunshots coming from Stoneman Douglas.
A total of 81 phone calls were made that day. Ten of them were released.
Officials have also released a timeline of the shooting.
They said accused shooter Nikolas Cruz entered the freshman building at 2:21 p.m. After 15 seconds, Cruz fired the fatal shots, officials said.
During the initial part of the shooting, school resource officer Scot Peterson was seen near building one.
A minute later, the 911 phone calls began to pour in.
BSO deputies had limited information about the shooting because they were on a different communication channel.
“Coral Springs operates on a separate radio channel for their police services,” said Broward Sheriff’s Office Col. Jack Dale.
Moments later, Peterson was seen in the southeast corner of building. According to BSO, he remained there for the duration of the shooting.
In a call, he could be heard saying, “Make sure we get some units over here. I need to shut down Stoneman Douglas, the intersection.”
Several other deputies arrived, but at that point, it was unclear to them where the shots were coming from.
“Training for an active shooter is designed to first interrupt the shooter, and that is the primary mission of an active shooter response,” Dale said.
Peterson ordered officials to not approach the 1200 or 1300 buildings, but despite the orders, deputies tried to enter another building after hearing gunshots.
“There was not a lot of accurate information,” Dale said.
BSO deputies arrived at the freshman building around the same time as Coral Springs Police officers. That’s when all six of them entered the building.
“Entry was made. The first four were Coral Springs Police officers,” Dale said. “They immediately made contact with a wounded individual and passed them back to BSO deputies, who loaded the wounded individual on to a golf cart and took him out to fire rescue.”
During the chaos, parents received phone calls and text messages from their children. That’s when parents began calling 911 themselves.
Seventeen people were killed and 14 people were injured in the Valentine’s Day shooting.
Cruz was in court on Wednesday. 7News learned on Thursday he has withdrawn his not guilty plea and instead has refused to enter a plea.
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