PARKLAND, Fla. (AP/WSVN) – For almost a half-hour after a school shooter dropped his assault-style rifle and escaped Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, police officers thought they were seeing his actions live on the school’s security system.
They soon realized the images were tape delayed, which Coral Springs Police Chief Tony Pustizzi told the Sun Sentinel made a chaotic situation more confusing.
The 19-year-old suspect Nikolas Cruz was captured an hour later in a neighborhood about 2 miles (3 kilometers) from the school where 17 people died Feb. 14.
The newspaper reports police transmissions show that police initially couldn’t get to security cameras. Sheriff Scott Israel said at a news conference he didn’t know about the security system delays but would look into it.
However, in a news conference Friday, Broward Superintendent Robert Runcie said there was simply a miscommunication.
“Our video surveillance systems works in real time. There’s no point in having a video surveillance system that is not providing real time information,” he said.
“It’s just that when the person was reviewing the tape from 20 minutes earlier somehow that wasn’t communicated to the officers,” said Coral Springs Chief Tony Pustizzi.
However, others feel the delay may have hampered rescue efforts. “I feel that if there was a live video feed that we could have helped more kids,” said nurse Molly Henderson. “They did a great job. Coral Springs Police did a great job. BSO — I was there. They did a great job with what they had, but they couldn’t do their job correctly because of the video feed.”
Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.