The state commission reviewing the Parkland school shooting will return to work next week, three months after producing a tough report that called for extensive safety reforms and investigations of the Broward school district and sheriff’s office employees.
The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission will hold hearings Tuesday and Wednesday at the BB&T Center in Sunrise. The 20-member commission, composed of law enforcement officers, public officials and parents of some of the murdered children, will look at whether school safety has improved since the Feb. 14, 2018, massacre and whether problems identified in the report are being addressed.
Here are some of the major items on the commission’s agenda for next week:
Has active-shooter training improved at the Broward Sheriff’s Office? The weak performance of the county’s leading law enforcement agency on the day of the shooting led to a cascade of resignations and disciplinary actions throughout the ranks, culminating in Gov. Ron DeSantis’ decision to oust Sheriff Scott Israel.
Among the shortcomings that came up in commission hearings was the state of BSO’s active shooter training, since several deputies at the scene couldn’t remember much about it.
The commission’s investigators have interviewed about 50 deputies in the past few weeks, with many questions focusing on the state of training, said Bob Gualtieri, the Pinellas County sheriff who serves as chairman of the commission. The commission next week will focus on “what was done, not done, comparing what was done after the incident and before the incident, and importantly what’s being done now.”
School districts continue to issue false information about on-campus crime. The South Florida Sun Sentinel reported last summer that the Broward school district failed to report incidents of violence, theft, bullying, trespassing and harassment at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, making the school appear safer than it was before the massacre that took 17 lives. The newspaper reported in December that many other schools in Broward County and across Florida also underreported.
Gualtieri said school districts continue to understate crime. One major district, he said, reported zero incidents in one category, while a smaller district reported hundreds.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “There’s a ton of stuff like that. The numbers are stark, startling. There’s no way this is right. It can’t be. If people are using that to be informed about what’s happening on individual campuses or individual districts, I think that will be a startling revelation. This data can’t be relied on to give you an accurate picture on what’s happening at a particular school or particular district.”
Broward County hasn’t fixed its 911 and emergency radio problems. The massacre exposed serious communications problems, with operators transferring 911 callers trying to report the shooting and sheriff’s deputies unable to communicate through an overwhelmed radio system. Since then there have been disputes over the placement of emergency communications towers, with cities balking at the locations.
“That situation … is a mess,” Gualtieri said. “I think it’s a real barrier to effective law-enforcement response, and I think it’s a fixable issue. The leaders have to come to the table with the wherewithal to say we’re going to fix this. These people need to understand that it matters and lives matter and they need to stop this and get this stuff fixed.”
Some school districts still haven’t complied with the state school safety law passed after the shooting. A state law signed March 9 of last year by Gov. Rick Scott requires schools to have an active-shooter response policy and at least one police officer or other armed person at every school. But Gualtieri said some districts failed to comply with the law, despite ample time to deal with it.
“Districts are not meeting the requirement of having a safe schools officer on every campus,” he said. “Districts are not meeting the requirements on compliance with other core essential components.”
Broward created a new armed guardian program to comply with the law. Miami-Dade and Palm Beach County school districts, which have their own police department, say they have at least one officer on every campus.
Some families felt death notifications were handled badly. Families described a horrific scene at the Coral Springs Marriott at Heron Bay, where they waited for word.