Israel Out As Broward Count Sheriff, Blames NRA As Per Usual

Don P Thanks for the link. What an eye opener that was. I would support a wrongful death suit against Israel and the Broward county.
 
From Don P's link:

The simplest of security measures could have saved lives. But the school district failed to require that classrooms have designated “hard corners” — areas where students could hide outside the line of sight of a gunman looking through a doorway.
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Broward County schools are not alone in this. I've probably told this story before, but it bears repeating because it demonstrates that school adminstrators, in general, don't understand what security is really about:

A few years after Columbine, the high school in my town was gearing up for a major reconstruction/rehabilitation/expansion program. State money was involved, and state law required that the plans be reviewed by the State Department of Education before the start of construction. But the unit that does those reviews was overwhelmed and couldn't do the review within the thirty days mandated by law, so the town had the option of letting the local building inspector perform the review for the School Facilities Unit.

But our town only has one building inspector, and he didn't have time to do it, either. I'm licensed as both an architect and a building inspector, so the town hired me to do the review. I found several code problems, and with the building inspector we sat down with the architects and got those resolved. BUT ...

One thing I saw wasn't a code violation, but it bothered me. In the older wings, the corridor walls were concrete block and the doors were solid wood with just a narrow vision panel. For the new wings, the architects were putting in doorways with wide (15" to 18") glass sidelights. Columbine was on everyone's mind, and I knew that "security" was supposed to have been one of the parameters for the project. The sidelights bothered me enough that I went to the police department and had a chat with the deputy chief. He agreed with me that they were a dumb idea.

So I went "off the reservation" and raised the issue -- not in my code report that went up to the School Facilities Unit (it wasn't, after all, a code violation), but to the building inspector and to the school board. The school board took it to the architects, and their response was, "We like them."

So the new classroom wings were built with the sidelights.
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In the aftermath of Sandy Hook, the town adjacent to my town proudly announced that they were upgrading their grammar school with a new security system. It was all top secret, hush-hush for, you know, "security reasons." I knew their building inspector, so I asked him. The new security system they were installing was the same exact system that did NOT work at Sandy Hook.

So much for security. It was just lip service, and that's what we have to be aware of. School boards and school administrators will always tell you they're all about "security," but they often don't have even a rudimentary understanding of what that entails. They need to be questioned and confronted.
 
Lohman446 said:
Red flag laws can readily create penalties and denial of guaranteed rights over speech with little or no due process. This is not some "slippery slope" its a concise summary of the dangers. Now we can discuss if doing so is "worth it" but let's not deny what we are discussing by trying to place the fallacy of a "slippery slope" on the other party.
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Agree, due process needs to be an essential part of any of these redflag laws..And it should not be a blanket prohibition, but, as the name implies, a 'red flag' to look more closely at the person trying to buy a firearm. Don't think it's a zero sum game..AND it 'may' have kept a gun out of Cruz's hands..
 
I read the Sun Sentinel article and it made me sick to my stomach. The incredible cowardice and incompetence demonstrated was beyond disgusting.

I would like to see some technological solutions that could mitigate the damage. Gun shot sensors should be placed around schools and immediately alert someone in administration that a possible shot has been fired. It will identify the location of the shot and allow the administrator to verify via the CCTV system. If it is confirmed that it is indeed an active shooter, a Code Red should be immediately sounded, bypassing fire alarms. It should also alert the police. As a safeguard, the gun shot sensor should notify the police if the administrator does not respond within a certain time frame (maybe a minute?).

Regardless, Sheriff Israel is incompetent and his policies is what lead up to this tragedy.
 
Regardless, Sheriff Israel is incompetent and his policies is what lead up to this tragedy.
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While it is good that this sheriff was terminated, the SCHOOL folks could have easily prevented this even earlier. They KNEW about him, they did nothing because it would make their crime stats look bad.
This was 100% preventable.
 
The school admin folks did not like the fact that their students (a decent number) wound up in prison. It gave the school a bad rep for having a large criminal base. So, they stopped reporting a lot of things, including the kid involved and his previous incidents.
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Partly true. I'm a retired teacher. The School Resource Officers job is about 90% being a resource for the school and a direct link between the school and the DA's office. And about 10% school guard. If they do the 1st part right it really limits the chances of doing the 2nd part.

It is a fair statement to say that schools are trying to limit bad PR. But in this case the previous incidents were reported and the shooter was removed from the school some months earlier and placed in an alternative learning situation where he could be more closely monitored. He was eventually kicked out of that situation. He was not a student at the school at the time of the shooting. From the schools perspective, and the use of the SRO the system worked. At least up to that point.

It was after he was kicked out of school that additional warning signs were ignored. And the response after the shooting started was not well executed.

Before I retired there were multiple doors unlocked all around the campus for easy access to the school. Within the last 2 years all doors are locked except the front door where you can access a small lobby where visitors, parents, or late students can speak through a bulletproof window to a secretary. If they have a legitimate reason to be there they are buzzed in. Sadly, this is the real answer, and even it isn't perfect. There are still lapses in the system and ways to do harm. But is a step in the right direction.
 
Sadly, this is the real answer, and even it isn't perfect. There are still lapses in the system and ways to do harm. But is a step in the right direction.
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So taking away freedoms and turning schools in de facto prisons during the day is the answer? I drive by some of the newer schools that have been built in Florida and if it didn't have a school sign out front, you couldn't be sure if it was a jail or not. I understand everyone wants to keep kids safe; I am just not sure that is the best way to do it.
 
jmr40 said:
Partly true. I'm a retired teacher. The School Resource Officers job is about 90% being a resource for the school and a direct link between the school and the DA's office. And about 10% school guard. If they do the 1st part right it really limits the chances of doing the 2nd part.

It is a fair statement to say that schools are trying to limit bad PR. But in this case the previous incidents were reported and the shooter was removed from the school some months earlier and placed in an alternative learning situation where he could be more closely monitored. He was eventually kicked out of that situation. He was not a student at the school at the time of the shooting. From the schools perspective, and the use of the SRO the system worked. At least up to that point.
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No, completely true.

You may be a retired teacher, but I'll guess you're not retired from the Broward County school system. The school system and the sheriff's office had an arrangement going under which most offenses were either reported as lower-grade offenses than they really were, or simply weren't reported at all. The goal was to show improving statistics with regard to youthful offenders in the school system.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that, once you start down that road, there's no turning back until the gangs control the schools. In order to continue the "improvements" from year to year, it becomes necessary to ignore or down-grade increasingly serious offenses. And that's exactly what Parkland and Deputy Peterson were doing. Dig deep enough, and you'll find that Peterson's awards were basically for his success in fudging the paperwork on offenders within the school system.

The sheriff knew about this, so he was also part of the problem. And Superintendent Runcie knew about it, and was central to it. So he was -- and is -- part of the problem, and that's why many people now want him gone.

This was reported fairly extensively shortly after the shooting.
 
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So taking away freedoms and turning schools in de facto prisons during the day is the answer? I drive by some of the newer schools that have been built in Florida and if it didn't have a school sign out front, you couldn't be sure if it was a jail or not. I understand everyone wants to keep kids safe; I am just not sure that is the best way to do it.
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I'm not sure what else can be done at this point without spending a ton of money and resources. Even if we armed teacher, not all teachers would be armed. I don't believe it is possible to get multiple teachers trained to the point where they are capable of handling an active shooter scenario. If a kid in the back of the class started blasting away, how would the teacher respond and how many kids would get nailed in the crossfire? I know it will be faster than a resource officer running from one side of the school to the other, but not as good as trying to prevent the introduction of weapons in the first place. It is certainly better than issuing weapons to all of the kids and giving them body armor. Not sure a battlefield is any better than a prison.
 
So taking away freedoms and turning schools in de facto prisons during the day is the answer? I drive by some of the newer schools that have been built in Florida and if it didn't have a school sign out front, you couldn't be sure if it was a jail or not. I understand everyone wants to keep kids safe; I am just not sure that is the best way to do it.
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Jails have razor wire on top of the fence around the building. Schools just have fences, no razor wire. I hope that helps. (LOL) just kidding:D

Try to keep in mind that the majority of people in public schools are our children who the school board is responsible to protect while under the schools care. Since they are not considered adults I believe their freedoms are and should be some what limited to what the schools board decides their freedoms should be while under their jurisdiction and we should be OK with that. We should also be OK with armed guards in schools whether that be teachers or others. Todays schools are nothing like the schools we attended. Today they're not seen as places of education only, now they also have become soft targets that guaranteed attention for the crazies out there.
 
I'm not sure what else can be done at this point
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Stop fudging the numbers and put those in jail that need to be there and KEEP them there?
Better yet, disband the public school system and go to home-school, charter schools, parochial schools and private schools. Make school populations smaller - too bad if it hurts their Friday night football program...............
 
FITASC said:
No, it wouldn't have because the school and Sheriff already KNEW about him and covered it up to reduce their crime numbers. Red Flags don't work when the very folks responsible for alerting and then preventing are in cahoots to save their own butts with phony stats
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Exactly, besides these kinds of "red flag" laws will be used and abused by folks with a "agenda", and will in reality not prevent "bad people" from doing "bad things", that is simple logic.
 
silvermane_1 said:
Exactly, besides these kinds of "red flag" laws will be used and abused by folks with a "agenda", and will in reality not prevent "bad people" from doing "bad things", that is simple logic.
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The ‘simple logic’ via hindsight would show that in some instances, like with Cruz, a ‘red flag’ type system ‘may’ have prevented this school shooting. Would it be abused? Like any system or program, yes it would be. The question is whether the ‘abuse’ is SO bad that the system should either not be created or abandoned....OR be fixed/modified so it is more effective without curtailing people’s rights. But to ban it out of hand as ‘not effective because of potential abuse’, is incorrect IMHO. Using that criteria, just about every program now in existence, social security, Medicare, you name it, would be snuffed out.
 
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Broward County didn't need any "red flag" system to identify the Parkland shooter as a problem. They had plenty of documented "interactions" with him. The problem was the initiative (I guess I'm not supposed to call it a "conspiracy") between the school district and the sheriff's office to improve the statistics on criminal offenses in the schools by down-grading felonious incidents to less serious offenses. This was why deputy what's-his-name was lauded so highly as school resource officer -- not because he was a great SRO, but because he was so effective at waving his magic wand at crimes and making them "disappear" in a cloud of smoke and mirrors.

It doesn't take a PhD to figure out that, once you start down a road of "improving performance" by fudging the statistics, the only way to demonstrate continued "improvement" is by continuing to reclassify ever more offenses into ever less severe categories.

No "red flag" law in the universe can work as advertised if/when the offenses that would raise the red flags are declassified to lower-level offenses that fly under the radar.
 
Those who don't know what I was referring to in the above post might find some interesting reading here:

https://www.americanthinker.com/art...rd_county_solution_cost_17_student_lives.html

https://conservativedailypost.com/b...kfired-florida-shooting-may-have-been-result/

https://teejaw.com/29631-2/

I am reminded of the story about Abe Lincoln and the five-legged dog. (What do you have if you call a dog's tail a leg? Answer: You have a four-legged dog, because calling the tail a leg doesn't make it a leg. Calling a felony a misdemeanor doesn't make the offender any less of an offender.)
 
Long time teacher here. Let me tell you what really happened.

When No Child Left Behind was enacted in 2002, part of it was giving each school a grade. Part of that grade was the overall discipline record of the school. The more discipline problems, the lower your school grade. Because of this, school admins learned that they could fudge the numbers by reducing or not reporting crimes committed on campus.

One example. One of my coworkers had a fight in class. One kid grabbed another and threw him over the row of desks and jumped on him and started to choke him. My buddy breaks them up and sends the aggressor to the office for fighting. Later that day, the admin asked my buddy if the kid had thrown any punches. When she found out that no punches were thrown, she said, "Good, I don't have to write it up as a fight."

I could literally spend all day giving you stories like that. The admins have had YEARS of consciously (and by choice) looking the other way. By attaching your school grade to discipline, we TRAINED the admins to look the other way. No one at that school had prepared for school violence ON PURPOSE.

Also, the Sherriff's Resource Officer is not allowed to get involved in any problem on campus unless asked to by the principal. I hate to say it, but if you want to be a SRO, you'd better be a suck up to the principal. That includes being blind to problems around you, and fitting in with the school culture - be a sheep like everyone else.
 
Also, the Sherriff's Resource Officer is not allowed to get involved in any problem on campus unless asked to by the principal. I hate to say it, but if you want to be a SRO, you'd better be a suck up to the principal. That includes being blind to problems around you, and fitting in with the school culture - be a sheep like everyone else.
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That may very well be the case in Palm Beach County but not all counties. My wife was in the Manatee Cty school system for about 20 years. The resource officers there were generally very involved in the schools - indeed the ones I met were great assets. Now granted, there were some that couldn't pass a PT test if their lives depended on it but even those (that I knew) were able to make a difference.
 
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