DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus Another School Shooting, Parkland, Florida

JROTC enlistees shield classmates, teachers from Florida shooter using Kevlar pads

Interview video from ABC

When two Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students and Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (JROTC) captains heard gunshots after training with cadets, they used classroom materials to barricade and protect students.

Company commander Capt. Zackary Walls, 17, and Capt. Colton Haab, 17, told ABC News that they ended formations early to head back to their classrooms shortly before a fire alarm went off and the shooting began.

"Around 2:30 I hear the bell ring for the fire alarm and we start heading out," Walls said. "I'm leading the line and we're heading out and it just so happens our fire zone was exactly where the shooter was," but, Walls added, he did not see the shooter.

"I heard the first two or three shots, I knew it was gunshots and I look back at all the kids behind me, there's 60 kids looking at me [asking], 'What do I do, where do I go' I just yell, 'get back in the classroom,'" Walls said.

He went on to explain that students were sprinting through the hallways "trampling over each other" and he began ushering them inside a classroom to shield them from the gunfire. "I start trying to just herd kids in there, get them to where they're not pushing and trampling each other and just get them into the room safely. I pulled in teachers, I pulled in kids that weren't in my class," Walls recalled of the chaotic scene.

Haab said his first sergeant told him not to lead his class outside after hearing seven gunshots, so he turned back to safety.

"I shut my door, pulled a student in and I brought him into the other room [where Walls was located] and I started getting people in," Haab said.

He noticed that the large hanging curtains in the room were made of Kevlar material and told Walls they could use it to protect the kids.

"We made a wall in front of all the kids out of the Kevlar pads," Walls explained.

"I brought those curtains out because I knew exactly what they were made of," Haab said of the thick padded material. "As I'm building them I'm thinking I would never need this other than what we're going to do and after yesterday I'm glad we had them."

Luckily, they did not need to test their preparedness and makeshift fortress because the shooter never entered their room. They also used two tables to barricade the door and sat next to it holding two by four planks of wood "ready to do what we had to do if someone came in the room," Walls said.

The Kevlar was bought and paid for with NRA grant funds.

Imagine if the posters on this board actually started a thread about gun control where they could say the same thing they've already said thousands of times and stopped hijacking threads w/their ignorant takes on the genesis of the problems our youths are facing in today's schools and society?

It is already leagal to buy and use suppressors......they are just fighting the unjust tax and the rediculously long wait period.

Imagine if it wasn't necessary for the NRA to spend all that money in defense of our Rights under the Second Amendment of our Constitution.

Imagine the money we are beginning to spend to keep the Left in this Nation from stealing away our First Amendment Rights of Free Speech.

DUH! And that is why he is safe. When will you extend that same privilege to the rest of America's students?

So no discussion - just people bunkered down and resorting to type. Great.

I am willing to discuss ending your right to vote.

Just another Constitutional Right like the ones the Left is looking to strip our citizens of.

We need more guns! No the narrative hasn't changed. Brilliant.

http://www.breitbart.com/video/2018/02/1...-carry-schools/

I never said we need more guns, you say that.
I say you may not take away our Constitutional Rights under the Second Amendment.

You are not willing to discuss what Constitutional Rights you are willing to give up now are you?

I wasn't responding to you. If it indicates I was responding to you I am not sure why, I thought I simply clicked in the bottom text box.

Just one more thing you got wrong.

None of that matters, just stand up for the damn national anthem because this is the greatest country in the world.

Glad my youngest is in the 9th grade and only has 3 more years left. Hopefully she will get out of HS before utopia sets in and she can go through metal detectors and walk past heavily armed guards on patrol just to get into her [expletive] HIGH SCHOOL. Let's throw in some damn bomb sniffing dogs as well, maybe a 10' barbed wire perimeter fence.. that would surely decrease the amount of anxiety kids suffer from today... I'm sure these kids will think it's great when they look back on "their good ol' days" of being strip searched to get into a high school football game...

Sound like a typical day of high school when I went. So I dunno what you’re tripping about.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High has fences, gates and emergency procedures to keep students safe, but a determined gunman found a way around them.

He came when he knew the gates would be open and set off a fire alarm that would dismantle a safety system, officials say. And the school resource officer, who is supposed to help protect students, may not have been on school grounds at the time.


Accused gunman Nikolas Cruz, who had been expelled from the school for behavioral problems, arrived on campus about 20 minutes before the school day ended.

That’s the time school officials usually open the gates around campus so students and staff parked in various parking lots, as well as school buses and parents picking up their kids, can get out easily, said Jerry Graziose, the district’s former director of school safety.

“During the day, those areas locked. But when you’re getting ready for kids to leave, all the gates in the different areas have to be unlocked, and it takes a few minutes for the person doing that,” Graziose said.

Once a person gets onto campus, they have access to a number of classroom buildings, which are often unlocked so that students can easily get to their classes.


Broward State Attorney says death penalty would be appropriate, but decision to come later

Graziose said a similar dilemma exists at the start of the school day, when large numbers of students are entering campus, and many parents are dropping their kids off.

Once the shooting began, the school went into a procedure known as Code Red, where doors are automatically locked and students and staff are required to stay in their classrooms. But Cruz pulled the fire alarm, which overrides a Code Red, said Lisa Maxwell, executive director of the Broward Principals and Assistants Association.

As a result, doors that would have otherwise remained shut were being opened by students, making it easier for the gunman to find victims, experts say.

Cruz shot victims in seven classrooms in Building 12, a three-story building on the north side of campus, Broward Sheriff’s Office officials say.

Grazioze, who retired from the school district in 2015, said he recommended upgrades to fire alarm systems so that the entire school doesn’t have to evacuate when someone pulls an alarm. He said there have been numerous problems with kids pulling false alarms as pranks.

There are systems available that will give the office 40 seconds to determine whether an emergency is real before sounding a school-wide alarm, Graziose said. The system could also be overhauled so that fire alarm levers are installed only in rooms where large numbers of people gather, such as auditoriums and libraries, rather than in every hallway.

The scene at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where multiple people were killed in a mass shooting.


The district included an $908,000 upgrade to fire alarm systems at Stoneman Douglas as part of the 2014 bond referendum approved by voters. The work was supposed to be completed by 2016, but it was delayed and is now included as part of a $10 million overall renovation to the school. The district expects to hire a vendor in July.

The only person trained and armed to fight back against an assailant at Stoneman Douglas is its one school resource officer, a Broward Sheriff’s deputy funded by the city of Parkland. But Maxwell said she doesn’t think he was on campus when the shooting happened.

“I have been told by a couple of sources that the SRO was either called off campus responding to something happening or it could have been his day off,” she said. “They are stretched very thin.”

Neither BSO nor school district officials responded to requests for comment Thursday about where the officer was at the time. On Friday, Broward Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie said he was told by BSO officials that an officer was at the school but on a different part of campus.

The massacre at Stoneman Douglas, the largest school shooting since Sandy Hook in 2012, is prompting other school districts to review their security plans.


Palm Beach County officials are meeting with the county fire marshal to see “if there is anything we can do differently around fire alarms,” said Donald Fennoy, chief operating officer for that district.

He said the district has temporarily suspended all emergency drills, to avoid making kids feeling anxious.

Fennoy said his district tries to anticipate any potential emergency scenario but there’s no way to guarantee a tragedy won’t occur.

“Our faculty and staff and police officers do a herculean job. But the evidence is very clear if someone is determined to do something, it becomes a challenge, and it causes us a lot of angst,” he said.

Some facts:

Number of children shot in schools since last school shooting = 0

Number of children killed in car accidents since last school shooting = 100+
Number of children horribly and permanently maimed (amputacion, paraplegia, quadriplegia, organ damage, brain damage) = 300+

Number of children killed in car accidents the month before that = 100+
Number of children horrible maimed the month before = 300+

And the month before that, and next week and every week. And the month before that and the month before that and next month and every month. And every day and every year.

I hope you don’t allow your child in a car.

Some of the posts on this thread make me sick.

Nice looking Brick walls surrounding school campuses with 1 gate that has metal detectors you have to go through with 1-2 police officers assigned to said gate would eliminate a lot of school security problems. If you can't afford a police officer then hire an armed security guard.

Just stop making excuses and get it done.

Yes but this is not about the safety of children, it is about the Left looking to limit guns and effect our second amendment rights.

Not long ago they tried the same thing with the first amendment and hate speech. The Supreme Court shot them down stating hate speech, even if you don't like it, is Free Speech.

We must be diligent in protecting our Constitutional Rights from the Left in this Country.

Is he serious?

The safety officer has a day off??? School day is m-f....does the Weekend not count as a day off that they need one during the week too?

The gun hadn't even cooled off before the Left took this tragedy and turned it into the gun issue. It is an election year and they have pounced on it. It should be about the safety of children.

Now that would be funny if it wasn't so tragically ironic.

It's often very difficult for me to tell.
Sometimes he almost comes off as a Colbert Report-styled satirist.

One thing's for sure: he's good for at least one good laugh per day. Whether they are intentional or not- is anybody's guess.

[shrugs]

Well, it certainly wasn't a 'bow & arrow issue,' now was it?
Or a grenade issue.
Or a sarin gas issue.
Or a 'killer car' issue.

Wonder why it was a 'gun issue.'
Hmmmm. That's a real stumper, that is...


You've done better than this in the past.

It is never a gun issue or a car issue or a hammer issue.

It is however a man behind the gun issue, car issue or hammer issue.

Yet approx 3,000 babies per day are murdered in the USA and you could care less.

Numerous missed opportunities to alter Florida shooter's path, records show

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nati...show/349716002/

PARKLAND, Fla. — Long before authorities accused Nikolas Cruz of killing 17 people at his former high school in less than five minutes, state social workers, mental health counselors, school administrators, police and the FBI received warnings about his declining mental state and penchant for violence.

Instead of taking decisive action to help Cruz, authorities left the troubled 19-year-old diagnosed with depression, autism and ADHD to essentially continue on his own down a path that prosecutors say led to the shooting Wednesday at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School with an AR-15 rifle, records obtained by the USA TODAY NETWORK show.

Social workers, mental health counselors and school administrators — the front line of defense for many young adults — documented and dismissed red flags during home visits and school evaluations, the records show.

“Mr. Cruz stated he plans to go out and buy a gun,” an investigator with Florida’s Department of Children and Families wrote in Sept. 28, 2016, four days after he turned 18 and six months before he legally bought the assault rifle. “It is unknown what he is buying the gun for.”

Police visited the family home dozens of times, but there is no indication what action, if any, officers took. As recently as January, the FBI received a tip about Cruz and his "desire to kill people," but the information was never forwarded for investigation, the bureau confirmed Friday.

President Trump denounced the FBI’s error in a late night tweet Saturday, blaming the agency’s ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign.

“Very sad that the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter. This is not acceptable," Trump's tweet read. "They are spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign - there is no collusion. Get back to the basics and make us all proud!”

Cruz’s lawyers plan to fight the death penalty by arguing that the community failed to heed the many warnings.

“Every single red flag was present,” said Broward Public Defender Howard Finkelstein. “If this kid was missed, there is no system.”

After a school shooting, are parents to blame?

Too soon? Students decide we'll talk about guns March 24

After learning Cruz was cutting himself in late 2016 following a breakup with his girlfriend, a DCF investigator became “concerned about the (Cruz) talk about wanting to purchase a gun and feeling depressed,” according to the agency’s investigation records.

Investigators noted his mental health diagnoses, which seemed to manifest in expressions of hate: Nazi symbols on his book bag next to the declaration written with a racial slur, “I hate n-----s.”

A DCF investigator didn’t check for cutting scars on Cruz “because he was wearing long sleeves,” according to the investigator's notes after a home visit.

Lynda Cruz, his mother, assured the DCF investigator that he "doesn't have a gun" and that he was meeting regularly with his mental health counselor.

School staff called Henderson Behavioral Health in Broward County after learning Cruz had cut himself and after a fight he had with another student. An Oct. 7, 2016, note by a DCF investigator indicates a school counselor said "Henderson's Mobile crisis unit had been call out to the school and determined that he was not at risk to harm himself or others."

The Henderson crisis clinician treating Cruz said he found him stable enough not to be hospitalized under Florida’s Baker Act, which allows the state to commit people who pose a threat to themselves or others.

The counselor told the investigators he had Cruz sign "a safety contract and the counseling services are in place at home now and will also continue in school," according to the report.

DCF investigators worried the assessment by the mental health clinic in Broward may be “premature.” But they punted the decision to Henderson.

DCF investigators questioned the family about how consistently Cruz took his medication. The Henderson counselor told them that there are “no issues” and “he has been compliant with taking his medications and keeps all of his appointments.”

The Henderson counselor who treated Cruz said the teen's mother, who died in November, “has always been an attentive mom and followed through with care needs,” DCF investigators wrote in their report.

Cruz declined to talk to the DCF investigator who visited his home and said he “had talked about the situation enough,” according to the report.

A school resource officer stationed at the school “refused to share any information regarding the incident that took place,” according to DCF notes.

The agency ultimately determined his “final level of risk is low.”

The self-mutilation should have been a red flag that DCF pursued more aggressively, said Antonio Sanchez, adjunct professor at Miami-Dade College and former ranking command officer for several police agencies in Miami-Dade County.

"To me, that's shocking,” Sanchez said.

Cruz presented a clear threat to himself and others based on the self-mutilation, a frequent trigger for involuntary commitment, he said.


Had DCF or Henderson counselors committed Cruz, state law could have prevented him from buying the gun.

"What more did they want him to say?” Sanchez said. “As a professional, how many more signs do you need to see before we say, 'We have a serious issue here?’ ”

An administrator at Henderson Behavioral Health declined to answer questions and hung up when contacted for an interview Sunday. The Henderson counselor who treated Cruz did not respond to requests for comment and notes left at his home address.

“Mental health services and supports were in place when this investigation closed,” DCF Secretary Mike Carroll said in a statement issued Saturday.

A judge will determine this week whether to release the department’s records on Cruz.

A communication breakdown among agencies is partially to blame for last week’s tragedy, Broward County Superintendent Robert Runcie said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press." He called for more collaboration among authorities, especially for a pipeline of school records into gun background checks.


“Given what I’ve seen so far, we need a smarter system,” Runcie said

When Cruz bought the gun in February from Sunrise Tactical Supply, state authorities who ran the check had no record of his mental health history or behavior at school.

Cruz has a history of violence at school, according to county disciplinary records obtained by the USA TODAY NETWORK. More than a dozen school officials, teachers and administrators had cited Cruz in at least 41 disciplinary incidents from May 2012 to January 2017.

Cruz was cited time and again for fighting, assaults, profane language, insults, detentions, suspensions, all on top of frequent referrals for threat assessments, family conferences and social work intervention.



Neighbors say his home life was in similar distress. Without giving details, Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said last week his office received about 20 calls in the past few years about Cruz.

That number seemed low to witnesses who say deputies were frequently parked at the Cruz’s, noticeable on such a quiet street.

A neighbor across the street called deputies after seeing Cruz post online about buying guns just after his 18th birthday — around the same time of the DCF investigation.

“They told us they checked it out,” said Dave Brugman, 59. “You can’t watch him every day.”

Brugman got extra security installed around his house after he suspected Cruz poisoned his dog in the dark hours of the night at least three different times. He also thinks Cruz put a brick through his car window on one occasion.


Yeah let's blame the NRA.

From thee article I posted above...

Actually my FB feed filled up with "Don't blame the gun" posts and memes a lot faster than it did with posts advocating FOR gun control...


It should be, but it's not.. too many people don't care how many children die as long as they get to go play Johnny Rambo on Saturday and blow stuff up from a couple hundred yards away... you know, in case they ever have to stand in the way of the 1st Marine Division or something..

Shame the SYSTEM missed all the signs of the shooter being unstable, had they had done their jobs Johny Rambo would not even be mentioned.

and to many people don't care how many babies are ripped to pieces as long as they can call it abortion instead of m urder.

So when and how do you know when someone is actually unstable enough to commit such an act? What exactly would someone have to do to put him in an institution to prevent him from committing such an act?

I mean I'm all for it if you can actually figure that out. Then of course you would actually have to fund mental healthcare enough to take care of all these people.

You have always opposed the idea of protecting our kids with armed guards and now more are dead.
Be proud.

Sadly, the system didn't miss all the signs.

The FBI was warned/alerted - and has admitted to not following up.

The state social services agency/agencies had investigate.

The local police were notified numerous times, and were called to the house many times as well.

I do believe (and I might be wrong here. If I am, forgive me) that the cruz kid was on medication for mental issues?

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/soc...uz-2016-n849221

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...uz-receive.html