Coward County newspaper slams Parkland police response with timeline.

quote:

---

Failures by the Broward County Sheriff’s Office and school district cost children their lives at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

A gunman with an AR-15 fired the bullets, but a series of blunders, bad policies, sketchy training and poor leadership helped him succeed. Information reported over 10 months by the South Florida Sun Sentinel reveals 58 minutes of chaos on campus marked by no one taking charge, deputies dawdling, false information spreading, communications paralyzed and children stranded with nowhere to hide....

A campus watchman has a chance to stop gunman Nikolas Cruz before any blood is shed. But he doesn't do it...

Medina is the first of three school employees who fail to call for a school lockdown after learning a gunman is on campus....

McKenna runs from the building and informs Aaron Feis, a football coach and campus monitor, that there is someone with a gun.

There is no evidence that Feis, who has a radio, calls a Code Red...

Taylor, the campus monitor, hears gunshots and races up to the second floor. He ducks into a janitor's closet. Taylor has a radio but does not call a Code Red....

The first 911 caller tells a Coral Springs operator that there's a shooter at the school. Gunshots are heard in the background...

Broward County's disjointed 911 system slows the law enforcement response.

Because the first 911 call is from a cellphone, it goes to the city of Coral Springs. But the Sheriff's Office handles police calls for neighboring Parkland, so the Coral Springs operator must waste precious minutes transferring the call to the Sheriff's Office....

Peterson finally arrives on the east side of Building 12. He draws his gun, but he fails to go inside the building.

Over his police radio he says he can hear firecrackers or "possible shots fired" in Building 12. The statement conflicts with his later account: that he was unsure where the sounds were coming from...

Deputy Peterson, over his radio, orders a school lockdown instead of ordering deputies toward the building. He remains safely outside....

More deputies hang back — even though they can hear the gunshots...

Since Columbine, officers are taught to rush toward gunshots and neutralize the killer. But the first Broward deputies don’t rush in.

Broward Sheriff Scott Israel later reveals that he personally changed department policy to say that deputies “may” instead of “shall” rush in...

Miller is among eight armed deputies now at the school. All hear gunshots, but none rush to Building 12 to look for the killer...

Cruz takes off his rifle vest, drops his AR-15 in a stairwell, heads down the stairs, darts out of the building and runs across campus — all while police think he's still inside.

A few seconds later, Peterson, still hiding southeast of Building 12, tells deputies over the radio to stay at least 500 feet away from the building.

The warning is one of at least two times a Broward deputy urges another officer to protect themselves, not confront the killer....

---