Parkland shooting commission describes school security lapses, police missteps

[DonViejo]

By Mark Berman andLaura Meckler December 12 at 5:24 PM

The massacre of 17 students and staff inside a Parkland, Fla., high school earlier this year was marked by security lapses at the school and failures by multiple law enforcement officers to respond appropriately to the carnage, according to a draft report from a state commission investigating the shooting.

This report, which is not final, detailed myriad issues that occurred before, during and after the attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, including unlocked entrances allowing the attacker to get inside, sheriff’s deputies who did not rush in to confront the shooter and confusion among students, staff and law enforcement officials. The grim collection of missteps related to the Feb. 14 massacre includes many failures in school security that experts say are typical of situations in schools nationwide.

“The omissions that were in Parkland, sadly, could be found in the great majority of public secondary schools across the country,” said Joe Eradi, a safety consultant who was superintendent in Newtown, Conn., following the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

A public safety commission — which was charged with finding and addressing “system failures” the massacre exposed — is scheduled to discuss its findings during meetings in Tallahassee on Wednesday and Thursday. A final report is due to the governor on Jan. 1.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/12/12/parkland-shooting-commission-finds-security-failures-improper-law-enforcement-responses-rampage/

[Saboburns]

1. And there will always be.

There will always be lapses in 'school security'. Hell, there's a sizable percentage of schools that have no 'school security'.

There will always be 'police missteps' in school shootings. My town, population 1,000, has our county's lone High School of 800 students. Our town police force consists of 4 part time police officers the police chief is the mayor with zero police training. I don't count on this police force for much, not many do. We have a state police detachment with 6 Troopers, a Commander and an Asst. Commander. This bunch is professional. However its my feeling that since we get only a handful of shootings every decade, mistakes are damn near gaurenteed.

Sadly school security, and police response to them have improved 10 fold the past 20 years. We have so many cases to study and learn from you see.

Relying on police and school security seems thin damn gruel to me. Reminds me of a coastal city whose Hurricane plan is "evacuate everybody", full stop. Because it's not realistic and never will be. I don't profess to know how to stop, or even lessen, school shootings. I don't know how long the list has to be to be successful, but I'm damn sure that list has more than two items.

[struggle4progress]

2. "There must be a simple way to protect ourselves from all these crazy people with guns!

Oh, if only we could find it! Maybe we need more locked doors everywhere? Maybe we need more suicidal law enforcement officers? Maybe we need more people with guns? I'm sure we can figure this out!"