Incompetence and the Florida School Shooting--Can It Get Any Worse?

Glenn Reynolds published an op-ed in USA Today that pretty well sums up how the government failed at every level when it came to the Parkland school shooting. Reynolds thesis is, as he states: 

          The chief problem facing America today is the decline of its institutions, coupled with the denial of that decline by the people in charge of its institutions. 

         The latest example of this problem is the Parkland school shooting in Florida. From the FBI, to local law enforcement, to the schools, everyone failed. There was failure early, there was failure in the middle, and there was failure late. And no one has taken responsibility.

Just some examples:

• The Miami Herald lists 9 times law enforcement was warned about Cruz's desire to shoot up a school--9 times in just two years! One of those forewarned was the school resource officer, Scot Peterson.
• And as we know, four Broward County Sheriff deputies hid during the shooting, including the school resource officer, Scot Peterson, who was already at the school! Peterson waited outside the school for 4 of the 6 minutes that Cruz used in his shooting spree. Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel, meanwhile, refuses to take any responsibility for the actions of his subordinates:

“I gave him a gun. I gave him a badge. I gave him the training,” Sheriff Israel told an NBC6 South Florida reporter in a video interview tweeted by Erika Glover. “If he didn’t have the heart to go in, that’s not my responsibility.”

• Although Cruz was long gone by the time EMS arrived on the scene, paramedics were not allowed to enter the building. 

       An anonymous first responder spoke to a WSVN-TV reporter about what he saw when he arrived to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14 — the day that 17 innocent people were murdered by a lone gunman.

        The EMT, who was too scared to give his name, shared a jaw-dropping account that provides context to reports that have already established the botched response to the active shooter situation.

       According to the first responder, everything about the response was completely botched.

        Everything I was trained on mass casualty events says they did the wrong thing,” he explained. “You don’t wait for the scene to be cleared. You go in immediately armed. Retrieve the victims. You can’t leave the victims laying there.”

        “We were asking to go in. Asking the scene commander to go in. Why are we all standing around? Why are we not having patients to treat? Why are we not going into the building and retrieving these kids? The response every time was law enforcement did not clear the scene and would not allow medical personnel to go in,” he added.

       The EMS worker believes that if he and other medical responders were allowed to enter the building as soon as they arrived, they could have saved more lives. He explained he was willing to risk his life to save the lives of others and was very frustrated over the situation.

• Part of the delay in allowing EMS into the building may have been because the security video system at the school was not showing video from cameras real time, but was on a 26-minute delay, and officers were not initially aware of the fact. 

        “Nobody told us,” Coral Springs Police Chief Tony Pustizzi told the Sun Sentinel, which first reported the tape delay.

         But McKeone, one of the responding officers, said the delay did not hinder access to the victims.

       “It had no delay. It didn’t slow us down to getting us to anybody,” McKeone told CNN.

       The main difference, he said, was that officers thought they were going to confront the gunman.

      In reality, the shooter had already left Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.

     “I expected to be in a gunbattle,” McKeone said.

Well, there was one person who should have known about the settings on the security video, and that would have been the school resource officer, Scot Peterson. Perhaps investigators ought to start looking at whether Peterson might have been an accessory to Cruz's attack.

Meanwhile, consider this. Broward County Sheriff Steve Israel said during a CNN town hall this past Wednesday that he doesn’t agree with the idea of arming teachers. “I don't believe teachers should be armed. I believe teachers should teach,” Israel said. Yet, just a few years ago, his department helped train local Muslims to provide their own security at Mosques. From an article published by Fusion entitled "Muslims and guns: A community under threat considers its options." From the article:

         I'm shooting you, and I’m killing you,” Nezar Hamze told a crowd of over 100 Muslims sprawled across the carpet of a mosque. He pointed two fake blue plastic guns at the attendees and their children. “Everyone is just looking at what I’m doing, and I’m still shooting you,” he yelled.

         Hamze, a Broward County Sheriff’s Office deputy, practicing Muslim, and regional operations director for CAIR, was leading an active shooter training for the Tampa-area Daarus Salaam Mosque. The goal: to help worshipers understand how they can better protect their loved ones and their mosque from Islamophobic shooters.

         “When someone walks through that door, they don’t want to debate. They want to kill you,” Hamze explained. This year, 13 CAIR-sponsored active shooter trainings have been held in mosques across Florida, the only state to have done so, a CAIR representative said.

          As part of a comprehensive safety plan, he urged mosque leaders to put together a safety and security council, consisting of members who have concealed carry permits who are on the site at all times. Attendees should also consider buying guns for themselves and their homes, he suggested.

          A man in the crowd asked if being a Muslim gun owner might send the wrong message to the world, in a time where Muslims everywhere are acutely aware of being stereotyped as being violent.

          “Are you gonna be more worried about that, or are you gonna be worried about protecting your family?” Hamze responded. “The minute we start thinking past that, we lose.”

           The broader message Hamze was trying to get across was that Muslim-Americans need to step out of the “victim mentality,” and start using their rights to protect themselves—including the right to defend their loved ones by force if necessary—though he underscored the fact that guns should only be used defensively.

          “This is the reality we’re living in right now,” Hamze said. “Everything is coming to a boiling point because we’re coming out into the open.”

 So, Muslims arming themselves to protect Mosques against a theoretical danger is okay, but arming teachers or administrators is not.