New Report Reveals Yet Another Tragic Screw Up Made by Broward Sheriff's Office in Parkland Shooting
A new report from the Miami Herald has revealed that the Broward Sheriff’s office refused to allow local paramedics to enter Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School during the shooting that took place on Valentine’s Day.
The captain in charge of the scene, Jan Jordan, was the one who refused to grant the paramedics permission to enter the school and attend to the wounded.
A total of 17 people were murdered in the incident by crazed gunman Nikolas Cruz, whose sole motive it seems, was to become famous.
The Herald reports, “Michael McNally, deputy chief for Coral Springs fire-rescue, asked six times for permission to send in specialized teams of police officers and paramedics, according to an incident report he filed.” McNally wanted two Rescue Task Force (RTF) teams that were each comprised of three paramedics and three to four law enforcement officers to enter, but he said Jordan turned him down. He wrote in the report, “The [BSO] incident commander advised me, ‘She would have to check.’ After several minutes, I requested once again the need to deploy RTF elements into the scene to … initiate treatment as soon as possible. Once again, the incident commander expressed that she ‘would have to check before approving this request.’”
The Herald adds, “Even after the shooter had been arrested, the answer remained the same.” The Herald notes that RTF teams are designed to allow paramedics to treat victims protected by police when a shooter has been pinned down or fled but has not necessarily been captured.
SWAT medics did enter the building; there has not been information as to what the number of medics was.
Although the paramedics were denied entry because the authorities were unaware of the whereabouts of the shooter and didn’t want to endanger the paramedics, Coral Springs Fire Chief Frank Babinec stated on Thursday, “I’m not saying the [RTFs] would have made a difference and I’m not saying they wouldn’t have made a difference, but it would have been more medics and more hands helping out.”
It’s understandable why this particular call was made, to a point, but it truly is impossible to say whether or not their presence would’ve helped or not, but if you have an opportunity to potentially save the lives of innocent people, you take it. Period.
At the end of the day, the Broward sheriff office made a lot of mistakes in how they handled this situation. Hopefully this will all serve as a learning experience and these folks and other departments around the country won’t repeat the same failures.
Source: The Daily Wire
