Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. {Photo by Sharon Aron Baron.}
By Anne Geggis
Florida Politics
Conditions that contributed to 58 minutes of chaos at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School — and students bleeding out on classroom floors — still exist today, a school safety panel heard Tuesday.
Four and a half years after the tragedy that left 17 people dead at the Parkland school, Broward County Sheriff Gregory Tony said the way things are now — as they were when bullets flew — Coral Springs police would be on the other end of the line if an MSD student called 911 to report an emergency.
The fact that Coral Springs has its own emergency 911 system that requires transferring calls to Broward County’s 911 system is believed to have been a key reason precious minutes were lost in getting help to the wounded at the scene of Florida’s worst school shooting.
There have been attempts to integrate the two systems, but it hasn’t happened, Tony told the panel.
“Four and a half years later, and it’s still not fixed,” said Commission member Max Schachter, whose 14-year-old son, Alex, died in the carnage. “That’s extremely frustrating.”
In the wake of the tragedy in 2018, there was some discussion of Coral Springs joining the county’s system, but that has since dissolved, and the system is on the brink of fracturing further. Coconut Creek is in the process of leaving Broward County’s 911 system and joining Coral Springs’ emergency system.
Tony said there’s only so much he can do. It really has to do with the relations between Broward County and Coral Springs.
“I have the authority to do what I need to do to fix BSO, which has been fixed and rectified,” Tony said. “The problem is when you’re trying to breach connections and partnerships with other organizations that have their own independence.”
The Sun-Sentinel reported this spring, however, that the 911 Broward County Broward County dispatch was understaffed to the point that calls for help were not answered.
An air of incredulity hung over the proceedings Tuesday, so much so that Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri wanted to understand what he just heard.
“So today, four and a half years later, if a kid in Stoneman Douglas High School today picks up their cell phone and calls 911, where’s that going?”
Tony said the call would go to Coral Springs, instead of the agency serving Parkland.
“It would make sense that we get this final element executed so that the calls are being transferred to the right spot, but I can only control so much,” Tony said.
Tony’s report was on the agenda as the Commission named in honor of the school shooting met in Sunrise Tuesday. The Commission was established in the wake of the 2018 tragedy to analyze school safety data to keep another incident from happening again.
Tony’s report was on the agenda as the Commission named in honor of the school shooting met in Sunrise Tuesday. The Commission was established in the wake of the 2018 tragedy to analyze school safety data to keep another incident from happening again. This past Session included legislation extending the Commission’s charge into 2026.
This article was originally published by Florida Politics and reprinted with permission.
