FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. _ The Florida state commission investigating the Parkland massacre will consider recommending a series of quick fixes to strengthen school security, such as guarding all open gates and training teachers in emergency procedures.
A 99-page draft list of recommendations put forward by individual commission members includes ambitious proposals such as equipping schools with bulletproof glass, requiring live video surveillance monitoring and rewriting federal student-privacy law to make it easier for schools to share information with law enforcement agencies.
But Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, chairman of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission, said the initial focus will be on things that can be done quickly, cheaply and without major changes to the law.
"We have to accept that we can't prevent another one of these," he said. "It is going to happen again. The question is when and where, and the ultimate question is what have we done and implemented as quickly as we can to mitigate the harm? Because the reality is you're not going to prevent this. What we should be focused on are the most doable, and the most doable are those that require little or no cost, no law or code changes and are within the authority of the decision-makers to implement relatively easily."
The commission's hearings on the Feb. 14 shooting revealed several points at which catastrophe might have been averted, or at least minimized.
Nikolas Cruz, an expelled student with a well-known fascination with violence, walked through an open, unguarded gate. A staffer spotted his rifle bag but failed to call a Code Red, a general alarm that would have locked down the campus.
The lone sheriff's deputy at the school took cover as Cruz started shooting and stayed there the entire time.
Frantic students and parents who called 911 found themselves placed on hold, transferred and required to explain the situation again. Sheriff's deputies and supervisors couldn't communicate, as heavy traffic overwhelmed their radio system. By the time it was over, 17 people were dead and 17 wounded.
The commission, composed of law enforcement officers, public officials and parents of children killed in the attack, is required to complete an initial report to the governor and state Legislature. It will hold its final hearings of the year Dec. 12-13 in Tallahassee, where it will approve its report.
Here are recommendations being considered by the commission:
