The Great Smoky Mountain Journal
Source:
Tuesday, January 01, 2019 02:38 PM
Commanding High School Security Official At Marjory Stoneman Douglas Ordered To Stand Down Against Cruz
“It’s atrocious,” a law enforcement source who was on the scene after the shooting told Fox News. “If deputies were staging it could have cost lives.”
The law enforcement source said responding deputies and officers were called to an active shooter scene in which they are trained to immediately “go, go, go” toward the direction of the shooter. “Every second is another life,” the source said.
The Broward County Sherrif’s Office policy on active shooters indicates responding deputies may enter the building to preserve life without permission. That remains the priority until various objectives are met such as the shooter being detained. The policy does not appear to list staging -- setting up an area to keep first responders safe before police secure a violent scene -- or a perimeter as an immediate priority.
However, two law enforcement officials said the call for staging or a perimeter might not have been a bad call because staging and a perimeter eventually has to happen during most emergency situations and the commanding officer might have had information the rest of the crews did not.
Fox News spoke to Carla Kmiotek, a sergeant for the Coral Springs Fire Department who said she was one of the first responding officers to the scene on February 14. Kmiotek says an active shooter call is “multifaceted when discussing tactics and scene command. Our officers are trained to respond and immediately press to the threat.”
However, Kmiotek said, “Setting up a perimeter and incident command is a necessary element of the response... determined from the intelligence known as the event is unfolding.”
