Texas School Shooting

[Metal god]

The devil is in the details really . This type of program if ran with no political motivations can help kids a lot . In my case if I had been suspended or any other type of punishment that caused me to miss school . I would have been left behind never to catch up .

Remember these are likely kids that don't want to be in school or don't have the drive to do well in school for what ever reason . If you remove them from the school for a given time , then reintroduce them back into that same school . They are now behind the rest of the class . So you now have a kid that does not work hard at there schooling that now needs to work even harder then before just to catch up . Depending on there support system that task can now be unreachable . I speak from experience here , I'm not going to get into my specifics but trust me I know of what I speak .

It becomes what appears to the kid an impossible undertaking so they don't even try anymore . I'll admit in my case it was my unwillingness to try my hardest likely because I just didn't care . Remember I'm 13 & 14 years old , not really having a grasp on what's best for my future . This ultimately results in my dropping out of school . I was truly lucky my family had there own business and shortly after dropping out I was working 40yrs a week . If I had not had that outlet who knows what would have happened . Having a job where others counted on me to further there's taught me maybe more then any schooling at the time could have . I later became a single father and that changed me for the better even more .

My over all point here is that I understand the idea of that type of program , but they only work if 1) the school or whom ever follows through with the kid , 2) the kid puts in the work which in some cases means #1 needs to be pushed hard .

Anyways if done "right" ( and I don't know what that is exactly ) those types of programs can help IMHO .

 

[Aguila Blanca]

What I read about it says it is a diversion program for misdemeanors. You are saying it is not? I'd be interested in reading more on that. If the shooter in Florida was a felon that would have prevented him from a retail sale of rifle.

In order for a program to apply to misdemeanors, it is first necessary that the offenses be classified as misdemeanors. Articles I've read (more than one) said that a major aspect of this program was to down-grade the classification of serious offenses to less serious charges. But they also declassified criminal misdemeanor offenses into non-criminal issues so they didn't have to be referred to the criminal justice system at all.

Sorry, at this point I can't provide many links. This all came out within a week or two after the shooting, so that was over three months ago. Here's one:

https://www.americanthinker.com/art...rd_county_solution_cost_17_student_lives.html

One particular motivation behind programs like Broward County's was the pressure from multiple sources to reduce the statistical disparity between black and Hispanic student arrests on one hand and white and Asian student arrests on the other. Benzing writes, for instance, how a Denver organization called "Padres & Jóvenes Unidos" successfully advocated for a program like Broward's to help achieve "racial and education equity" in Denver schools.

By virtue of his name alone, Nikolas de Jesús Cruz, the adopted son of Lynda and Roger Cruz, became a statistical Hispanic. As such, authorities at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland had every reason not to report his troubling and likely criminal behavior to the police.

Of course, there's a fundamental problem with any program that achieves improvements not by improving anything, but by fudging the numbers. It starts by reducing the classification of minor incidents. The program "demonstrates" improvement. Now the pressure is on to continue improving. Since the improvements were only accomplished by downgrading minor incidents, the next year they have to downgrade somewhat more serious incidents in order to maintain the illusion of continued improvement. And the next year they have to downgrade even more serious incidents ... and so it goes, until the whole house of cards collapses because it was an unsustainable concept from the outset.

This exact progression was discussed in some of the articles I read at the time.

 

[Metal god]

A doctor friend of mine and I were talking about scewed statistics and he brought up one he’s dealing with in his practice. He says the insurance companies have statistics of every doctor in what they diagnose , how they treat , how much they treat etc . All that info is compiled and broke down into state and local averages .

So lets say he treats a patient for problem x 6 times but the state average is 3 times . He’ll get a call asking to explain why and that he needs to get his treatments for that condition down to the average. When he asked if they called the doctors that had below the averge treatments he was told no only the doctors that were above the average . He then tried to explain to them what they were doing by not asking the doctors with lower amount of treatments to treat more to get to the state average . They were ultimately forcing the average down by only asking the doctors that treat there patients more for the same problem to reduce the amout of treatments they do . By doing so you will eventually end up at zero he tried to explain but the rep could not or would not understand what he was saying .

We can go on and on about how people manipulate stats . Like the semi recent one to change the definition of mass shooting from 4 or more people killed in one incident to now only 3 is needed to be killed to qualify as a mass shooting . Then the anti’s show these stats how mass shooting are on the rise . I’d like to know statistically how many more “official” mass shooting we have now that number had changed .

 

[MTT TL]

Near as I can tell the only felonies that Cruz could have been charged with were cyber stalking and stealing mail. Cyber stalking is incredibly difficult to prove beyond reasonable doubt. Theft of mail is a Federal crime and almost never prosecuted.

His only on campus foray in to the PROMISE program was for vandalism. This is nearly always a misdemeanor.

The man had dozens of warning signs, the sheriff's department failed, the FBI failed, the school failed even his victims prior to the shooting failed by not prosecuting him or bearing witness for his other crimes.

Cruz was clearly warming up to shooting people once he started his cruelty to animals and shooting them for no reason. This is a classic step. A lot of failure to act in that case.

Blaming the school solely seems a bit over the top. There is plenty of failure to go around. I however see nothing legally that could have been done, other than prosecuting him for his various crimes, most of which took place off campus and then sending him to jail. From jail it would have been much more difficult to commit mass murder.

 

[Blacktimberwolf]

Yes, that's your problem, try to get a gun in Germany and you can be sure they will notice your crime record and your health. We had only two shootings with legal guns in twenty years. You have every few weeks a shooting. The only thing your Trump says is : "we feel with the victims", that don't help anything.

 

[rickyrick]

We have shootings every day of every hour, we just don’t have police on every corner like other “free” countries have. We have laws against criminals and the mentally ill getting guns.
There’s no one around to stop it, only to investigate in most cases. Heck, the police where I live have completely stopped enforcement of traffic laws. I haven’t seen a patrol car in a couple of weeks and I live in the city.
They can’t be there when a criminal passes a gun to another criminal.

 

[5whiskey]

Schools try their darndest to under-report crime, in any circumstance. This has been going on for decades. The Clery act of 1986 required that all colleges have to release a public report of campus crime data. NO college wants to have high crime statistics, so there is immense pressure by many college administrations to attempt to fudge the statistics. I have personally seen an effort to influence a reported theft victim into believing that maybe they just lost the item, despite their insistence that they knew the item was stolen. Same thing with sexual assaults and other offenses.

Heck, police departments do it too to skew the UCR the FBI puts out. I know for a fact that some agencies have, in time past, told homeowners that there was no hope for recovering their property since they didn't have a list of serial numbers (which is true). Said agency would allow officers to continue to tell homeowners that filing a police report is useless since recovering the property is impossible. When victims insisted on a report, they were at times given a damage to property report for the broken window or door instead of a B&E report. It caught up with the agency when a lot of homeowner's insurance claims were denied because the police reports didn't indicate that there was a burglary. That game worked ok for poor renters in the "not good" part of town that didn't have any kind of homeowners or renters insurance... but it caught up when they started doing that with everyone.

While I have a knee-jerk reaction against skewing statistics for racial reasons at schools, it's been done many times before for a variety of other reasons. I would be okay with something like the PROMISE program, but I think the kids need to get that criminal charge in the beginning and then have to complete the program to get it expunged. That's how you get someone to put in the work to actually improve themselves... offer hope to resolve the issue if they actually change behavior, not just give it up front and hope they change the behavior (news flash... they won't).

 

[Metal god]

You can't compare one countries gun laws to another and think you're comparing apples to apples . The laws start with the/a constitution . Unless country A has the same constitution as country B . Comparing any of each others laws is moot . There are to many other neonist parts of the laws that give right to other parts that you can't compare one country to another . In the US we don't need a permit or permission to own a gun because we have the RKBA . We don't have to show why we should be able to own a gun . The burden is on the government to show why we can't . I don't but am guessing in Germany the people have to ask to own a gun first then is granted permission to do so ????

If that's accurate are two gun laws come from two completely different places .

 

[MTT TL]

Heck, police departments do it too to skew the UCR the FBI puts out. I know for a fact that some agencies have, in time past, told homeowners that there was no hope for recovering their property since they didn't have a list of serial numbers (which is true). Said agency would allow officers to continue to tell homeowners that filing a police report is useless since recovering the property is impossible. When victims insisted on a report, they were at times given a damage to property report for the broken window or door instead of a B&E report. It caught up with the agency when a lot of homeowner's insurance claims were denied because the police reports didn't indicate that there was a burglary. That game worked ok for poor renters in the "not good" part of town that didn't have any kind of homeowners or renters insurance... but it caught up when they started doing that with everyone.

Never heard of such a thing. So um, how do these people get paid on their insurance without a police report or one that is done improperly and not show the stolen items? Eh, never mind this sounds like rumor and innuendo to me.

Where did we get off on a tangent of colleges and other places? I am just curious about this "program" that under reports crimes committed by students at Parkland; If such a program does in fact exist. That would imply some culpability.

Also I did notice that two of the security monitors from the Florida school were suspended yesterday including the one that called the SRO to let him know the shooter was in campus. That is a curious turn of events.

 

[5whiskey]

Never heard of such a thing. So um, how do these people get paid on their insurance without a police report or one that is done improperly and not show the stolen items? Eh, never mind this sounds like rumor and innuendo to me.

It is not. And reading comprehension would also answer your insurance question. The answer is... insurance claims were denied! That's how it all came out.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

You can't compare one countries gun laws to another and think you're comparing apples to apples . The laws start with the/a constitution . Unless country A has the same constitution as country B . Comparing any of each others laws is moot . There are to many other neonist parts of the laws that give right to other parts that you can't compare one country to another . In the US we don't need a permit or permission to own a gun because we have the RKBA . We don't have to show why we should be able to own a gun . The burden is on the government to show why we can't . I don't but am guessing in Germany the people have to ask to own a gun first then is granted permission to do so ????

Of course we can compare one country's gun laws against others. Why not? Regardless of what constitution the laws exist under, they are the laws in that country, and it's instructive to look at how different countries approach the issue. In fact, for a couple or three years the on-line magazine of The M1911 Pistols Organization (M1911.org) has been running a series of articles laying out the gun laws of as many countries as they can get accurate information on. You can find it here:

https://ezine.m1911.org//forum.php

Disclaimer: I know the owner of M1911.org.

Secondly: as always, we cannot generalize.

In the US we don't need a permit or permission to own a gun because we have the RKBA . We don't have to show why we should be able to own a gun . The burden is on the government to show why we can't .

You're overlooking the fact that a number of states have a requirement for a firearms owners identification card (FOID) before you can buy a gun. Also, the RKBA includes the 'B' -- "bear." Yet a majority of the 50 states still require a license or permit to carry, many of those states are "may issue" rather than "shall issue," and in a few the permits exist primarily on paper and not in the wild (New Jersey, Hawaii). Good for you if you're fortunate enough to live in a free state, but don't fall into the trap of thinking it's the same everywhere.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

Where did we get off on a tangent of colleges and other places? I am just curious about this "program" that under reports crimes committed by students at Parkland; If such a program does in fact exist. That would imply some culpability.

The existence of the program is not in question. It has been documented and widely reported. Even Superintendent Runcie has acknowledged it, although he does his best to downplay the effects. I already gave you a link to one article discussing it -- see post #142. You can use Google to find numerous other articles.

[Edit to add] Found another one for you: http://www.independentsentinel.com/progressive-school-discipline-added-failures-nikolas-cruzs-case/

Also I did notice that two of the security monitors from the Florida school were suspended yesterday including the one that called the SRO to let him know the shooter was in campus. That is a curious turn of events.

Link to reports on this development?

 

[thallub]

Link to reports on this development?

Andrew Medina failed to stop shooter Nikolas Cruz, question him or lock down the school. He instead radioed ahead to warn fellow monitor David Taylor that a suspicious kid was headed his way.


When Taylor heard the gunfire erupt in the 1200 building where he was, he hid in a janitor’s closet.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/b...hooting-medina-reassigned-20180606-story.html

 

[Aguila Blanca]

Hmmm ...

It was unfathomable, Pollack said, that Medina, 39, failed to call a “Code Red,” which would have signaled a threat inside the building and kept students behind locked doors.

“All he had to say was ‘Code Red.’ Two words … those two words and he didn’t call it and 17 people are dead because of it,” Pollack said.

Medina told detectives on the day of the shooting that he didn’t call a Code Red because he had been trained not to do so unless he saw a gun or witnessed the shooting for himself.

That actually doesn't sound particularly wrong. Calling a Code Red if there's no gun would be like yelling "Fire" in a crowded theater when there's no fire. Why generate a panic over a potentially false alarm?

After listening to the interview, I'm less satisfied with the actions of the second "security monitor." Granted, apparently they were "monitors" (meaning "eyes"), not security guards as was initially reported, but their training (probably provided by the Broward County Sheriff's office, and likely by Scot Peterson, the discredited SRO) was seemingly suspect. We haven't heard Coach Taylor's version, but Medina told the detectives that when Taylor heard the gunfire he locked himself in a janitor's closet "as we were trained to do."

Somehow, I don't think the intent of the training was for the security monitor to save his own hide by locking himself into a place where nobody knew where he was, and that would hold only himself. I suspect the intent of "lock down" training was to get the students into the classrooms and to lock the classroom doors.

All in all, every bit of additional information that comes out about Parkland points to a monumental institutional failure. It was a classic demonstration of Murphy's Law at work: "Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong."

 

[Metal god]

Sorry should have been more clear . You are correct we can compare . My point was that as countries laws differ so does the ability to regulate . To point out Australia's gun laws and how they work or don't work is pointless if you live in the US . Those types of laws "can't" ( choke cough ) happen here . So pointing out how well a law works in one country that in theory can't happen in another is a waist of time because the approach as you say is completely different , the US constitution does not allow for the same restrictions . It's not like the US has a choice to have free speech , RKBA etc , it's built in to the foundation . You have to look at the laws all the way to there foundation to then truly compare . If they didn't start from the same place and can never get to the same place they're really not all that comparable .

There's probably not a lot of mass shootings in North Korea . Do we really want to compare one country to another ? It matters what the foundation is that allows any country to control there firearms .

 

[MTT TL]

The existence of the program is not in question. It has been documented and widely reported. Even Superintendent Runcie has acknowledged it, although he does his best to downplay the effects. I already gave you a link to one article discussing it -- see post #142. You can use Google to find numerous other articles.

[Edit to add] Found another one for you: http://www.independentsentinel.com/p...as-cruzs-case/

That is a whole lot of speculation and "not been disclosed" and "might have" and not much else.

I am not saying you are wrong, just saying that we don't positively know enough about it. I imagine discovery during a civil trial will be a wonder.

When Taylor heard the gunfire erupt in the 1200 building where he was, he hid in a janitor’s closet.

So my question here is obvious. If the DOJ recommended way of dealing with an active shooter is "Run, hide, fight" why is he in trouble? Looks like he was following his training.

Somehow, I don't think the intent of the training was for the security monitor to save his own hide by locking himself into a place where nobody knew where he was, and that would hold only himself. I suspect the intent of "lock down" training was to get the students into the classrooms and to lock the classroom doors.

I don't know how they expected him to do that seeing how he was unarmed and dude was running around shooting as many as he could with a center fire semi-auto rifle. The expectation that an unarmed hall monitor with practically no training should step up is a bad one.

But for the SRO? Failure.

Complete and total abysmal failure.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

That is a whole lot of speculation and "not been disclosed" and "might have" and not much else.

I am not saying you are wrong, just saying that we don't positively know enough about it. I imagine discovery during a civil trial will be a wonder.

How many articles did you read? Just what I provided links to? Beginning just a couple of days after the shooting, there was a LOT of coverage of this program. I read numerous articles, but I didn't save them or bookmark them. You can Google them up yourself if you care to remove your doubts.

 

[thallub]

Anyone who gives a hoot about this school shooting should read the collaborative agreement that school superintendent Runcie and sheriff Israel entered into.

Broward county and officials of the state of Florida entered into an agreement to forgive infractions committed by certain students. Look at the signatories to the Broward County collaborative agreement.

Non-Violent Misdemeanors include, but are not limited to:

Disrupting or Interfering with a School Function;
Affray;
Theft of less than $300;
Vandalism of less than $1,000;
Disorderly Conduct;
Trespassing;
Criminal Mischief;
Gambling;
Loitering or Prowling;
Harassment;
Incidents relating to Alcohol;
Possession of Cannabis (misdemeanor amount only);
Possession of Drug Paraphernalia;
Threats;6 and
Obstructing Justice without Violence.

http://www.ncjfcj.org/sites/default...tive Agreement on School Discipline - MOU.pdf

i have numerous friends who are school teachers. Politically motivated hacks who enter into these types of agreements could care less that disruptive students interfere with the learning experience of other students.

 

[MTT TL]

That actually doesn't sound particularly wrong. Calling a Code Red if there's no gun would be like yelling "Fire" in a crowded theater when there's no fire. Why generate a panic over a potentially false alarm?

He did call the Code when the shooting started. Since baby killer had a shotgun he likely would have been able to make entry to locked doors anyway. Once he set off the fire alarm people were running out in a General Panic either way.

This brings up another good point. What to do when an actual fire breaks out during an active shooting? These murderers often bring explosives and incendiary devices. Tracers can start fires too in common building materials.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

This brings up another good point. What to do when an actual fire breaks out during an active shooting? These murderers often bring explosives and incendiary devices.

This is true, and how to balance security with notification and evacuation requirements of fire codes is a major conundrum facing both school security professionals and the architects and code officials who deal with trying to design schools to be as safe as possible in the face of any eventuality. There are task forces at work right now that are wrestling with that issue.

Tracers can start fires too in common building materials.

Not in schools. Schools have to be constructed of non-combustible materials. Building and fire codes even set limits on how much of the [non-combustible] wall surfaces can be covered by paper (bulletin boards, art work, etc.). Fires in schools almost always involve the building contents, not the building materials.