Editor’s note: Some details and photographs in this article may be triggers for anyone with PTSD or who has been exposed to traumatic situations.
A week before the first day of school for Broward County students, deputies rushed down a hallway inside Boyd H. Anderson High School with replica guns drawn as the sound of fake gunshots and students shouting for help and groaning in imagined pain echoed off the walls.
Broward Sheriff’s Office School Resource Officers were acting out their response to an active school shooter with their first priority being to “eliminate (the suspect) as soon as possible” and to treat the injured, Sheriff Gregory Tony told reporters on Monday afternoon in Lauderdale Lakes. The drill is designed to “induce the highest level of stress” possible on the deputies so they can act effectively in reality, he said.
The jarring, chaotic drill has become a routine part of preparing for each new school year in Broward County, where a gunman in 2018 shot and killed 17 students and teachers and injured 17 more at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
Multiple deputies at the school took cover, stood outside the building or ran away rather than going inside the building where the gunman was still actively shooting on Feb. 14, 2018. Former School Resource Officer Scot Peterson, initially the only armed person at the school, stood outside for nearly an hour. Law enforcement communication failures were also revealed after the shooting.
Similar failures were evident in the May 24, 2022, mass shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children and two adults were killed. A Department of Justice report released earlier this year said officers showed “no urgency” in their response, and parents pleaded with officers to go into the building, the Associated Press reported.
Tony emphasized that School Resource Officers’ first priority is to go after the shooter, something former sheriff Scott Israel said after the Parkland shooting that deputies had discretion to decide.
“Our job is to get in there, eliminate that threat, kill that threat, so that we can go back to those two primary elements … Stop the killing and then getting to stop the dying,” Tony said.
School Board Vice Chair Debbie Hixon, whose husband Chris Hixon was killed in the 2018 Parkland shooting, and Superintendent Howard Hepburn joined the sheriff at the news conference. Mid-conference, a school employee warned those inside the building over the intercom that they would hear the firing of blank rounds soon.
“As many of you know, school safety is a topic that hits home for me,” Hixon said. “It’s very, very important that our SROs — not just from BSO but from across our county, all municipalities — understand that their role is to immediately activate themselves when there is an incident and that their role is to make sure that they mitigate any of the loss of life or injuries that happen.”
On the second floor of the school’s main building, loud bangs reverberated from the back of the hallway and students role playing as injured victims scattered along the hallway began shouting. Deputies stealthily ran into the hall toward the bangs. Some students pretended to lay down lifeless in the middle of the floor. Some deputies practiced tying tourniquets or carrying injured survivors to a room down a side corridor to be treated in one of the two-and-a-half minute drills.
One scenario practiced was responding to a shooter barricaded with potential student hostages, Tony said.
“We’ve seen in Uvalde a lot of errors in that shooting where people were standing outside because they didn’t hear any type of gunfire taking place,” Tony said. “But there’s still hostages in those environments. So what we are pressing upon our folks is regardless of what decision a suspect may take … our response protocols are the same. We can’t afford to stand outside and negotiate with someone who has already taken the life of innocent people.”
Armed guardians, non-sworn security officers who are stationed at some district schools instead of SROs, did not participate in Monday’s training. Armed guardians will protect some schools in Pembroke Pines this upcoming year rather than sworn officers under a tentative agreement, and many parents voiced concerns after the South Florida Sun Sentinel recently reported on the contract dispute between the city and school district that led to the decision.
Asked about Pembroke Pines parents’ concerns about the level of protection armed guardians can provide, Hepburn said, “They’re just like sworn officers to us. They’re providing the same level of service that we expect out of SROs and all of our guardians across the district.”
Tony said armed guardians will never provide the same level of experience as a sworn officer, despite their training.
“So long as it’s my responsibility, we’re going to train them to the highest standard that we can, and if an option comes where that program no longer exists and we can fill the law enforcement vacancy that exist throughout this county, I will always lean towards officers first,” Tony said.
