MIAMI (CBSMiami) – Two sheriffs from Florida are speaking out, letting parents know that in Polk and Volusia County, their departments will act immediately to stop any shooter before they ever get near students.
Both statements come after officials in Uvalde, Texas detailed the mistakes they made during the elementary school shooting on Tuesday.
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The biggest one, the police waiting for over an hour before going inside to stop the shooter, as students and a teacher repeatedly called 911 begging for help.
“Of course, it was not the right decision it was the wrong decision, period. There was no excuse for that,” said Steven McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Texas law enforcement admit they should not have waited more than an hour to enter Robb Elementary Tuesday as children were being shot and killed.
Not only did they wait, but they also held back parents who wanted to rush in, while their children were calling 911 for help inside the school.
“She asked 911 to please send police now,” said McCraw.
Ed McGovern, a retired local law enforcement officer who responded to the Fort Lauderdale airport shooting in 2017 and Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018 says that he agreed with the statements made by the Volusia County sheriff.
“I would standby that statement, that’s our job,” said McGovern.
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This is something we tried to ask some of our local law enforcement chiefs. Cant, they promise this delay wouldn’t happen as Polk and Volusia County have.”
CBS4 reached out to Miami Dade PD, Miami PD, BSO, Miami Dade Public Schools, and Broward County Public Schools.
We should note, that earlier this week, Miami-Dade Public Schools superintendent and their police chief as well as Broward County Public Schools superintendent and the Broward Sheriff’s Office did speak to the public to reassure them on general safety concerns.
This was before they or the press knew about the decision by police to not go into the school and their admission Friday that it was a mistake, so we wanted to ask about this issue.
Miami Dade Police Department declined to comment and we have yet to hear back from the others.
“There’s no law enforcement agency in this country that trains enough for this type of an event,” said McGovern.
McGovern says that was an excessive amount of time to wait and that it all comes down to a training issue.
“There hasn’t been a mass casualty fire in a school in the United States since the 1950s. Why is that? Because after we changed things. We have to approach it the same way with this,” said McGovern.
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McGovern said he hasn’t seen any change in the way shootings are handled since Stoneman Douglas in 2018 and there needs to be a big shift in how often agencies go through training.
