Paramedics wanted to go inside the Parkland, Florida, high school where a gunman was killing and wounding students Feb. 14 — but the Broward Sheriff's Office said no, the Miami Herald reported.
Citing an incident report released Thursday by Coral Springs, the Herald reported Michael McNally, deputy chief for Coral Springs fire-rescue, asked six times for permission to send specialized teams of police officers and paramedics inside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where 17 people were fatally shot.
Each time, he said he was refused by the BSO captain in charge of the scene.
"The [BSO] incident commander advised me, 'She would have to check,'" McNally wrote in the report, the Herald reported.
"After several minutes, I requested once again the need to deploy RTF elements into the scene to . . . initiate treatment as soon as possible. Once again, the incident commander expressed that she 'would have to check' before approving this request."
Even after the shooter had been arrested, the answer was the same, the Herald reported.
The command decision was first reported by Fox News less than two weeks after the massacre.
According to the Herald, the paramedic team was denied entry because authorities wrongly thought shooter Nikolas Cruz was still in the building and they did not want to put the paramedics in danger. But commanders were relying on school security footage that was — unknown to them — running on a 20-minute delay. Cruz had fled the freshman building roughly six minutes after opening fire, the Herald reported.
"I'm not saying the [RTFs] would have made a difference, and I'm not saying they wouldn't have made a difference, but it would have been more medics and more hands helping out," Coral Springs Fire Chief Frank Babinec told the Herald.
Veda Coleman-Wright, a spokeswoman for BSO, said in an email Thursday evening that medics are only sent in "after it has been confirmed the threat is mitigated."
In his report, McNally also claimed BSO's command post was severely dysfunctional — and he often could not locate Capt. Jan Jordan, BSO's district commander for Parkland.
BSO Sheriff Scott Israel has faced criticism for his leadership since the shooting. He handpicked Jordan, a former colleague from the Fort Lauderdale Police Department, to head the relatively trouble-free Parkland district.
But as criticism of the response to the Parkland massacre mounted, Coral Springs and BSO have pointed fingers at each other, the Herald noted. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating the overall law enforcement performance.
According to the Herald, Jordan's decision to keep paramedics sidelined was not the only criticism of her that day.
When Jordan arrived on scene, her only recorded command was for deputies to form a perimeter around the school; BSO says that's because her radio failed as the county's communications system overloaded.
McNally and Jordan could not be reached for comment Thursday evening, the Herald reported.
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