Deputies assigned to school campuses in south Florida’s Broward County reportedly will now be allowed to carry rifles on school grounds.
Broward Sheriff Scott Israel told reporters Wednesday: “Rifles from this point forward,” the Miami Herald reported. “We need to be able to defeat any threat on campus.”
The announcement comes as authorities are reviewing the law-enforcement response to the Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., in the county — the worst mass killing at a school since the rampage at Sandy Hook in 2012.
According to the Herald, the sheriff’s office is reviewing whether deputies’ response was adequate — including whether an armed officer assigned to the sprawling campus did enough.
The deputy did not fire his weapon and his actions would be “scrutinized,” Israel told reporters, the Herald reported.
He also said the sheriff’s office was reviewing whether the first officers on the scene rushed into the school, as they are trained to do when an active shooter is on the rampage. Shooter Nikolas Cruz slipped away before cops could find him in the chaos on the huge campus.
They’re likely to be equipped with high capacity weapons similar to the AR-15, the news outlet reported.
The announcement came before Israel spoke before a CNN town hall.
“I walked through the crime scene 30 minutes after this horrific killer, this detestable coward, took away 17 of our family members,” Israel said to students who gathered for the event. “I’ll never forget this. I’ll never forget the vision. It’s embedded in my head.”
“And I walked out of that school… and as Elie Wiesel said, talking about the Holocaust, I said two words to myself. I said, ‘never again.'”
A video clip of the remarks was posted by Mediaite.
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