David Hogg Vows Not to Return to School Until Lawmakers Pass Gun Control

David Hogg Vows Not to Return to School Until Lawmakers Pass Gun Control



Parkland school shooting survivor David Hogg says he will not return to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School until more gun control is passed.

Hogg made the comments Sunday during a gun control rally held at Temple B’nai Abraham in Livingston, New Jersey.

The New York Daily News reports that Hogg said, “I’m not going back to school on Wednesday until one bill is passed.” He did not specify which law he wants most, only that he is not going back until at least one law garners the support of lawmakers.

He said, “Literally any legislation at this point would be a success. Considering the fact that so few legislators in Florida met with us and they want the people to forget, that’s disgusting. The fact that they want people to forget about this and elect them again as the child murderers they are, that’s unacceptable and we’re not going to let that happen.”

To date, state-level gun control proposals include “tougher background checks,” a bump stock ban, a waiting period for long gun purchases, raising minimum age for rifle purchases to 21-years old, and gun confiscation orders similar to California’s Gun Violence Restraining Orders. All of these gun controls were proposed last week by Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) and not a single one of them would have prevented the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Proposed gun controls at the federal level include proposals similar to Gov. Scott’s, plus an “assault weapons” ban and “universal background checks.” Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL) is a leading voice for these gun controls, even though neither one would have prevented the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. (The “assault weapons” ban would not have prevented the shooting because such a ban, if fashioned like the 1994-2004 ban, does not actually ban certain guns. Rather, it bans cosmetic features. And universal background checks would be impotent because the gunman, Nikolas Cruz, passed a background check for the rifle he used on February 14.)

The one change that could make an immediate difference in school safety would be to arm teachers as Utah did over 15 years ago, and as is currently being done in school districts in Colorado, Ohio, South Dakota, Texas, and other states. But David Hogg, Gov. Scott, and Rep. Deutch all oppose arming teachers for school safety.

Gov. Scott said we should rely on law enforcement, Deutch said talk of arming teachers is a “distraction,” and Hogg said money that would be used to arm teachers should instead be put into S.T.E.M. studies so teachers “can do more cool stuff and we’ll be able to create jobs in renewable, clean and independent American energy like wind and solar.”

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.

 

 

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CNN Finally Notices Schools in Texas That Already Arm Teachers

In a report aired on Friday’s New Day and again on Saturday’s CNN Newsroom with Fredricka Whitfield, CNN correspondent Ed Lavandera actually gave attention to a school district in Texas that already arms its teachers with concealed weapons and has them train in case they need to defend the school.

On New Day, CNN hosts Alisyn Camerota and John Berman seemed skeptical after the report because the teachers had not yet had a chance to demonstrate that they could defend the school successfully a the pair failed to note that the fact that they have not been attacked yet could be evidence of deterrence.

In the pre-recorded piece, Lavandera informed viewers:

Out of the roughly 1,000 school districts across the state of Texas, there are about 170 that have a policy of allowing teachers or administrators to carry a firearm. Here in the small town of Callisburg, their “Guardian” program was implemented about four years ago in large part because the city doesn’t have a local police department. They rely on county sheriffs, and, in a county this large, it can take many minutes for those deputies to respond to something like a shooting scene inside a school.

After noting that the police deputy who was assigned to the school in Parkland, Florida, had failed to confront the gunman, the CNN host then cut to a clip of Callisburg superintendent Steve Clugston predicting that the teachers that his school system has trained would perform more effectively.

Concluding the report, Levandera warned: “The armed teachers here haven’t faced the worst-case scenario, so the question remains: How will they react if they’re forced to face a killer?”

As the show switched back to the anchors live, shortly before 9:00 a.m. ET, Camerota and substitute host Berman fretted over whether arming teachers was the right thing to do for other schools:

ALISYN CAMEROTA: Yeah, I mean, so that’s the problem. A lot of it’s hypothetical. We just don’t know how this will work in any sort of big numbers until it happens — and we don’t want ever want it to happen again.

JOHN BERMAN: Will teachers want it? Will it prevent discussions about other things that might work as well?

via NewsBusters – Exposing Liberal Media Bias

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President Trump, Congress Order Extraordinary Honors for Rev. Billy Graham

President Trump, Congress Order Extraordinary Honors for Rev. Billy Graham



WASHINGTON, DC – President Donald Trump and Congress are taking official action to honor the passing of Rev. Billy Graham last Wednesday, through a presidential proclamation and the announcement that Graham’s body will lie in honor in the U.S. Capitol—only the fourth private citizen in American history to receive such honors.

After Graham passed on February 21 at the age of 99, President Trump issued a presidential proclamation that begins:

As a mark of respect for the memory of Reverend Billy Graham, I hereby order, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, that on the day of his internment, the flag of the United States shall be flown at half-staff.

This proclamation covers not only the White House, but also all public buildings nationwide, all U.S. military installations, and at all U.S. embassies around the world.

On Friday, President Trump eulogized Graham at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on the border of D.C. “We will never forget the historic crowds, that voice, the energy, and the profound faith of a preacher named Billy Graham,” the president declared.

“As a young man, Billy decided to devote his life to God,” President Trump continued. “That choice not only changed his life, it changed our country. And indeed, it even changed the world.”

Congress is likewise demonstrating its collective admiration of Graham by deciding that his body should lie in honor in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol this Wednesday.

While Congress has allowed former U.S. presidents or leading members of Congress to lie in state, only three private citizens have ever been privileged to lie in honor in the Capitol. Two were U.S. Capitol police officers who died in the line of duty protecting congressmen and civilians inside the Capitol in 1998. The other one was the iconic civil-rights pioneer Rosa Parks in 2005.

Graham spent his entire adult life as an Evangelical Christian preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ: the simple message that God so loved the world that he sent his son Jesus to die on the cross in the place of sinners, so that anyone who repented of their sin and placed their faith in Jesus would be forgiven by God and restored to a relationship with him.

Ken Klukowski is senior legal editor for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @kenklukowski.

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Parkland’s Pollack: Broward Sheriff’s Deputy Is a ‘Coward’

On this weekend’s broadcast of “Fox News Sunday,” while discussing the deputy assigned to protect Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Scot Peterson who did not enter the school during the shooting, Andrew Pollack, who lost his daughter, Meadow called that deputy “a coward.”

Partial transcript as follows:

WALLACE: Andrew, I want to go back — I understand your strong feelings, but isn’t this issue — isn’t this issue of mental health and trying to make sure that sick people don’t have access to guns, isn’t that part of the problem?

POLLACK: OK. But was that — was that a big issue when we were protecting airports? Was that a big issue? I’m not saying it’s not an issue, Chris. But when we were protecting our federal issues, is that a big issue?

We have our children in these classes which is — that’s the issue is OK. That could be worked out. But right now, the country just wants to come together and make our schools safe for our kids.

There is no other issue than our kids going to class and not thinking about some monster is going to stalk (ph) them in the hallway. That’s what we need to focus on, and we could all come together as Americans instead of other issues and those other issues — I agree with you there are other issues there, but the main issue right now is fixing the schools.

WALLACE: So, let’s talk specifically about that, sir. When you say fix the schools — I mean, you’ve compared it to airports. Are you saying school security, ID checks? You tell me what it is that you would like to see.

POLLACK: I think that — I’m not — I’m not an expert in it, but I think we need to hire the experts and check every school individually and make sure they are safe for the children, you know? There’s a serious problem. Like I said, if the new norm has to be our kids are safe in school. This can’t happen again. I can’t let it happen to another kid in another state.

Like right now, Governor Scott, Governor Scott is doing what he had to do, but he also had to go visit the parents of dead kids for two weeks. I’m on right now today because I want to tell every governor in every other state — they need to be proactive right now. They need to get a bill in place what all — and we are going to put all America together and work with these governors to protect our schools.

We can’t have another shooting in this country. I can’t live with it, and I’m — this has — this has to stop with Parkland, and my daughter’s death can’t be in vain. It has to be the last one.

WALLACE: Andrew, what do you think about the teacher issue? And, you know, I know this must be incredibly painful, but now we hear the stories that there were police on the scene and they didn’t go in, at least three sheriff’s deputies were there and didn’t go in. What —

POLLACK: Yes. One deputy that worked there, Peterson. He worked there, and he’s a coward. He was — he stood by the door. I know is a fact he could have made it to the third floor and saved all six victims if he wasn’t some little — I can’t even — words can’t even describe the way I think about him. But I’m not trying to think about that stuff because that’s just negative and it’s just going to make me toxic.

So, I just want to get the word out to the governors of every state that they have to do something now, today. Get together, they can call me, I have other dead parents here, we all want to help them, and let’s make the school safe.

(h/t Grabien)

Follow Pam Key On Twitter @pamkeyNEN

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FL House Speaker Richard Corcoran: Suspend Broward Co Sheriff Scott Israel for Incompetence, Dereliction of Duty

Sunday, Florida Speaker of the House Richard Corcoran announced in a post on his Twitter account he was calling on Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL) to suspend Broward County, FL Sheriff Scott Israel for “incompetence and dereliction of duty.”

“Today I sent the following letter to @FLGovScott Asking that he suspend Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel for incompetence and dereliction of duty. I was honored to be joined by 73 Republican colleagues,” he wrote in the tweet.

Accompanying that tweet was a copy of the letter.

Corcoran, a potential 2018 gubernatorial candidate, accused Israel of ignoring warning signs from alleged  Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz, and said Israel had failed to “maintain a culture of alertness, vigilance, and throughness amongst his deputies.”

Under the Florida state constitution, Scott has the authority to suspend county sheriffs given they are elected officials not subject to impeachment.

Relevant portions are as follows:

Article IV, Section 7 of the Florida Constitution provides:

SECTION 7. Suspensions; filling office during suspensions.—(a) By executive order stating the grounds and filed with the custodian of state records, the governor may suspend from office any state officer not subject to impeachment, any officer of the militia not in the active service of the United States, or any county officer, for malfeasance, misfeasance, neglect of duty, drunkenness, incompetence, permanent inability to perform official duties, or commission of a felony, and may fill the office by appointment for the period of suspension. The suspended officer may at any time before removal be reinstated by the governor.

Under Article VIII, Section 1(d), a sheriff is a county officer

(d) COUNTY OFFICERS. There shall be elected by the electors of each county, for terms of four years, a sheriff, a tax collector, a property appraiser, a supervisor of elections, and a clerk of the circuit court; except, when provided by county charter or special law approved by vote of the electors of the county, any county officer may be chosen in another manner therein specified, or any county office may be abolished when all the duties of the office prescribed by general law are transferred to another office. When not otherwise provided by county charter or special law approved by vote of the electors, the clerk of the circuit court shall be ex officio clerk of the board of county commissioners, auditor, recorder and custodian of all county funds.

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor

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Exposing the Deep Rot in the Deep State


Trump’s luck is pretty amazing. The entire media sets up a week-long hatefest aimed at the NRA, culminating in that shameful fake “Town Hall,” and then the very next day it comes out that there was a police officer there who was too cowardly to do anything, and Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel, who was shaming and lecturing gun owners the night before, must have known it while he was up there on stage.


Trump’s superpower is his ability, just by existing, to bring out the deep and pervasive rot in America’s institutions and the people who run them.


In fact, there were four armed deputies at the Parkland, Florida high school, none of whom entered to intervene when the shooting occurred.  Heroes like the JROTC students and the coach gave up their lives to protect others, while four armed cops did nothing to end the carnage.  At least one witness said he saw the first deputy (Scot Peterson), who has since resigned, hiding behind a stairwell in a separate building while talking on his phone during the four to six minutes the shootings occurred, and it is likely he was talking to his superiors at the time.  It defies belief that four deputies at the scene did nothing and that their headquarters were not informed and fully aware that the men were not going in to help.


After Columbine, the FBI training and tactical advice to local law enforcement officials was not to wait for a SWAT or tactical team to show up, but to immediately engage and disarm the shooter.  On Facebook, Philip Smith notes, citing various FBI planning guides:


Lessons learned from this tragedy included the need for all police officers to be properly trained, equipped and empowered to immediately intervene in an active shooter situation to stop the ongoing violence regardless of their assignment.


Modern day law enforcement training and tactics dictate that the primary objective of the first law enforcement officer(s) on the scene of an active shooter situation is to locate and stop the person or persons believed to be the shooter(s). As law enforcement active shooter training has evolved, there has been a move away from waiting for several officers to arrive and form a “team” prior to searching for the shooter. 


Today, many agencies and trainers recommend a solo officer entry into an active shooter situation if it is believed the officer on scene can locate, isolate and/or stop the shooter prior to other arriving law enforcement officers. The solo officer entry can be a very dangerous response strategy. However, properly trained and equipped police officers acting alone without the benefit of backup have stopped ongoing active shooter situations, thereby saving lives.


So how is it that four armed cops remained outside the building and did nothing?  For that, you have to go to Sundance on Conservative Treehouse, who, beginning with the Trayvon Martin case, has been keeping an eye on the Broward and Miami-Dade County Police Departments, filing FOIA requests and winkling out a major scandal.  In sum, these actors, in order to obtain federal grants under Obama and Eric Holder, who conned governments into thinking that disparate outcomes – that is, more arrests and school expulsions of black kids than white kids – were the result of discrimination, did not discriminate regarding conduct issues.  Local governments were rewarded with grants if they kept school arrests down, the cover being “let’s stop the pipeline from schools to prisons.”  Without arrests, there was no record in background checks to keep violent people from having guns.  It’s that simple: no matter what steps you put into place to prevent such things, if the procedure is corrupted, it won’t work.  No matter how many armed deputies are at the site, if they are following orders not to intercede, or at least permitted to just stand idly by, they will be useless as protection.  And yet the same people who are for disarming law-abiding citizens want to give the very people who are refusing to follow commonsense dictates for our protection more power and us less.


If journalism awards were handed out to those who actually are engaged in journalism, Sundance would be getting one.  Here are some of the things he turned up in his hard years long slogging through Broward and Miami-Dade Counties’ police practices and operations.


Broward and Miami-Dade Counties’ law enforcement departments are deeply political.  Scot Peterson was, until he resigned, a school resource officer (SRO).  Backed by responses to repeated FOIA requests, Sundance concludes:


The roles of SRO’s are political, not law enforcement.


Here’s what people don’t understand.  When the county policy is intentionally constructed to ignore criminal behavior in schools, the Sheriff and School superintendent cannot rely on “law and order-minded” SROs to carry out the corrupt policy.


The SRO must carry a political hat and be able to intercept behavior, modify the action based on a specific policy, falsify documents, manipulate records etc, and engage in the system with an understanding of the unwritten goals. SROs are given political instructions, NOT, I repeat, NOT given instructions to uphold laws and regulations.


The School Officers are the primary foot soldiers carrying out political policy. Engaging an active shooter on campus is the furthest thing from their skill-set you could imagine.


Security of school students is just not their role. The Broward County SRO is in place to protect the School System “policy.”


While the press is now reporting the many instances where neighbors and others phoned in warnings to the FBI about the shooter and the many visits (39) by the police to his home about disturbances there, Sundance argues, they didn’t “miss warning signs”; they ignored them as part of school and police department policies.


Sundance details the many times tips about the shooter were given the department and deliberately ignored.


Even modern technology was jiggered to help the Broward officials carry out their continuing cover-up of student crimes.


Broward County law enforcement (Sheriff Israel), in conjunction with Broward County School Officials (Superintendent Runcie and School Board), have a standing policy to ignore any criminal engagement with High School students.


When the police are hiding current, actual and ongoing unlawful conduct as a matter of standard procedure on a regular basis, what do we expect the police would do with reports of potential unlawful conduct? Of course they would ignore them.


This is not a “mistake” on their part, the ‘doing nothing’ is part of the standard practice.


♦ Secondly, the 27-minute tape-delay in the CCTV system is not an “accident”, “flaw” or “mistake”. It is entirely by design.


As a standard Broward and Miami-Dade practice, when school law enforcement need to cover-up or hide behavior, they need time (when that behavior happens) to delete the evidence trail. As such, the school policy – as carried out in practice – is more efficient with a 30-minute tape delay affording the school officer enough time to deal with the situation, then erase the possibility of a recording of the unlawful activity surfacing.


Building in a 30-minute delay on the CCTV system was one of those pesky add-on items that happened a few years ago when the School and Law Enforcement officials established the policy of intentionally not arresting students.


With modern technology it’s tough to hide criminal behavior, especially the violent stuff, when it is being recorded. Duh. Ergo the tape-delay was the best-practice workaround.


Why would they do such a thing?  Sundance again documents it: money.  State and federal funds were given to districts who improved their statistics, so Broward and Miami-Dade Counties hid the crimes, improved their statistics, and got the money.  (They did this earlier as well when the “secret discipline and diversionary program” was in place allowing Trayvon Martin to avoid a criminal record.)


The primary problem was the policy conflicted with laws; and over time the policy began to create outcomes where illegal behavior by students was essentially unchecked by law enforcement. …


Initially the police were excusing misdemeanor behaviors. However, it didn’t take long until felonies, even violent felonies (armed robberies, assaults and worse) were being excused.


In time, the situation got so bad that to keep lowering their statistics, they were hiding evidence and failing to recover stolen merchandise because to return it would be to admit that the stuff was the fruit of criminal activity.


Criminal gangs soon realized that the way to avoid arrest was to recruit students to carry out their actions, and they also realized that when the quota for arrests near the end of the month was reached was the best time to get away with crimes.


The system had in a short time become totally corrupted, and the SROs were the “most corrupt.”  The local media cooperated in covering it all up, and the cops who wanted to do their jobs were demoralized and deprived of the benefits the corrupt ones got, including free housing close to the schools to which they were assigned.


Indeed, Broward County sheriff Scott Israel used the public funds he got by faking crime statistics and ignoring crimes to hire political supporters for his re-election campaign.


This is the story worth telling, not the scripted anti-gun pap CNN offered up or the ten-minute hate town hall designed to play on your emotions while ignoring the truth.  But only one blogger, Sundance, did the work to expose it.


The rest of the MSM seem to be fine with jeopardizing students’ lives, enabling criminals, and using public funds to advance the fortunes of Democrat candidates who allowed this tragedy to occur.  As the press in South Florida stinks, do me a favor – pass this one to friends and relatives who live there and who have elected to Congress these avatars of a one-party system: Alcee Hastings, Ted Deutch, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and Frederica Wilson.










Once again, the president has pried behind the stucco of the Deep State’s institutional edifice and shown that the pillars are termite-ridden.  Over at Instapundit, law professor Glenn Reynolds said it most succinctly:


FL Shooting Survivor Colton Haab: CNN Told Me I Needed To “Stick To The Script”; Entire Town Hall Scripted. 


Trump’s luck is pretty amazing. The entire media sets up a week-long hatefest aimed at the NRA, culminating in that shameful fake “Town Hall,” and then the very next day it comes out that there was a police officer there who was too cowardly to do anything, and Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel, who was shaming and lecturing gun owners the night before, must have known it while he was up there on stage.


Trump’s superpower is his ability, just by existing, to bring out the deep and pervasive rot in America’s institutions and the people who run them.


In fact, there were four armed deputies at the Parkland, Florida high school, none of whom entered to intervene when the shooting occurred.  Heroes like the JROTC students and the coach gave up their lives to protect others, while four armed cops did nothing to end the carnage.  At least one witness said he saw the first deputy (Scot Peterson), who has since resigned, hiding behind a stairwell in a separate building while talking on his phone during the four to six minutes the shootings occurred, and it is likely he was talking to his superiors at the time.  It defies belief that four deputies at the scene did nothing and that their headquarters were not informed and fully aware that the men were not going in to help.


After Columbine, the FBI training and tactical advice to local law enforcement officials was not to wait for a SWAT or tactical team to show up, but to immediately engage and disarm the shooter.  On Facebook, Philip Smith notes, citing various FBI planning guides:


Lessons learned from this tragedy included the need for all police officers to be properly trained, equipped and empowered to immediately intervene in an active shooter situation to stop the ongoing violence regardless of their assignment.


Modern day law enforcement training and tactics dictate that the primary objective of the first law enforcement officer(s) on the scene of an active shooter situation is to locate and stop the person or persons believed to be the shooter(s). As law enforcement active shooter training has evolved, there has been a move away from waiting for several officers to arrive and form a “team” prior to searching for the shooter. 


Today, many agencies and trainers recommend a solo officer entry into an active shooter situation if it is believed the officer on scene can locate, isolate and/or stop the shooter prior to other arriving law enforcement officers. The solo officer entry can be a very dangerous response strategy. However, properly trained and equipped police officers acting alone without the benefit of backup have stopped ongoing active shooter situations, thereby saving lives.


So how is it that four armed cops remained outside the building and did nothing?  For that, you have to go to Sundance on Conservative Treehouse, who, beginning with the Trayvon Martin case, has been keeping an eye on the Broward and Miami-Dade County Police Departments, filing FOIA requests and winkling out a major scandal.  In sum, these actors, in order to obtain federal grants under Obama and Eric Holder, who conned governments into thinking that disparate outcomes – that is, more arrests and school expulsions of black kids than white kids – were the result of discrimination, did not discriminate regarding conduct issues.  Local governments were rewarded with grants if they kept school arrests down, the cover being “let’s stop the pipeline from schools to prisons.”  Without arrests, there was no record in background checks to keep violent people from having guns.  It’s that simple: no matter what steps you put into place to prevent such things, if the procedure is corrupted, it won’t work.  No matter how many armed deputies are at the site, if they are following orders not to intercede, or at least permitted to just stand idly by, they will be useless as protection.  And yet the same people who are for disarming law-abiding citizens want to give the very people who are refusing to follow commonsense dictates for our protection more power and us less.


If journalism awards were handed out to those who actually are engaged in journalism, Sundance would be getting one.  Here are some of the things he turned up in his hard years long slogging through Broward and Miami-Dade Counties’ police practices and operations.


Broward and Miami-Dade Counties’ law enforcement departments are deeply political.  Scot Peterson was, until he resigned, a school resource officer (SRO).  Backed by responses to repeated FOIA requests, Sundance concludes:


The roles of SRO’s are political, not law enforcement.


Here’s what people don’t understand.  When the county policy is intentionally constructed to ignore criminal behavior in schools, the Sheriff and School superintendent cannot rely on “law and order-minded” SROs to carry out the corrupt policy.


The SRO must carry a political hat and be able to intercept behavior, modify the action based on a specific policy, falsify documents, manipulate records etc, and engage in the system with an understanding of the unwritten goals. SROs are given political instructions, NOT, I repeat, NOT given instructions to uphold laws and regulations.


The School Officers are the primary foot soldiers carrying out political policy. Engaging an active shooter on campus is the furthest thing from their skill-set you could imagine.


Security of school students is just not their role. The Broward County SRO is in place to protect the School System “policy.”


While the press is now reporting the many instances where neighbors and others phoned in warnings to the FBI about the shooter and the many visits (39) by the police to his home about disturbances there, Sundance argues, they didn’t “miss warning signs”; they ignored them as part of school and police department policies.


Sundance details the many times tips about the shooter were given the department and deliberately ignored.


Even modern technology was jiggered to help the Broward officials carry out their continuing cover-up of student crimes.


Broward County law enforcement (Sheriff Israel), in conjunction with Broward County School Officials (Superintendent Runcie and School Board), have a standing policy to ignore any criminal engagement with High School students.


When the police are hiding current, actual and ongoing unlawful conduct as a matter of standard procedure on a regular basis, what do we expect the police would do with reports of potential unlawful conduct? Of course they would ignore them.


This is not a “mistake” on their part, the ‘doing nothing’ is part of the standard practice.


♦ Secondly, the 27-minute tape-delay in the CCTV system is not an “accident”, “flaw” or “mistake”. It is entirely by design.


As a standard Broward and Miami-Dade practice, when school law enforcement need to cover-up or hide behavior, they need time (when that behavior happens) to delete the evidence trail. As such, the school policy – as carried out in practice – is more efficient with a 30-minute tape delay affording the school officer enough time to deal with the situation, then erase the possibility of a recording of the unlawful activity surfacing.


Building in a 30-minute delay on the CCTV system was one of those pesky add-on items that happened a few years ago when the School and Law Enforcement officials established the policy of intentionally not arresting students.


With modern technology it’s tough to hide criminal behavior, especially the violent stuff, when it is being recorded. Duh. Ergo the tape-delay was the best-practice workaround.


Why would they do such a thing?  Sundance again documents it: money.  State and federal funds were given to districts who improved their statistics, so Broward and Miami-Dade Counties hid the crimes, improved their statistics, and got the money.  (They did this earlier as well when the “secret discipline and diversionary program” was in place allowing Trayvon Martin to avoid a criminal record.)


The primary problem was the policy conflicted with laws; and over time the policy began to create outcomes where illegal behavior by students was essentially unchecked by law enforcement. …


Initially the police were excusing misdemeanor behaviors. However, it didn’t take long until felonies, even violent felonies (armed robberies, assaults and worse) were being excused.


In time, the situation got so bad that to keep lowering their statistics, they were hiding evidence and failing to recover stolen merchandise because to return it would be to admit that the stuff was the fruit of criminal activity.


Criminal gangs soon realized that the way to avoid arrest was to recruit students to carry out their actions, and they also realized that when the quota for arrests near the end of the month was reached was the best time to get away with crimes.


The system had in a short time become totally corrupted, and the SROs were the “most corrupt.”  The local media cooperated in covering it all up, and the cops who wanted to do their jobs were demoralized and deprived of the benefits the corrupt ones got, including free housing close to the schools to which they were assigned.


Indeed, Broward County sheriff Scott Israel used the public funds he got by faking crime statistics and ignoring crimes to hire political supporters for his re-election campaign.


This is the story worth telling, not the scripted anti-gun pap CNN offered up or the ten-minute hate town hall designed to play on your emotions while ignoring the truth.  But only one blogger, Sundance, did the work to expose it.


The rest of the MSM seem to be fine with jeopardizing students’ lives, enabling criminals, and using public funds to advance the fortunes of Democrat candidates who allowed this tragedy to occur.  As the press in South Florida stinks, do me a favor – pass this one to friends and relatives who live there and who have elected to Congress these avatars of a one-party system: Alcee Hastings, Ted Deutch, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and Frederica Wilson.





via American Thinker

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NRA responds to companies cutting ties with them over Florida shooting with scathing statement

The National Rifle Association released a scathing statement on Saturday pushing back against the outrage and boycott millions of Americans have directed at the pro-Second Amendment organization in the days following the tragic Florida school shooting on Feb. 14.

A multitude of companies in recent days have severed longstanding relationships with the NRA after anti-gun advocates threatened the companies with boycotts.

What did they say?

In the statement, the NRA pushed back against the corporations, calling their actions a “shameful display of political and civic cowardice.”

“In time, these brands will be replaced by others who recognize that patriotism and determined commitment to Constitutional freedoms are characteristics of a marketplace they very much want to serve,” the NRA wrote.

“Let it be absolutely clear. The loss of a discount will neither scare nor distract one single NRA member from our mission to stand and defend the individual freedoms that have always made America the greatest nation in the world,” the statement added.

The organization characterized the movement to boycott them as an effort to “punish” its millions of members, who are law-abiding Americans who faithfully exercise their Second Amendment rights.

The statement went on to defend the NRA from accusations that the organization was somehow responsible for the tragic shooting, a claim the mainstream media has helped propagate by giving very large platforms to anti-NRA, anti-gun advocates.

Instead, the NRA placed blame on mental health, government failures and failures by local and federal law enforcement — institutions that actually carry partial blame for contributing to and not preventing the shooting.

“The law-abiding members of the NRA had nothing at all to do with the failure of that school’s security preparedness, the failure of America’s mental health system, the failure of the National Instant Check System or the cruel failures of both federal and local law enforcement,” the NRA wrote.

Where does real responsibility lie?

As TheBlaze has covered, federal and local law enforcement likely take a lion’s share of the blame for not preventing the shooting, given they were provided with ample warnings about the eventual shooter, including dozens of interactions between the shooter and law enforcement, internet reports and anonymous tipsters relaying their concerns the shooter would act on threats.

In addition, it was revealed in recent days that the school resource officer, who was a Broward County sheriff’s deputy, didn’t engage the shooter and only took cover outside. To make matters worse, it was reported on Friday that three other Broward County sheriff deputies had arrived to the scene and also didn’t act. Coral Springs police officers were the first to enter the school building and adequately respond to the active shooter situation.

Subsequently, thousands have called on Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel to resign.

via TheBlaze.com – Stories

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The brutal waterboarding, er… interview of the Broward County Sheriff

If you missed today’s interview of Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel by Jake Tapper on State of the Union you’ll want to get a big tub of popcorn and watch it now. The Sheriff has been under increasing criticism for his department’s response (or actually lack of response) to the Florida school shooting all week and this was supposed to be the morning where he would explain his actions. The situation was complicated a bit by the fact that part of the anger directed at the Sheriff had to do with his antics at the gun control town hall held earlier this week which, coincidentally, was hosted by Jake Tapper. Israel had been blaming everything on the NRA and a lack of law enforcement resources during that event, but the more we learned about what actually happened on the day of the shooting, the weaker that story seemed.

How much did the Sheriff know about his own men taking cover behind their cars and not entering the school? Did he know that when he did the town hall? So many questions to be answered, but believe me… Tapper asked them all and more. By the time this was done I was describing it as more of a waterboarding than an interview. And it just felt like it kept going on forever. Let’s start with the video and then hit a few of the highlights.

Right out of the gate, Tapper asks him about the other deputies staying outside. Isreal wants to be very clear and claims, “our investigation to this point shows that during this horrific attack, while this killer was inside the school, there was only one law enforcement person period.” He goes on to blame the whole thing on Scott Peterson. But he then goes on for two full minutes casting doubt on his own definitive statement. When Tapper responds by citing what the Coral Springs Police said about there being other deputies there outside when they arrived, Isreal says, “I don’t dispute that, but that is an active investigation.” Jake grills him on that subject for several more questions and it only gets worse.

When Jake asks him if there was a stand-down order given over the radio telling deputies to remain outside until a SWAT team arrived, Isreal says he can’t tell us anything about that and he “hasn’t heard that.” This will prove to be only one of many things Sheriff Isreal “hasn’t heard” or “hasn’t seen” or “doesn’t know” about the events of that day.

Around the nine minute mark, Tapper asks him about the town hall. Did he know all of these things then? Israel dances around the subject uncomfortably and tries to deflect, but Jake keeps coming back at him over and over. Israel never does get around to giving a definitive answer.

From there, if you don’t want to watch the whole interview, feel free to fast forward to right around the 19:45 mark where Tapper really unloads on the Sheriff for his performance and Israel responds with what may be the biggest jaw-dropper of the segment. Here’s the transcript. (Emphasis added)

JAKE TAPPER: Are you really not taking responsibility for the multiple red flags that were brought to the attention of the Broward Sheriff’s Office before this incident, whether it was people near him, close to him, calling the police on him…

SHERIFF ISRAEL: Jake, I can only take responsibility for what I knew about. I exercised my due diligence. I’ve given amazing leadership to this agency…

TAPPER: (interrupting) Amazing leadership???

ISRAEL: Yes, Jake. There’s a lot of things we’ve done throughout. You don’t measure a person’s leadership by a person not going into…

TAPPER: Maybe you measure somebody’s leadership by whether or not they protect the community and in this case you’ve listed 23 incidents before the shooting, involving the shooter, and still nothing was done to keep guns out of his hands, to make sure the school was protected, to make sure you were keeping an eye on him. Your deputy failed. I don’t understand how you can sit there and claim “amazing leadership.”

There are plenty more moments like that. As I said, these were just some of the highlights. His comment where he invokes O.J. Simpson is also simply mind bending. Watch it for yourself, and then figure out how this guy can still possibly have a job by the end of the week once the rest of Florida gets to see this interview.

The post The brutal waterboarding, er… interview of the Broward County Sheriff appeared first on Hot Air.

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Dozens of companies boycott NRA over Florida shooting — but it’s backfiring big time

A multitude of companies that had longstanding relationships with the National Rifle Association have severed their relationships with the NRA in recent days, caving to pressure from anti-NRA, anti-gun advocates who place blame on the NRA for the tragic Florida school shooting on Feb. 14.

But that boycott is beginning to backfire and it appears the corporations ending their relationships will have no lasting effects on the NRA — and maybe even help the pro-Second Amendment organization pad its rolls.

What’s going on?

In response to the NRA boycott, thousands of people are posting on social media they have decided to join the NRA because they believe in freedom, the Second Amendment and stand opposed to the liberal outrage mob unfairly placing responsibility on the NRA for the Florida shooting.

Others posted they had upgraded their memberships to higher levels.

The #TweetYourNRAMembership hashtag contains thousands of posts and the number of people joining the NRA is swelling. It’s not clear how many people have joined the NRA because of the boycott, but it appears the boycott will only help the NRA — not hurt it.

via TheBlaze.com – Stories

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Schools That Already Have Armed Teachers Show the Way for Schools That Don’t

Schools That Already Have Armed Teachers Show the Way for Schools That Don’t



School districts that already have armed teachers stand out as an example for what schools with “gun-free” designations can do to ensure student safety.

For example, Fox 5 reports that Texas has 1,000 school districts, and approximately 170 of those districts allow teachers and school staff to be armed on campus for self-defense. These armed districts do not make news with reports of accidental shootings, students getting their teachers’ guns, or armed faculty committing crimes on campus. Rather, they enjoy not making news, as the deterrent of having certain teachers armed appears to make attackers think twice before striking.

The Callisburg Independent School District, which is “about 85 miles North of Dallas,” has had armed teachers for about four years, and school superintendent Steve Clugston simply views it as part of what must be done to protect students. He said, “We’ll do whatever’s necessary to protect our kids and staff. We don’t want to be at the mercy of somebody that’s intent on doing harm.”

He added, “We’re trying to put our teachers in a position to be better equipped to protect their kids. And I have complete faith in our team, that they’re willing to stand up and protect our people.”

Fox 6 reports that Arkansas’ Clarksville School District took a similar approach following the December 14, 2012, attack on Sandy Hook Elementary School. In 2013 KARK reported that the district could not afford to hire full-time security guards, so they “trained and armed a number of teachers and staff to become commissioned school security officers.”

Teachers in South Dakota are being trained and carrying guns under that state’s “School Sentinel” program, and teachers in Utah have been carrying guns on campus for self-defense for over 15 years.

On June 26, 2017, Breitbart News reported that a number of Colorado school teachers were enrolled in FASTER–Faculty/Administrator Safety Training and Emergency Response–so they can carry guns on campus for defense of themselves and their students. And there are numerous school districts with armed teachers in Ohio and other states around the country as well.

So when President Trump pushes to arm “20 percent” of teachers for school safety, he is not pushing something unproven or untested. Rather, he is pushing something that has enjoyed demonstrable success in the states wherein it has been implemented.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.

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