The following was written by Mark Meckler and originally published on his Patheos blog.
Well, it turns out there was a reason for at least some of that police incompetence demonstrated before the Parkland shooting in Florida.
I’ve written about the number of mind-blowing mistakes the sheriff’s department had been told repeatedly that this shooter was a potential threat. Just three months ago, a tipster said this nineteen year old was potentially a “school shooter in the making.” The shooter himself even called the police to tell them he was suffering after his mother died. Even though the sheriff’s department (and the FBI) should’ve known this person was possibly planning a school shooting, they did nothing.
Why all the inaction? Turns out, this was a direct response from an edict the Obama administration put out in order to prevent too many kids going to jail. The Washington Times reports:
The demand for an answer to that question has focused attention on Broward County Public Schools policies embraced by the Obama administration that were designed to help rule-breaking students avoid permanent blots on their records by reducing referrals to law enforcement.
Under Superintendent Robert W. Runcie, who worked for Obama Education Secretary Arne Duncan in the Chicago Public Schools, school-based arrests dropped by 63 percent from 2012 to 2016 after he implemented policies designed to derail the “schoolhouse-to-jailhouse pipeline.”But the approach also helped keep Cruz off the law-enforcement radar, despite school-based offenses that reportedly included assault, threats and bringing bullets to school in his backpack.
“Mr. Cruz is a perfect example of someone just falling through the cracks that we create through bad policy,” said Officer Jeff Bell.
Wow. Here’s more about how the local deputies had their hands tied once the student conduct code was changed to accommodate a new agreement they made with their partners, the NAACP, the Broward County Sheriff, and the Broward state attorney. It “included a diversionary program for repeat offenders called PROMISE and listed 14 misdemeanors no longer subject to school-based arrest.”
“They were basically paying us not to make arrests,” said Bell.
I’ve written a great deal about self-governance, and how it’s important that Americans are able to make decisions as close to home as possible. When edicts are handed down from “on high,” things don’t go well.
Of course, that’s an understatement when you think of all the carnage and destruction this student achieved.
All of it could’ve been avoided.
Tired of top-down edicts from the feds? Join the Convention of States Project, the only grassroots movement with a solution as big as federal overreach.
