Florida Republican Governor Rick Scott said Sunday (February 25th) that he's asked the state's Department of Law Enforcement to investigate the Broward County Sheriff’s Office response to the school shooting 12 days ago in Parkland, however he said that he's not suspending Sheriff Scott Israel, even though most Republican state lawmakers have urged him to. There has been criticism of Israel's leadership after it was revealed that the deputy assigned to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High Schol as its school resource officer ran to outside where the shooting was taking place and had his weapon drawn, but didn't go in the building as alleged attacker Nikolas Cruz killed 17 students and teachers. Additionally, CNN has reported that three other Broward County deputies may also have refused to enter the school building. Israel said in a CNN interview yesterday that he can't cofirm or deny that, since it's under investigation, but said he has shown, quote, "amazing leadership." He said, "If [the other deputies] did things right, we will move forward. And if they did things wrong, I will take care of business in a disciplinary matter . . . " Israel has also come under criticism for the reported 18 calls made to the sheriff's office about Cruz starting in 2008, some of which included "red flags" that apparently weren't heeded. He said on CNN, "Of those 18 calls . . . 16 of them, we believe, were handled exactly the way they should. Two of them, we’re not sure if our deputies did everything they could have or should have. . . . We will absolutely find out what we did or what we didn’t do."
In other developments:
President Trump is meeting with the nation's governors today, who are in Washington for their annual meeting, and he said Sunday that the school shooting will be the top issue he'll discuss with them, wanting to hear their input on how to prevent school shootings. Trump has spoken about several ideas since the attack, including raising the minimum age to buy assault rifles, improving background checks, arming teachers, and re-opening mental institutions.