Parkland report hammers administrators and Broward Sheriff's Office

LARGO, Fla. (FOX 13) - The commission investigating the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that left 17 dead and 17 wounded has issued its initial report.

The report includes dozens of recommendations aimed at improving school safety, including the requiring of classroom doors being locked from the inside and shades to block door windows.

“If we don’t take a different approach and have a different mindset, then we will not have a different result," said commission chair Sheriff Bob Gualtieri. "We have to have a different result than what happened at Stoneman Douglas.”

The report says thirty people were documented to know of Cruz' troubling behavior prior to the Valentines' Day shooting.

Six said they had told assistant principal Jeff Morford.

The commission said it found Morford's claims that he doesn't remember a single of those conversations "questionable."

"I don't believe him," Sheriff Gualtieri said.

The report recommends administrators document and investigate all reports of students potential to act violently.

“Then you don’t end up in a situation like this where you have two kids and a mother who says they brought information forward and (the assistant principal) goes, 'oh not me.' The accountability needs to be ratcheted up," said Gualtieri. 

The report says a number of Broward deputies could not recall attending active shooter training.

It insisted BSO increase the frequency of it.

In light of the deputy who did not immediately engage the shooter, the commission said policy must be for deputies to engage the threats, not just contain them.

“The policy wasn’t clear," said Gualtieri. "It didn’t say they shall go in, it says they may go in. Which leaves a lot, it’s ambiguous at best.”

The report outlines various degrees to which schools can harden themselves, from locks and window shades on classroom doors, to locking and staffing single entrances to campuses.

“There are a whole bunch of things that are basic, harm mitigation strategies that can be put in place and should already have been put in place but haven’t been because people don’t have the will to do it.”

The sheriff says follow-up suggestions will be made, but the initial report will be delivered to the governor and governors-elect.