Pinellas County sheriff 'disgusted' by Uvalde school shooting response

TAMPA, Fla. - In 2018, a teen gunman shot and killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, and more school campuses across America have experienced the bloodshed caused by mass shootings. 

Over the last four years, there have been sweeping changes to improve campus safety in Florida. You have to be 21 or older to buy a firearm and the Guardian Program allows some trained teachers to carry guns. Schools have beefed up security and receive increased funding for mental health services.  

The red flag law allows law enforcement and the court system to remove guns from people who pose a threat to themselves or others, and schools along with police conduct regular active shooter drills. 

"We're doing everything that we can to be as prepared as we possibly can," said Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri.  "And that's why we're testing ourselves and trying to find the holes, trying to find the vulnerabilities."

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Gualtieri is the Chairman of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission. The group made recommendations to improve campus safety in the wake of the Parkland massacre.

The Pinellas County sheriff said the recent mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas hammers home the importance of these active assailant exercises.

"Disgusted by it. You know, I don't know how else to describe it, it leaves a knot in my gut. Embarrassed by it for law enforcement," Gualtieri said.  "And not just that, there was an obvious lack of leadership, a lack of command and control. But how can you have so many cops that sit around and didn't override that."

There was bewildering inaction by nearly 400 officers as the gunman fired inside two fourth grade classrooms killing 19 students and two teachers.

PREVIOUS: Video from inside Uvalde school shows officers milling around hallway during massacre

"You don't know how somebody is going to react until they're actually tasked with reacting. But the volume of people there, the magnitude of it and the magnitude of the incompetence is just, it's mind-boggling," said Gualtieri.

Gualtieri now wants to make absolutely sure the department’s response policies emphasize confronting the shooter as quickly as possible. He said it needs to be spelled out when an active assailant response transforms into a containment response.

"If the bullets have been flying and there's people in there that have been injured by those bullets, and they have life-threatening injuries, you need to go, and it doesn't matter," he said. "I think that's an objective lesson that necessitates real clarification in everybody's policies to the extent that it wasn't clear before."

Active shooter drills are now a part of life for law enforcement, teachers and students across the state. Gualtieri said the exercises are a necessity that are likely here to stay forever.

"The unfortunate reality is, and anybody that doesn't accept this is just not being realistic. Is that it is going to happen again. The question is when and where," the sheriff said. 

He said the only question left after that is actually the most important one, what is law enforcement doing to mitigate the harm.