Posted on 02/24/2018 9:50:55 PM PST by Slyfox
For the last week or so, the entire nation has been talking about gun control — or at least the media has been talking about it.
The sudden tsunami of gun control stories, articles, op-eds, and segments is the result of the terrible mass shooting that took place at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in beautiful Parkland, Florida.
Sadly, the focus on gun control has caused the media (and the people who get their news from the media) to miss the far-larger scandal revolving around Douglas High School. First, let me be clear; I’m not talking about the scandal of four police officers being on scene when the shooting begins, but who chose to do NOTHING while waiting outside for backup. This is a scandal in and of itself, no doubt, and it should be investigated. The police force that allowed this to happen should be shamed for it. The shooting could, and should, have been far less bloody if only these officers had done what their community expects of them.
Secondly, this isn’t about the scandal unfolding at the FBI, who knew of Nikolas Cruz and his grotesque desires for mayhem and violence. This isn’t even (entirely) about the failure of policing that took place in the months and years before the shooting – a time period that saw local police visit Nikolas Cruz 39 different times for various episodes of violence and criminality.
And finally, it isn’t about how a troubled young man, so clearly mentally and emotionally distressed, ran afoul of the law so often, but was still somehow able to pass a background check to purchase his firearm.
No, this piece is about how, at every level, the government failed us by not enforcing our laws or even abiding by simple, logical standards of behavior.
Before I launch into this, let me give credit to the folks at The Last Refuge who write at the Conservative Treehouse and did much of the legwork on this story long before the shooting at Douglas High School. In fact, the Last Refuge was investigating this story years ago, in the wake of the Trayvon Martin shooting. I was able to independently confirm much of what the Last Refuge reported (see his Twitter thread on this story here) when I spoke, on condition of anonymity, with several sources, one of whom works in the central office of the Broward School District.
The scandal that the media is ignoring, but is probably the most important part of this story, involves the Broward County School District and local police agencies colluding to lay the foundation of the Douglas High School tragedy.
What do I mean?
The story all began about 6 years ago in Miami-Dade County (the county just South of Broward), where the school district was struggling to succeed. All of the data painted a picture of a failing school district. The district noticed that large portions of their school populations were being arrested at a higher proportion than the rest of their community, and they realized that if they could cut down on the criminality of their students, they could quickly improve the data coming out of their schools
With this in mind, the district entered into a relationship with their local police force and concluded a deal that would ensure the police would stop arresting so many of their students.
Within a year or two, surrounding communities began to notice the change in Miami-Dade’s fortunes (which included a new influx of money), and Broward County decided that it was time they entered into a similar deal with their local police force.
The Broward County School Board and District Superintendent entered into a political agreement with Broward County Law enforcement officials to stop arresting students for crimes.
The motive was simple. The school system administrators wanted to “improve their statistics” and gain state and federal grant money for improvements therein.
It’s important to remember that this was not an arbitrary change; this was a well-planned fundamental shift in the entire dynamic of how teenagers would be treated when they engaged in criminal conduct.
I’m sure that you probably already see the problem with the police in South Florida entering into these deals with their local school districts.
In a very real way, the new policies made public school students above the law. These policies conflicted with laws that police officers had been long-trained to follow, but now it allowed students to act as they wished, without fear of the consequences.
At first, the police were only “excusing” misdemeanors, but soon they were also “excusing” felonies, including violent crimes like assault, armed robberies, and worse.
You can obviously see how this would cause problems, but it’s worse than you think. Once the system seemed to be “working,” the district needed the police to continue lowering arrests year-over-year, which meant that the police were being forced to excuse ever more severe criminal acts.
From the TheLastRefuge:
“Over time, even the most severe of unlawful conduct was being filtered by responding police.
We found out about it when six cops blew the whistle on severe criminal conduct they were being instructed to hide. The sheriff and police Chiefs were telling street cops and school cops to ignore ever-worsening criminal conduct.
The police were in a bind. They were encountering evidence of criminal conduct, and yet they had to hide the conduct. There were examples of burglary and robbery where the police had to hide the recovered evidence in order to let the kids get away without reports.
The police would take the stolen merchandise and intentionally falsify police records to record stolen merchandise *as if* they just found it on the side of the road.
They put drugs and stolen merchandise in bags, and sent it to storage rooms in the police department. Never assigning the recovery to criminal conduct. Stolen merchandise was just sitting in storage rooms gathering dust.
They couldn’t get the stuff back to the victim because that would mean the police would have to explain how they took custody of it. So they just hid it. To prove this was happening one of the officers told me where to look, and who the victim was…”
According to TheLastRefuge, an internal investigation was carried out, but the results were buried, because what it found was not politically or economically expedient for the county.
In the years following, youth crime in Miami-Dade and Broward steadily grew worse. An odd quota system developed, and once a certain number of High School students had been arrested in the county, leadership would make sure that other crimes committed would be excused.
To make matters worse (as if this wasn’t bad enough), South Florida’s gangs quickly caught on to the scheme and began using high school students to commit more of their crimes. They also began planning their biggest, most important activities later in the month, later in the quarter, and at times when schools were collecting their data for reporting. In this way, the gangs could take advantage of committing their crimes at the time when the police would be most likely to give their high school aged members a pass.
Now we’re getting closer to how all of this led to the Douglas High School shooting.
With the intricate nature of the relationship between the police and the schools, it became vital that the School Resource Officers (SROs) placed at the schools understood how the symbiotic relationship between the district and the police was supposed to work. They needed SROs who were adept at ensuring the criminal activities of their students would not be reported as crimes and endanger the district’s political and financial fortunes.
This is likely why the much-demonized SRO Scot Petersen (who infamously stood outside of the school while the massacre was in progress), likely refused to share information on the shooter with social services back in 2016.
These problems with the SROs in South Florida are not something new. There have been other investigations that uncovered their questionable behavior, but again it wasn’t convenient to end the practice.
In the wake of the Douglas High School shooting, these problems should be too big to hide.
Sadly, instead of covering the ongoing corruption of the law that has been happening in Miami-Dade and Broward counties since 2012, the media has chosen to focus their fire on gun control.
Instead of worrying about guns, the media should be asking how could local police pay 39 different visits (Broward Police claim it was “only” 23 visits) to one student without that student ever spending significant time in prison or a psychiatric ward. They should be asking why the local police wouldn’t share information about this high school kid with social services or other law enforcement agencies.
The truth is that our laws and law enforcement procedures were enough to stop the Douglas High School shooting before it ever happened, but because of the corruption sowed by the Broward County School District and local police leaders, those laws and procedures were ignored.
If the procedures (and laws) had been followed, Cruz would have never been allowed to purchase a gun. He would have likely already been incarcerated, and he never would have had the opportunity to kill 17 people.
This case isn’t about guns. And the answer isn’t more gun control.
This case is about school districts lying to their families in an effort to get more money and more political influence. It’s about local police forces being willing to ignore crime and refusing to abide by the laws that they promised they would uphold. It’s about government failures at every level and how that corruption and failure led to the death of 17 innocent people.
Don’t let the media sell you some sob story about how we need more gun control in this country. This is all about corrupt politicians and money.
With help from Obama, Coward county Florida has the lowest crime rate in the whole damn country!!
We dont count school shootings.
As long as you never arrest anyone we just keep getting Federal money falling out of the sky !!!
Later, Thanks!
In addition to all the info above, we can add the attitude of kids today to “Not Snitch”.
Many of those kids at that school knew this kid was very mentally unbalanced.
They kept their mouths shut. What will be the legacy of those lack of actions?
OMG those innocent children are gone.
Did communitynknow these BS Obama policies in effect?
How many more districts like this? All for politicized BS diversity stats and money. God save us from this.
DEBBIE W S involved in this diversity bs?
Pam Bondi pleaae look here.
Probably the soundest statement on the thread. These are people that believe a teacher with a handgun is three times slower than a killer with an AR15 because the AR15's bullet is three times faster. (Same people that thought an island could tip over if they put an air force base on one side of it). The reason you can't argue them is that they are incapable of understanding. What is so unfortunate is that many of them are in elected positions.
....and as always, blaming their shortcomings on everyone and everything else.
Yes, and in the meantime they all collected nice paychecks from the taxpayers. I think we all need to realize that Peter Strzok, Lois Lerner, and Lisa Page are not outliers in government bureaucracy. They are the norm. They are parasites on the nation, and survive because they have established a symbiotic relationship with another group of parasites - liberal politicians.
Save for later
FREE MONEY is the root of the problem.
Nixon put Revenue Sharing on steroids. It has been all downhill since then.
State and local government no longer serve the voters of their district. They serve the bureaucrats who write up the criteria for getting the FREE MONEY.
Both left and right are upset with our voting system. FREE MONEY from Chris Dodd’s bureaucrats is at the root of much of our voting system problems. But those receiving FREE MONEY do not want to face the truth.
The same is true in the current school safety discussion. FREE MONEY dictates the policy and procedure of schools and law enforcement. Preservation of the bureaucracy is the sister of FREE MONEY.
The local bureaucracy does not want to be blamed for raising taxes, nor for foolish programs. But if the money is FREE, who can object?
Ping
Excellent post. Well done.
After looking into this situation this is all based on a permissive program put into place there (and elsewhere I am sure) as a part of Social Engineering strategy to allow for no responsibility for their actions in formative years. The overall concept is referred to programatically as “School to Prison”
I am adding some links to videos that will help all who want more information to understand the insidious nature of this model. An old axiom I learned long ago was “if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime” I say decisions have consequences and if we do not take a stand then standards of morality and permissible behavior become subjective. This also is a direct manifestation of the failure of the Public School system which has degraded since the 70’s into indoctrination rather than education. In the professional world College is referred to as the New High School, a direct response to the actual level of usable skills and competency as perceived by employers. Try finding a career opportunity of any real merit that does not bear the requirement of a “degree” as a requirement for consideration to become an employee.
And even at the next level The Edutocracy, buttressed by Student Loans and Equal Opportunity mandates cloaked in “diversity” allow for those not truly competent enough to attend and succeed are shoehorned into a system taught by “professors” who almost invariably have never worked a single day in the discipline they teach. Further, the disciplines now offered water down the foundational ones into a plethora of “feel good” degrees like African American studies and others that have no real place other than promoting a social self separation without purpose in a business and employment context. But in the overall scheme these things are necessary as if we remove these worthless disciplines that are only necessary as the supportive outcome wrapped around a Government mandated program like EEOC and more. Common Core is another mandate that seems to sound good to many, but it is a wolf in sheep’s clothing which in actual fact further limits the actual competence and capability of students. Vocabulary is limited typically to under 2500 words, sight reading versus foundations (like, vowels, phonics etc.) limit the abilities of the “graduate” to actually survive in the business world. This is the dumbing down that has been occurring for years and coupled with acolytes of this model as the “teachers” we still regularly “graduate” students who when measured achieve rates of 65% or more who cannot read or write. And there is no backlash against the school systems who somehow avoid punishment for this as the states only will pay for attendance until age 18. Remedial education for those who are placed in this situation become someone else’s problem and employers are burdened with Government mandates that we “must” employ X percentage of “Y” disenfranchised group or else.
So the School to Prison model adds exponentially to the issue as behaviors that must bear a consequence commensurate with the infraction is swept away. Replaced with a program that may have started small it now embraces crimes that once had appropriate boundaries into “youthful mistakes” that have now burst past any facade of good intentions into full blown enablement of no consequences. And even if it does eventually end up with an undereducated young person goes to jail or prison that is a deliberate conspiracy that creates jobs and bureaucracies for their internment and of course post prison programs. This also adds to the breakdown of the family structure and a societal “norm” in many populations that going to jail is a right of passage.
In closing here are some links to get started in educating ourselves into this model and helping to even within our own sphere of influence speaking out against this well planned and insidious element formed purely and focused on the destruction of society into one of dependence on Government and not ourselves.
School to Prison Pipeline (search link to many videos)
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=school+to+prison+pipeline+documentary School to Prison Pipeline
Semper Fidelis and Sic Semper Tyrannis!
God Bless and keep us all, the battle is one and we cannot let this continue!
Wouldn’t be hard to do, let alone imagine them doing it. What they lack in evil, they make up for in creepy.
Yes, I’ve been saying this goes back to Treyvon Martin and the Miami-Dade police not throwing his little backside in jail when he had marijuana, burglary tools and jewelry in his backpack.
no.....S Texas
This is how St. Treyvon Martin was off from school scoping out cars and then bashing someone’s head into the cement and finally being put out of our misery. They had found drugs and stolen jewelry in his locker and instead of reporting him to the po po they gave him so many days on the beach.
This story should be shopped to Fox News. Laura, Sean, tucker, etc.
Because he’s a threat - that’s why.
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