What to Know
- Broward County School Board members voted to fire embattled former MSD High School security monitors Andrew Medina and David Taylor.
- The move, which came without discussion during the meeting, comes as both men were accused of not doing enough to prevent the shooting.
Broward County School Board members voted Tuesday to fire embattled former Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School security monitors Andrew Medina and David Taylor after they were accused of not doing enough during the February shooting at the Parkland school.
The move, which came without discussion during the meeting, comes as both men were accused of not doing enough to prevent the February 14th shooting at the school, where 17 people were killed and 17 others injured when former student Nikolas Cruz arrived on campus and opened fire inside one building.
Video of an interview Medina gave with investigators shortly after the shooting showed the now former employee and school baseball coach saying he saw Cruz arrive on campus carrying a bag, later alerting Taylor.
“I believe he made eye contact with me. I looked at him and he immediately made a right turn into that far east stairwell,” Taylor told detectives.
"We had a meeting about him last year, and we said, 'If there's gonna be anybody who's gonna come to this school and shoot this school up, it's gonna be that kid,'" Medina told investigators shortly after the shooting in that videotaped interview that was made public by prosecutors.
Medina didn't confront Cruz, nor did he call a "Code Red," which would have triggered an automatic lockdown of classrooms and brought police to the school, because he said he didn't see a gun.
Medina had also come under fire after the father and brother of Meadow Pollack, one of the victims in the shooting, say she was one of two girls Medina harassed last year. Medina was suspended for three days, even though a disciplinary panel recommended he be fired.
Both men had been transferred from Douglas earlier this month to other schools in Broward County.
At Tuesday's meeting, members are also expected to approve a plan that would have Broward County join a state program requiring a school resource officer or armed guard in each school.
BCSB and Superintendent Robert Runcie initially rejected joining the program, but had been discussing a plan over the past few weeks to change that. Board members wanted SRO's in each school - but with not enough to go around, a plan by Runcie to hire veterans and retired cops became an option.
