FACEPALM: Parkland school’s security cameras were rewound 20 MINUTES while police were using them to locate Cruz

Not only were there law enforcement failures leading up to the shooting in Parkland last week as well as the school resource deputy cowering in a corner somewhere while kids were getting massacred, but now we find out that someone (maybe law enforcement) had rewound the security cameras to see what happened and then failed to communicate that fact when trying to relay where Cruz was on school grounds.

In fact, he was already gone when they were using the rewound security cameras to try and find him in real time.

FOX NEWS – Police officers responding to last week’s Florida school shooting thought they were tracking Nikolas Cruz live on surveillance video — but then realized the footage was delayed by nearly 30 minutes because it was rewound, tossing roadblocks into the frantic efforts to capture the 19-year-old shooting suspect.

Responding officers were watching security footage in Broward School District that occurred 20 minutes prior, leaving them in the dark when attempting to look for Cruz in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 13, the Sun Sentinel first reported Wednesday. Cruz was captured in Coral Springs, located about a mile away, more than an hour after the start of the shooting.

“One of the things we try to do is, whenever we get to some place, like in this particular situation, we always try to review video camera footage,” Coral Springs Police Chief Tony Pustizzi said in a Thursday evening news conference. “It helps us not only identify what happened but possibly where the perpetrator is. In this case, there was a 20-minute delay.”

Responding officers were heard on radio transmissions at 2:54 p.m. saying they were seeing Cruz on camera going from the third to the second floor. By that time, Cruz had been out of the building for 26 minutes, according to the newspaper.

“He went from the third floor to the second floor…They’re monitoring him on camera,” an officer was heard saying on the radio transmission released by Broadcastify. Pustizzi recalled officers attempting to pinpoint Cruz when the shooter wasn’t even in the building.

Pustizzi said the delay never impacted the rescue efforts or placed the students and teachers’ lives in danger.

“The delay was simply when we got there, and the Sheriff’s Office and our officers and other officers from the community went into that building,” Pustizzi said. “The issue was more of a communication failure on who was reviewing the tape, letting our guys know that it was a 20-minute delay with what they were reviewing.”

On a radio transmission from the day of the shooting, an officer finally said, “It’s about a 20-minute delay, they’re following him on video, on the camera…They have him exiting the building, running south.”

Pustizzi said in the news conference: “There was nothing wrong with their equipment, their equipment works. It’s just that when the person was reviewing the tape from 20 minutes earlier, somehow that wasn’t communicated to the officers.”

Broward County School District also clarified on Thursday the high school’s security cameras do play in real time, but they were rewound 20 minutes that day to retrace Cruz’s actions, according to WSVN.

It’s hard not to read this without the Benny Hill song running through my brain. Of course emotions are high and mistakes will happen, but this just sounds like a bad movie plot to be honest.

[sce emoji=”facepalm”/] [sce emoji=”facepalm”/] [sce emoji=”facepalm”/]


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