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Fort Lauderdale, FL – The Broward police captain who botched the police response to the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School submitted her resignation to Broward Sheriff Scott Israel, effective Nov. 20.
On Nov. 15, the state commission investigating the incident called Broward Sheriff’s Captain Jan Jordan “ineffective” during the active shooter incident in Parkland on Feb. 14.
Capt. Jordan took on the role of incident commander upon arrival at the high school, but failed to send deputies into the 1200 building where the gunman was still on his shooting spree, the Miami Herald reported.
Instead, she told them to set up a perimeter and continued to ask whether the students had been evacuated, as if she had no understanding of a lockdown.
Capt. Jordan did not follow the sheriff’s department’s active shooter training protocols, the commission determined.
Also on the chopping block after the most recent Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission meeting at the BB&T Center in Sunrise was Broward Sheriff’s Sergeant Brian Miller, according to the Miami Herald.
Investigation by the commission revealed that Sgt. Miller was, in fact, the first official to arrive on the scene and should have taken the role of incident commander.
However, evidence presented to the commissioners proved that Sgt. Miller did nothing, the Miami Herald reported.
“He sat up on Holmberg Road for 10 minutes,” Commission Chair and Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said. “He heard gunshots and he didn’t move. He never got on the radio. … He didn’t act.”
Sgt. Miller has been put on “restricted administrative assignment” and his status is now pending an internal review of his performance at the school shooting scene, the Miami Herald reported.
While on restricted duty, Sgt. Miller will be required surrender his gun and badge, and is prohibited from driving sheriff’s department vehicles.
Witnesses from the day of the school shootings, which left 17 students and faculty dead and 17 more students wounded, described now-former Capt. Jordan as “being over her head” and in a “trance-like” state throughout the active shooter situation.
Broward Sheriff’s Lieutenant Stephen O’Neill told investigators for the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission that Capt. Jordan was “ineffective” during the school shooting.
He added that she spoke with a “dream-like” tone throughout the incident, the Miami Herald reported.
Lt. O’Neill also told investigators that Capt. Jordan “was not engaged” with finding the active shooter inside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
“There are other [first responders] who described Capt. Jordan as being over her head,” commission chairman Pinellas Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said during the meeting.
On May 31, Coral Springs Fire-Rescue Deputy Chief Michael McNally released a special report that detailed how Capt. Jordan prevented paramedics from getting to the victims inside the school.
According to the report, Chief McNally asked Capt. Jordan six times for permission to send in specialized teams of police officers and paramedics to rescues students, the Miami Herald reported.
All six times, the captain denied his request, and said she needed to get permission.
Statements included in the incident report demonstrate she did not have the authority to actually act as the incident commander on the scene of the shooting.
Chief McNally, in his report, claimed the Broward Sheriff’s Office (BSO) command post was “severely dysfunctional,” the Miami Herald reported.
“The command post was inundated with too many people and made it impossible to establish and function,” Chief McNally wrote.
By the time Capt. Jordan deemed the school building safe for medics to enter, they were no longer needed – all of the victims had either been evacuated by police, or they were dead, the Sun Sentinel reported.
Capt. Jordan, a 20-year veteran of the Fort Lauderdale Police Department, was overseeing the Broward Sheriff’s Office’s Civil Division prior to being placed in command of the Parkland district on Apr. 29, 2017.
Parkland city officials demanded that the captain be replaced in the wake of the school massacre, and she was transferred to the Broward Sheriff’s Office Department of Administration in June, agency spokesperson Veda Coleman-Wright told the Sun Sentinel in August.