andrew pollack parkland father anniversary
courtesy Bruce Bennett/palbeachpost.com
andrew pollack parkland father anniversary
courtesy Bruce Bennett/palbeachpost.com

“I’m a changed guy. They killed my daughter. I have to expose these people first before I can get any sort of peace in my life. And I’m doing it. One by one, I’m going to finish these people off.”

Those are the words of Andrew Pollack, father of Meadow Pollack who was murdered at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last year. Thursday is the one-year anniversary of Parkland and the media are in full retrospective mode, recalling the horror of the event and cranking out admiring profiles of those who’ve pushed for more restrictions on gun rights since the shooting. Look for those to intensify as the week goes on.

But Pollack isn’t one of those who has embarked on a gun control campaign in the last year. Un-like fellow Parkland parent Fred Guttenberg, he hasn’t blamed the existence of or access to guns for his daughter’s death. Instead, he’s gone after the near-criminal levels of ignorance and incompetence displayed by those in positions of authority at the Broward County Public Schools and the Broward County Sheriff’s Office that directly contributed to the death toll.

The Palm Beach Post has an extensive profile of Pollack.

“I haven’t smiled since my daughter was murdered. I just can’t do it. You can’t enjoy yourself anymore in life,” he says, gazing across the rocky lot. “And it was the most avoidable shooting in the country’s history. Everyone has been affected by this and they’ll never be the same.”

How could they be? Particularly after the slow drip of information began almost immediately after the shooting. Revelations that exposed jaw-dropping levels of negligence and mismanagement by school administrators and local law enforcement.

With Broward Sheriff Scott Israel finally relieved of his job by newly-elected governor Ron DeSantis…

The top spot on Pollack’s must-go list: Broward Superintendent Robert Runcie. Pollack accuses the schools chief of lenient policies he believes contributed to the events of Feb. 14, 2018.

It was a culture of leniency that allowed a campus monitor named Andrew Medina to be in charge of the school’s gate that afternoon, says Pollack. Four months before the shooting, a schools disciplinary committee had recommended firing the 39-year-old Medina after complaints of sexual harassment from students, but the district’s human resources chief gave him a three-day suspension instead.

After the shooting, the campus monitor, who was also an assistant baseball coach, told investigators he had left the gate unlocked and unattended. He said he recognized the gunman who was “beelining” toward a building filled with hundreds of students, but didn’t know his name. “Crazy Boy” is how Medina referred to Cruz, a former student expelled a year earlier for threatening behavior.

“I knew who the kid was because 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 Broward Sheriff’s Office detectives in a videotaped interview.

Pollack’s repeatedly targeted Medina’s negligence over the last year. But one thing he hasn’t done is blame guns for his daughter’s death.

He says focusing on guns is a waste of time.

“Anyone who’s going to get into a gun debate, all you do is deflect from doing what we can do together. And that’s fix the schools and make them safe. A gun debate is a distraction,” says Pollack, who describes himself as “not pro-gun or anti-gun.”

While being agnostic regarding firearms, he supports the Parkland Commission’s near-unanimous conclusion that, in order to protect students, schools need to have trained, armed individuals on-site.

“The average shooting takes four minutes. No one can get there in time to save the kids,” says Pollack, who favors an extensive, tactical program that would train teachers and other school employees on the use of firearms in an active shooter situation. “Liberals go nuts and say, ‘Oh, we’re gonna arm teachers.’ It’s not about arming teachers. It’s voluntary.”

He believes such a training program should be open to all school personnel, “I don’t care if it’s the lunch lady,” if they can pass the rigorous course.

Since the shooting, he’s sold his house and now lives in a camper with his wife, an emergency room physician. It’s part of his eventual plan to “escape Broward County” and what he describes as “unethical Democrat” politicians and the “sick, demented” people who elect them.

“I sold my house. I can’t live in a county that’s this toxic. I just can’t do it,” says Pollack, who describes his future plans as “living week to week.” Long-term plans, however, do not involve staying in Broward, he says. “You’ve got to have your head examined to move into a Democratic county like Broward.”

When he does look back, he does so to remember Meadow.

“I’ve got a little video I watch, a medley of her pictures I put together and watch whenever I need to get empowered,” he says. “But I see her all day long. She’s in my head. She’s telling me to expose these people and keep fighting.”

 

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73 COMMENTS

  2. Mad props to this guy.. I actually respect him more for coming to this conclusion from a more neutral starting point.. Heart goes out to him and a thank you for keeping the attention in the right places.

    • he’s been saying this from day one, she’s been a class act and someone who is doing something to make a difference, unlike fools like guttenberg and the big mouth hogg, etc.

      There are a few other parents doing stuff like Pollack, i forget their names but like Pollack, the media has largely ignored them.

  5. It seems that “officer safety” trumps “courage under fire” almost all of the time, but especially with “school resource officers” and police officers in general. It seems that for almost every police officer, making it to a cushy retirement is the ultimate goal, the protection of the public be damned. Add to that, observe the many unjustified shootings by police that get “covered up” by police-friendly prosecutors and grand juries.
    All one has to do is look at the (in)action of the police officers during the last number of mass school shootings, where these “trained professionals” SAT ON THEIR HANDS while the carnage was going on.
    You can bet that us military veterans in such a case would be drawn TOWARD the sound of gunfire. If I had my way, I would arm teachers who wish to be armed, and would hire military veterans as school support personnel such as janitors and maintenance personnel. Janitorial and maintenance personnel have the run of the school buildings and would make an effective “reactionary force”. Us veterans would be much more effective than police, (who are only concerned about their own “safety”), as us veterans are trained to go towards the sound of gunfire and “solve the problem”.
    Today’s human nature dictates that the person with all of the “training” (especially) law enforcement DOES cower in fear, while a 90 lb. armed teacher would reluctantly, but successfully take out the shooter. Being forced into a situation also forces one to act.
    There are many examples of persons, who one would normally think, would not be capable of acting in an extremely high-stress situation, but DO come out on top-stopping the threat, and saving lives.
    Sad to say, today’s police practices dictate that the cop’s life is MORE IMPORTANT than that of those he has sworn to protect despite the cops having statutory protections that do not apply to us ordinary civilians.
    All one has to do is look at Medal of Honor recipients, who are almost always mild-mannered, initially reluctant to act, but DO act, and perform feats who most would think are normally beyond their capacity and capabilities TRUE bravery in the heat of battle. The same applies to those civilians who act during school shootings.
    Human nature has a habit of propelling (actually forcing) the normal, average person into a true hero and life saver, while showing the true (cowardly behavior) nature of those we assign to protect us. A good example of our protectors cowering in fear is the deputies who FAILED TO ACT despite having all of the equipment necessary and the preferential laws on their side (that protect them from lawsuits and liability).
    TRUE heroes ACT, while our so-called protectors (failed to) REACT.

    • Anarchyist, sounds like you’ve got it all figured out. Next time there’s an active shooter just grab your gear (I’m sure it’s probably an AR and a Glock, or something else made of plastic.) and run on down there and sort it out for those cops with their thumbs up their butts. You know, the ones that are mostly veterans. That don’t know what they’re doing. The cowards. 11B1P, Airborne Infantry. 20+ years LEO. You know so much? Pin on a badge, strap on a duty belt and go get you some. No? Then sit down and shut the fuck up!

      • “Pin on a badge, strap on a duty belt and go get you some. No? Then sit down and shut the fuck up!”

        An underwhelming response to specific criticisms. This idea that only like can criticize like means no one is allowed opinion or analysis of some activity they have no relevant experience with. The logical conclusion of that reasoning is that doctors can only practice in areas of disease they have personally experienced. Teachers can only instruct in subjects they have expertise with. Astronomers, physicists, engineers can only evaluate the arenas they have personally visited or directly experienced. Judges can only preside over cases where the judge was a plaintiff or defendant. Juries could only sit on cases where each juror has experience in the issue before the bar.

        It is a display of hubris to imagine that no one can study and legitimately analyze and criticize activities of which they are not participants. So here is one for you….

        Police roll-up to an armed robbery armed with tasers only, and end up being shot to death at a distance well outside the range of tasers. I would criticize the police for not properly arming their officers. But, wait…there’s more. Not being a current or veteran police official, I would be prohibited from lodging observations, opinions or conclusions about the appropriateness of arming police only with tasers. Does that make sense?

        • Sam. I’m sure that there are legit criticisms against the bso. I’ve made a few of my own. But let me remind all and sundry that anarchyst’s motives may not be so noble. He’s a self pro claimed racist that denies the holocaust and claims hitler will be vindicated by history.

          Maybe he and his kind want to weaken the system, especially law enforcement, so that they will face little to no back lash when they bring out the swastika arm bands.

          Just saying.

          • “Maybe he and his kind want to weaken the system, especially law enforcement, so that they will face little to no back lash when they bring out the swastika arm bands.”

            Could very well be. However….

            Challenge criticism on its contention, not on some sort of irrational notion that only people who perform a certain activity are permitted a legitimate opinion/criticism.

            There are commenters and others outside this blog that I believed should be silenced because they are dangerous to the republic. However, since others feel that way about the things I say and write, I must permit those people I believe dangerous to say their say, even if I can prove they are the idiots they are.

          • “I’m not suggesting censorship. I just think it does us no good to be seen agreeing with his kind,”

            Understand. The theme of “Pin on a badge, strap on a duty belt and go get you some. No? Then sit down and shut the fuck up!” is a declaration of societal censorship. My note was that blocking “outsiders” from critiquing someone/thing the outsider has not directly experienced can justify all sorts of prohibitions regarding public discourse/activity. I was just pointing out that I also have the urge to squelch speech, but refrain because it is in my best interest to not support any sort of censorship.

            There actually are some things I think few people can actually understand completely because they haven’t the experience. That, however, is not a call for censorship, but for recognizing there are limits to everyone’s experience that makes it impossible for others to truly grasp the implications. For instance, someone who has not served in combat cannot hope to understand fully the “sense of mission”, “undefinable camaraderie”, “the warrior bond”, the foreign concept of just working for money. Not a criticism of people lacking the experience, but an acknowledgement that combat veterans have their lives changed, and their lives enhanced for their experience, and it is extremely difficult to explain.

            Many people, including combat veterans, hailed the opening battle scene of “Private Ryan” as being the most realistic ever captured in a movie. Yet….a movie cannot allow the average person to experience (as in fully grasp the effect of), massive adrenaline bursts, the smell of munitions, the indescribable noise, the paralyzing fear that kept people from getting off the beach, the exertion of 80+ pounds of wet gear and clothing hobbling soldiers sprinting for cover beyond the beach, the tunnel vision created by incredible focus on surviving for even one more minute.

            But the inability of movies re-creating for unknowing audiences the realism of war does not mean the audience is worthy of derision, nor dismissal of anyone in the audience criticizing the mistakes that were made. An audience might have a much better overview of the recreated battle than the men on the beach whose war at that moment likely spanned ten feet on either side. In the middle of combat, one does not have the luxury of cogent analysis of the entire battleground. An audience just might be capable of important observations the people on the scene, and their command structure might not “see” at the time.

            So it is with everyday life. I studied business systems processes. Was a project manager for large scale software/hardware implementations. I was not an employee of any company we analyzed regarding how their business practices were successful or not. However, that did not mean we could not identify “disconnects” between business intent, and business operations. If it were required that our implementation teams be restricted to current or former employees of the businesses analyzed, there never would be an “ah ha” moment when one company recognized the value of best practices learned from our work with another company.

      • Were they veterans at Columbine,parkland etc? I too am a vet,my stepdad was ore state police 40’s and early 50’s.what makes all cops look bad is the so-called blue code.a normally good leo will see a dirtbag cop commit a crime and will help cover it up.that my feathered leo makes all of you guilty.where are the Serpicos today,the Buford pussars in tennessee.when the shtf we won’t be the only ones dying unless the Marines jump in to save you.you are out manned and outgunned

      • There was ONE COP. He did not have a weapon that even compared to the one the shooter had. Once that kid entered that school and opened up it was all over, No one was going to stop it unless you had the swat team. My husband was in Nam and brothers were in Korea and they saw action too and one has a Purple Heart, They have all said the cop could not have stopped the shooting. Even if he had approached this guy he would have been shit and killed on the spot. The supreme court ruled that cops are not there to die (in so many words) that this guy could not be sued as the shooting was not his fault and he could not have stopped it… I know a lot of guys think they are AUDI MURPHY and they could have taken care of it solo, Not true guys, I love our military but not even rambo could have stopped this, We need to have doors locked at the schools , and have a few guards, Teachers who are trained should carry . If we also passed some laws about mentally ill kids making threats and locking them up and getting them help? These people all made threats and nothing was done about it, We cannot sit back and allow mentally ill people run around shooting up schools. Stricter laws on bullying and abuse. We need to heal it before it festers, not after, every one of these shooters were bullied and abused and the schools did nothing. This father is right it all started with the DEMS Bulling is a crime ans as such the person who does it go to jail We must make it a felony and it doesn;t matter how old the people are. They go to court and get some mental help if it doesnt work poof off to lockup.,

    • If those soldiers at Little Rock High had done what Scot Peterson did, they would have been court-martialed for cowardice before the enemy (a capital offense).

      It seems the wrong people are in charge of protecting our schools.

    • I would disagree with your very broad brush painting of police officers. Every day in every corner of the world police officers give their lives to protect those who cannot protect themselves. I’ve known many officers who have put their personal safety aside to protect the innocents in their communities, sometimes with catastrophic injuries to show for it.

      That said, bureaucratic decision-making at the upper echelon of law enforcement often leads to officers being hamstrung in their efforts. As in Uvalde, where the Chief of the School Police (what school district needs its own police force? Weird) made a unilateral decision contrary to the training and desires of the officers inside the school, possibly costing lives of innocents. Following orders is a core value for law enforcement as it is in the military. Bad decisions get magnified. I would remind anarchyst that the military is not immune from tactical disasters and outright cowardice as well. No organization keeps a perfect record for long.

    • This is a distraction from the issue of Broward County and Parkland School’s actual failings.
      So we aren’t blaming guns. Check.
      We are blaming those responsible. Check.
      What do Obama and Holder and black students have to do with this?
      The buck stops at Cruz, his counselors, teachers, school administrators, the cops who did the 35 home visits, the staff of the school, those who heard his threats of violence…..
      But hey let’s blame black people because hey that’s what we do……
      But blaming guns is unfair. Wahhhhh.

      • We don’t blame black people. We can and do blame progressive policies that encourage schools to ignore dangerous behavior because muh racism.

        Parkland school district drank the koolaid. They followed progressive policies to the letter. They KNEW that kid was crazy and had every opportunity to stop him. But they chose to be “lenient” (i.e. to ignore this kid’s psychotic, murderous behavior) because muh racism — which means they chose to let him murder 17 people. They’re responsible.

        I hold Obama and his coterie of progressive ghouls responsible, too. There’s a direct line of causation between his crap and dead students in Parkland High School.

      • Slow down and read for comprehension. The program was very much a pert of the problem, and could be argued to be the problem. Obama pushed it to the point money was paid to adopt and implement.

  8. What this conversation need is just one incident where an elderly, grandmother, Librarian, who was denied a carry permit because she couldn’t convince the local P.D. she had a NEED for a gun, yet refused to be dissuaded by the “gun free zone” and was for the safety of her students, packing her .38 when some nut came to shoot up the school. After them getting off a few rounds, she jumped out from behind the stacks and went all Mozambique on the perp before anyone else was hurt. (I know, in my dreams, right?) But that would put to rest at least a half dozen arguments from the left.

  9. “You’ve got to have your head examined to move into a Democratic county like Broward.”

    And anyone who votes for a Democrat needs his head examined.

  11. I agree with Mr pollack.the filthy perverted democrats want us disarmed and they hope a high body count will do it

  12. “Left the gate unlocked and unattended”. Did he see saw the shooter coming and then run and hide ? The monitor should probably be charged as an accessory to murder, or at least gross negligence resulting in harm.

    I can well imagine that a lot of unsavory facts are going to emerge at Cruz’s trial.

  13. As a tenured, veteran educator I couldn’t agree more. We have the basic “run, hide, fight” training, but many of us understand our fighting abilities are quite limited… and if we get to running and hiding we are already in trouble.

  14. You have my deepest sympathy. It’s almost like the cowardly leftards MEANT for Parkland to happen😩😢😡

    • Of course they did.
      Bottom line, the dogmatic policies are supremely important and the human casualties simply represent a sacrificial means to an ideological end. No opportunities left unexploited, whether intentional or accidental.
      This mindset tells you what sort of people they truly are, what they think of you, and why gun control is a policy tool.

  15. Oy.

    “One by one, I’m going to finish these people off.”

    Wonder if Mr. Pollack understands how the liberals he lives among might deal with that sentence? My Philadelphia Lawyer brain tells me he could be challenged for making a terrorist/death threat.

    • “My Philadelphia Lawyer brain tells me he could be challenged for making a terrorist/death threat.”

      In this case, *doubtful*.

      He checks all the right boxes. Grieving parent of ‘gun violence’, check…

      • ” In this case, *doubtful*.”

        “He checks all the right boxes. Grieving parent of ‘gun violence’, check…”

        Aligning with the official anti-gun narrative, NO
        Marginalize with prejudice.

  16. Bullshit, Pollack also called red flag laws “a start” and said he hopes other states follows the lead of Florida.

    This guy is also an enemy of the RKBA, he’s just one with NRA backing.

    • You also need to realize outside of gun blogging, which is a pretty small world, even in the pro 2A world, that the red flag laws really aren’t understood by anyone. They don’t ban or restrict any types of firearms or the carrying of firearms so they don’t grab headlines and people don’t really notice a difference. I’m not saying I like them or anything, that’s just the reality of it.

      • Very true. They’re another example of the “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear” attitude. Considering how little understanding of the Bill of Rights the average American has, the idea of punishment before truth is lost on them. After all, they think DA’s LOE’s and Judges are all there to protect our rights even as they violate them. The laws are just another example of the slippery slope our Republic is on.

  17. Look all the way back to Columbine, while two perverts were killing the kids the police were cowered down a full 30 minutes before they decided to enter.i believe that they want a high body count so they can SWAT team legal gun owners during confiscation.they don’t seem to grasp that WE won’t be the only ones dying.run to the sounds of gunfire.MAGA

    • In the the 1990s, Congress passed a whole bunch of laws to combat street crime (the 1993 brady Act, the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, the 1994 Federal Death Penalty Act, the Violence Against Women Act, the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act, the 1996 Anti-Terrorism Effective Death Penalty Act).

      How was the massacre at Columbine possible?

  19. Kudos to Andrew Pollack for stating the real facts. However his audience will be extremely small and ignored by almost 100 percent of MSM as his message does not fit their agenda of working with the democrats to disarm law abiding citizens by using mass shootings like Parkland to scare the general public into accepting extreme gun control. Instead they will be showing the “survivors” again and their tales of horror of facing a madman with an assault rifle and how they insist these weapons must be banned along with “high capacity” magazines.

    But Andrew Pollack is absolutely right in that the last line of defense must be an armed staff to put down and deter these maniacs. Having had an inside look at different public facilities including some public schools and the near total lack of concern for security and the culture of covering up mistakes and ineptness of their own makes for a very ripe environment for these domestic terrorists,

  20. I hope this guy gets everything he’s fighting for.

    Broward County corrupt officials need to get powerwashed out of the state.

  21. He’d get farther by avoiding the partisan talk. “unethical democrats… liberals…” etc.

    I’m not saying it isn’t true, but he’ll get no where by echoing it.

  22. Don’t understand why a teacher, who has a CCW permit, does not carry on the job. First off, no one needs to know they have a CCW; and next, if it’s concealed, how will they know? Just get well trained, and stay discreet; and when a shooter comes into the school, try your best to get him; (or her) before too much carnage has occurred. Any administration or lawyer would have a hard time going after you, if, and I think I’m right about this, public opinion would hail you as a hero, rather than a trigger-happy vigilante.

    • “if, and I think I’m right about this, public opinion would hail you as a hero, rather than a trigger-happy vigilante.”

      Actually….no.

      The anti-gun mafia would be outraged that such a teacher put their kids at risk everyday, and parents knew nothing about it. That teacher might have “snapped” for whatever reason, and killed a whole classroom full of kids. Having a gun around children who don’t know about, nor the parents, it is just abominable. Only a crazed gun owner would thing such a situation is reasonable.

  23. I hope he destroys every last one of them.

    You really can hound somebody to his grave, and that’s exactly what I’d do to those cowards.

  25. If he gets his way and takes everyone out? Their fate is retirement with full pension funded by the people they failed to serve.

  26. I to would be pissed at all the bullshit Broward county did to let Cruz do his shooting. Hope he finds someplace nice outside Broward

  27. My heart breaks every time I see pictures of him and his wonderful daughter.
    You can tell from her smiles how much he loved her.
    So glad he got picked for Florida state school board.

  28. Unlike the Big Money anti-gun lobby, Andrew Pollack doesn’t have enough donors to push a national agenda, can’t pay people to take pictures with him, pay for rallies, or buy a suitable pair of black socks.
    That should tell you something. Follow the money.

  29. ““And it was the most avoidable shooting in the country’s history.” Sounds like a lot of people who agree with this statement are in tacit agreement to proposed “Red Flag Laws”.

    The local gendarmes getting to the shooter sooner may have lowered the final body count but I believe it would’ve still been very high. Hope we all start thinking all of this through- we are the ones who should be coming up with viable solutions, not the government or persons who have never owned or handled a firearm.

  31. Wow, no one mentioned the FBI. An individual called the FBI about Cruz.. The call taker, plugged his name into a data base where Cruz’s name came up making threats to attack a school. The call taker reported it to a supervisor. The supervisor did nothing.

    This information could have stopped the Attack.

      • “Why would an attack on a school trigger federal jurisdiction?”

        If I remember correctly, there were written/spoken threats to shoot people, some people identified individually. If so, those statements would be “terroristic threats”, and a federal matter.

  32. There is only ONE person responsible for the deaths of the students in Parkland last year, and that’s Nikolas Cruise. Not the NRA, not gun owners, not the Sheriff, not the SRO. Nikolas Cruise chose to be a piece of shit murderer. He pulled the trigger. That is all.

    • That is only a partial truth. He may have been the one who pulled the trigger but Those that had the knowledge that he had said he would and was likely to do it, and/or in the process of doing it, that also had the opportunity to intervene prior to, and/or during, the attack that did NOTHING TO STOP HIM are guilty by complicity of allowing it to happen. There were a dozen or so opportunities to stop him before anyone was injured and NO ONE in a position to stop him did anything to prevent it from happening. They all have the blood of every victim he shot on their hands!

      • “They all have the blood of every victim he shot on their hands!”

        Actually, all those you blame were trying to slow the school-to-prison flow that was/is putting too many troubled kids behind bars, when all they needed was understanding, compassion, a kind heart, someone to help and guide them on how to change their behaviors.

        Besides, they were fulfilling the Obama Dept of Noeducation “advisory” letter that informed schools that holding “children” accountable for their actions could jeopardize federal funding for their school.

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