And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

From A New Sheriff for Parkland: Accountability begins after “the most avoidable mass shooting in American history.” by James Freeman.

I had not heard that description before but it sounds right based on the evidence which emerged in the year since the tragedy. The school knew about the dangers and turned a blind eye for years. The Sheriff's Department knew about the dangers and turned a blind eye for years. County Social Services knew about the dangers and turned a blind eye for years.
The FBI knew in detail about the threat for half a year and dropped the ball. It was indeed perhaps the most avoidable mass shooting. It only took one person in one department to make a strong stand and seventeen young lives might have been saved. And that did not happen.

Was it the fault of human error, bad governance design, ideological infatuation with demonstrably unsuccessful and dangerous policies, bad training? Dramatic failure in complex systems is usually the consequence of multiple causes and I suspect these and more were strong factors. But almost certainly, ideological commitment to bad ideas was a key enabler.

It brings to mind the situation in Britain where ideological infatuation, ungrounded idealism, absence of accountability structures, and pervasive desire to not appear intolerant or racist has led to more than a dozen instances of multi-year and even multi-decadal grooming rape gangs exemplified by the Rotherham Grooming Rape Gangs. Tragically not the first, nor the last, such rape gang, but one of the best documented in terms of the magnitude of the damage to the large number of most vulnerable victims, combined with a studied indifference by those in government, a reluctance to address the suffering, and absence of any accountability for anyone in the Mandarin Class.

From Freeman on the Florida tragedy.

To observe government is to observe the absence of accountability. And there has been no more maddening recent example than the aftermath of the cascade of failures that enabled Nikolas Cruz to murder 17 people and injure 17 more at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Next week will mark one year since the attack, and frustrated parents still waiting for needed changes in the Broward County school system are at least beginning to see reform at the sheriff’s office.

Linda Trischitta of the South Florida Sun Sentinel reports today:

New Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony on Thursday revealed his plans for the agency, saying he will ramp up training for thousands of deputies, including how they respond to mass shootings.

The new sheriff, a retired police sergeant from nearby Coral Springs, was in South Carolina at the time of the Parkland shootings. He recalls watching on television and seeing the Coral Springs officers he had trained respond appropriately. But Broward County’s sheriff’s deputies infamously failed to enter the school during Cruz’s massacre. The Sun-Sentinel adds:

“And I knew then that I needed to come back home and try to help in any way, shape or form that would be possible,” Tony said.

The mainstream media and the Mandarin Class have bewailed the tragedy then soullessly used it to campaign for their hobby horse policies which were irrelevant to the circumstances (had they been in place and observed, the tragedy would still have occurred). And then, as it became clear that the tragedy was a consequence of their favored virtue-signaling policies, they have dropped it like a handful of hot dung. We have had a year of publicity for callow gun-control victims from Parkland and very, very little reporting on the real causes.

Only the South Florida Sun Sentinel has doggedly continued reporting. And not just reporting, but actually investigating. They serve as a scarce surviving example of what a healthy press looked like. Facts not opinions. Investigations not rewritten press releases.

Freeman has the story to-date. And kudos to Sheriff Gregory Tony, his philosophy and his leadership. I recall in the first week afterwards, the stark contrast between the purposeful bravery and effectiveness of his Coral Springs officers and the passive timidity of the Broward County Deputy Sheriffs.