Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said he is “not sure” if all of the calls made about the Parkland school shooter’s mental state were handled correctly.
WATCH:
According to CNN’s Jake Tapper, 18 calls were made to the Broward County Sheriff’s Office before the shooting took place about the shooter’s mental health and tendency toward violence, raising questions as to why the shooter was allowed to purchase a gun. At one point, the shooter even threatened on Instagram that he was going to “shoot up a school.”
However, Sheriff Israel could not answer when asked what was done with that information.
“I’m not sure if anything was done with that information,” he said. “He did get — receive medicine and medical treatment. And as I said, of those 18 calls, two of those calls are being — 16 of them we believe were handled exactly the way they should. Two of them we’re not sure if our deputies did everything they could have or should have. That’s not to say they didn’t or did.”
Tapper asked Israel which two calls they were looking into, and Israel clarified that they were looking at one call from a “woman in Massachusetts,” but he could not recall the other.
Israel claimed that the case is proof that officers need more jurisdiction to be able to “do something more than just write a report” when facing someone with mental problems.
“Let’s not forget the whole crux of this is, giving law enforcement, giving deputies, giving police officers, not only in Broward county but in Florida and around the nation expanded power to be able to do something more than just write a report,” he said.
Israel also denied that making threats against the school would be considered a crime, arguing that the threat was “nonspecific.”
“Not if the person doesn’t have the ability to carry it out,” Israel said of a threat being a crime. “You could say nonspecific threat, ‘I’m going to go to a school,’ it’s not a crime.”
Many have questioned why the threats and other calls about the shooter would not have triggered the Baker Act in Florida, which says people can be involuntarily institutionalized if they appear to be a threat to themselves or others.