Andrew Pollack and parents of students killed in the Parkland massacres speak during a news conference Thursday, Aug. 9, 2018, where they call for changes in the school system, naming the school board’s “poor performance” as a specific target at the BB&T Center in Sunrise, Fla. The Broward County School Board has failed to properly secure the county’s 234 schools for the upcoming school year, according to a statement from Stand With Parkland, the National Association of Families for Safe Schools. The shooting on Feb. 14 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School killed 17 students and staff. (Taimy Alvarez/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP)
Andrew Pollack’s daughter, Meadow, was fatally shot during the horrific mass murder at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018.
In his new book, Why Meadow Died: The People and Policies That Created The Parkland Shooter and Endanger America’s Students, Andrew reveals there were more than just issues of guns and mental health afoot amid the tragedy.
Apropros, while appearing on Tucker Carlson Tonight last week, Andrew called out the Florida school for its lax attitude toward misbehavior:
“One of the examples in Broward when my daughter was going to school: students were allowed four misdemeanors per school year without being introduced to the judicial system. And then, at the end of the year, Tucker, if you could believe this — so, that was in ninth grade, you had a kid next to your kid in the classroom, commits four misdemeanors. And then next year — 10th grade — he resets at zero and is allowed another four misdemeanors per school year.”
Tucker pointed out such permissiveness “basically makes it impossible for school authorities to do anything about a threatening kid.”
“And the worst thing about it,” Andrew asserted, “is they don’t make the parents aware of it.”
The Daily Wire’s Ashe Schow puts the significance of misdemeanors in perspective:
[C]ertain misdemeanors can result in one year in prison. Misdemeanors include animal cruelty (one of the earliest signs that a person could become a murderer), assault, and battery. The Broward policy meant that a student could be involved in up to four violent altercations per year without the police being informed or involved.
Why hasn’t this kind of thing been discussed as much as guns?
In a separate interview — as noted by TDW — Andrew explained that “these policies are throughout the whole country.”
Could it be that the participation trophy movement’s coddling of young people is partly to blame for violent, contemporary ills?
We hear of the most egregious mass shootings; but there are a slew of crimes among teens that never make the national news.
With regard to Parkland, as reported by The Daily Caller, Andrew wants those accountable to be held thusly:
“I want accountability. I want to hold everyone accountable that let my daughter get murdered in the school.”
The mourning dad appears to believe Marjory Stoneman Douglas could’ve wholly prevented the atrocity. He told Fox’s Neil Cavuto:
“The school knew about it all, Neil. It kills me. Looking at the book it makes my blood boil. I’ve been talking about it all week.”
But there’s another party he blames as well — himself:
“It’s not easy for me. I put my daughter into a school that I didn’t know what was going on and I take blame for that for not knowing.”
Andrew asks a good question: What are schools and governments doing to watch over the lives placed in their care? In this increasingly broken world, perhaps the safety of innocents should take precedence over lenience toward those on a malevolent path.
For Meadow Pollack, it’s too late. But it may not be, for many, many others.
-ALEX
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The post A Man Lost His Daughter in the Marjory Stoneman Murders, and Now He’s Out to Expose the School That Enabled it appeared first on RedState.