Authorities have released the 911 calls made my students and school personnel at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland on February 14, when Nikolas Cruz allegedly opened fire in a campus building, killing 17 people.
The Miami Herald reports that the Broward County Sheriff’s Office released an audio file of a series of 911 calls made that Wednesday afternoon, revealing the chaos and confusion after shots were fired in the 1200 building of the school campus. According to the report, dispatchers fielded 81 calls and the sheriff’s office released a portion of ten of those calls.
In the audio files obtained by CrimeOnline, not all of the callers are identified, but a lengthy section of the recording involves a man speaking to a dispatcher as he stands next to the mother of a student caught in the building. During most of that call, the woman’s daughter says little as she and the only other student in the classroom — which did not have a teacher in it — were trying not to call attention to themselves.
“She’s terrified right now,” the man tells the dispatcher.
“She’s afraid to talk, they are hiding right now.”
Later in the call, the woman gets on the line and says that it’s her daughter’s birthday. In this and in other instances, the callers at certain points appear to be communicating with people at the school via text, and relay that information to dispatchers, who remain calm and reassuring, directing the callers to keep open lines with anyone at the school they are communicating with while also ensuring they stay hidden and do not make any noise.
A man identifying himself as being from Coral Springs appears to have been one of the earliest 911 reports. It is possible that he was a dispatcher for Coral Springs Police Department, which responded to the scene, but that is not made clear in the recording.
And in another call, a woman has called authorities to report that her son contacted her about a possible shooting, and is told the police are at the scene.
“Is it secure?” the woman asks, and the dispatcher cannot answer her question.
Several of the callers who were not at the school do not appear to yet understand the severity of the violence, and a dispatcher sounds incredulous when she is told there is a shooter at the high school.
“Is everyone ok?” a man asks a dispatcher, after his fiancee’s little sister reportedly texted him to say there was someone shooting a gun. At the direction of the dispatcher, the man asks the girl what room she is in and appears to grow impatient when she doesn’t immediately answer.
He says on the phone that the girl texted, “He’s here.”
The calls ends before the man gets another reply from the girl.
In one segment of the recording, a person believed to be a student calls 911, his voice a whisper.
“Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School is being shot up,” the student reportedly says. The dispatcher asks him to repeat himself, but the call abruptly ends.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, Cruz was indicted on Wednesday with 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder.
[Feature image: Associated Press]
