An unarmed security guard who was at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School when the 2018 Valentine’s Day shooting occurred and was subsequently accused of sexually harassing students, including one who died, will not be returning to the school.
WPLG reporter Carlos Suarez tweeted that Superintendent Robert Runcie announced Andrew Medina would be let go and will not be reassigned elsewhere within the school district. Suarez said David Taylor also won’t return. The reporter noted that both school guards (who are not to be confused with former Broward County sheriff’s deputy and school resource officer Scot Peterson) were criticized for their response to the mass shooting pepetrated by Nikolas Cruz.
Medina was the first to spot Cruz, who was kicked out of the school, entering his former campus with a large duffel bag. The video above shows Medina recalling that fateful day’s events.
“He’s beelining. He’s got his head down. He’s on a mission, you know. He’s on a mission,” he said. “Do what we’ve been taught. Report it [was my response],” rather than confronting Cruz directly.
“Because I was ready to go get him. Like, I was ready to go be the guy, just go get him,” he said.
But Medina was also suspended in 2017 for sexually harassing two students that February. One of the students was Meadow Pollack, who was murdered a year later.
Medina, 39, the Sun-Sentinel reported, was suspended for 3 days for inappropriate conduct. He was accused of asking one female student out and whispering “You are fine as fuck” to another.
On that suspension, school spokeswoman said the following:
“In this specific case, the employee was investigated for alleged inappropriate comments to students. The final determination, after the review process, was to uphold the finding of probable cause for inappropriate conduct,” she said. “However, the discipline was finalized at a three-day suspension. There was no direct evidence to distinguish between the conflicting statements provided by the students and the employee, and there were no previous records of discipline for the employee.”
Pollack’s family, which has already sued the aforementioned SRO Scot Peterson, reacted angrily to the news about Medina. Meadow’s father Andrew and her brother Hunter said said they were not aware of this until after their loved one’s death. They said Medina called her “beautiful and sweetheart” and threatened her boyfriend when he tried to confronted the school employee.
It was Meadow’s mother who initially complained about Medina.
“If this had been brought to my attention back then, he would have never been at the school [the day my daughter died],” Andrew Pollack said.
[Image via Sun-Sentinel screengrab]
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