Don’t think it can’t happen here.
Don’t think a hate-filled gunman couldn’t walk into a local school – or anywhere large gatherings of people can become targets – and put our community on the massacre map.
Don’t think we’re immune to the death and devastation of the mass shootings that are occurring at an alarming rate across America, merely because we live in a small, seaside town we want to believe shelters us from such horror.
“These types of incidents can happen anywhere,” Vero Beach Police Chief David Currey said last week in the aftermath of the mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, where 31 people were murdered by gunmen in incidents only hours apart.
“And each time they do,” he added, “it’s a continued and terrible reminder that we need to be vigilant, remain cognizant of the threat and continue to train, so we’re ready to respond. We don’t live in a bubble in this community.”
This spring, in fact, the Sheriff’s Office arrested two students – a 13-year-old seventh-grader at Storm Grove Middle School and 18-year-old senior at Vero Beach High School – for using social media to post threats of violence on their campuses.
The arrests followed an earlier incident in March, when a student left the Imagine South Vero charter school after parents complained about a photo the boy posted on a social media site, where he was seen wearing a mask and holding what appeared to be a handgun.
In May, a Fort Pierce man was arrested – just hours after his release from federal prison in Georgia – and charged with making an ISIS-related terrorist threat against targets in Vero Beach, including the CVS Distribution Center where he was once employed.
Then, just last week, a Vero Beach man was arrested after he threatened to kill every member of the Sheriff’s Office in multiple emails sent to the agency in July.
“This is something we talk about every single day,” Sheriff’s Maj. Eric Flowers said of a growing threat of domestic terrorism.
Certainly, there has been plenty to discuss in the wake of recent attacks, especially the killing rampage in El Paso, where 22 died and 25 others were wounded at a Walmart.
In the days since that sickening tragedy, at least 10 gun-related incidents have been reported at Walmart stores across the country – including four in Florida, two in our neighboring counties.
One day after the El Paso incident, Brevard County sheriff’s deputies arrested a Rockledge man who allegedly used his cellphone to call Merritt Island’s Walmart and warn that two people with rifles were coming to the store to “shoot the place up.” The call proved to be a hoax.
Two days later, a Port St. Lucie man contributed to the lunacy when he reportedly asked a Walmart clerk, “Can you sell me a gun that can kill 200 people?” Tracked down by police, the man said he was an anti-gun activist who was trying to make a political point.
The other Florida incidents involved the evacuation of a Walmart in Hillsborough County after a caller threatened to shoot up the store and the arrest of a Winter Park man who posted on Facebook a warning that he would soon have his semi-automatic rifle returned to him and people should stay away from Walmart.
As of Monday, there had been no such incidents at the Walmart stores in our county – which, I hope, says as much about this community as it does about preventative work being done by local law enforcement.
“There are people we keep an eye on, but we can’t do it alone,” Flowers said. “Our best asset is the citizen who comes forward and tells us they have concerns about their neighbor, or brother or son.”
Flowers also credited Florida’s “red flag law” – passed in 2018 after the shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland – with playing a significant role in local law enforcement’s preventative efforts.
The law allows police to seek court-issued “risk protection orders” to confiscate firearms from people whom judges deem to be a risk to themselves or others for mental health reasons.
“We’re preventing things from happening,” Flowers said.
To be sure, putting resource officers on every campus, creating the FortifyFL reporting app for mobile devices and implementing active-shooter drills also have made our schools safer.
Likewise, neighborhood-watch pages on social media now provide another avenue by which to report suspicious activity to law enforcement – in addition to calling 911 or the Crimestoppers tip line.
Still, something bad can happen.
That’s why local law enforcement agencies spend hours preparing to respond to such crises, often training together and with other emergency services.
As much as they train for these situations, however, first responders too often lack one critical piece of information: What types of firearms the shooter has in his possession.
“There’s no way for us to know how many AR-15s are out there, or who has them,” Flowers said. “That’s what makes these calls so dangerous.”
Currey said police shouldn’t fear being out gunned, so he’s working to ensure that each of his patrol officers has a rifle. The Sheriff’s Office, meanwhile, already equips every road deputy with a rifle, helmet and bullet-proof vest.
“We’re ready to respond at a moment’s notice,” Flowers said. “We have to be.”
Because mass shootings can happen anywhere – even here.
