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Wrongful Death Lawsuit Against Parkland Security Monitor Moves Forward

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FORT LAUDERDALE (CBSMiami) -- A wrongful death lawsuit will go forward against Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School security monitor Andrew Medina.

Meadow Pollack
Meadow Pollac (Source: facebook.com/robyn.maisner)

The family of slain student Meadow Pollack filed suit against Medina in August 2018 for failing to stop self-confessed shooter Nikolas Cruz after he saw the mass shooting suspect arrive on campus minutes before the massacre that left 17 people dead and 17 injured.

Attorneys for the Pollack family say Medina should have called a code red to lock down the school.

Medina's attorney argued he did everything he could.

"He has about two minutes to do the right thing, your honor, the reasonable thing under the circumstances, the simplest thing, get on the radio and call a code red," said Pollack family attorney David Brill in court on Wednesday.

Medina's attorney countered, "Mr. Medina only has one radio, he only has one way of communicating and he used that one way of communicating to give a warning to everyone who was on that frequency," said attorney Irwin Gilbert.

In a sworn statement, Medina admitted to seeing Cruz on campus minutes before the shooting, referred to him as the quote 'Crazy Boy' who always wore black or camouflage and had swastikas on his backpack.

In an interview with investigators, Medina is also heard telling them he knew who Cruz was and what he was capable of doing.

WATCH PART OF THAT INTERVIEW WITH INVESTIGATORS HERE:

 

"I knew who the kid was because we had a meeting about him last year and we said if anybody was going to come to the school and shoot the school up, it's going to be that kid," Medina told investigators after the shooting.

Medina did not appear in court Wednesday.

Meadow Pollack's outspoken father, Andrew, was not there either.  He was in Tallahassee for his first State Board of Education meeting.  Former Florida Governor Rick Scott appointed him to the position in early January.

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