Create a free profile to get unlimited access to exclusive videos, breaking news, sweepstakes, and more!
Parkland Security Guard Got Three-Day Suspension For Sexually Harassing Students Before Shooting
Andrew Medina reportedly asked one of the students on a date and told another she was “fine as f***.”
An unarmed security guard who was criticized for failing to confront the Parkland school shooter was suspended for three days last year after two students accused him of sexual harassment, according to a report.
A disciplinary committee at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School recommended that Andrew Medina, a coach and security monitor, be fired, the Sun Sentinel reported.
According to a school district investigation, Medina asked one of the students on a date and told another she was “fine as f***.” One of Medina’s accusers was Meadow Pollack, who was one of 17 people killed when a gunman stormed the school on Valentine's Day.
“Both students became so uncomfortable with Mr. Medina’s comments and actions, they sought out different routes to their classes in an attempt to avoid him,” Robert Spence, a detective from the district’s special investigative unit, wrote in a report.
The school investigators said they used surveillance footage to verify the accusations against Medina. One of the students said the 39-year-old coach asked her where she worked and if he could visit her at her job after school, the report obtained by the Sun Sentinel said.
The school district decided to suspend Medina for three days as a result of harassment claims, according to an October 2017 report by the school’s Professional Standards Committee. The committee found probable cause to charge and fire Medina for inappropriate conduct, but a handwritten note at the bottom recommended suspension instead.
Meadow Pollack’s brother, Hunter, told BuzzFeed News that his sister had complained to her boyfriend about Medina’s “ongoing gross behavior.”
"He would call her names like 'gorgeous and sweetheart' and just be a creep," Pollack said. "And when her boyfriend confronted him about it, he threatened him, too."
Pollack and his father, Andrew, confirmed that it was Meadow’s mother who complained to the school about Medina’s inappropriate behavior. According to BuzzFeed, the Pollacks only recently found out about the harassment. The second female student who accused Medina was not named in the district’s investigation.
Andrew Pollack said that if he had known earlier, he would have demanded stricter punishment for Medina.
“What’s killing me is that he should have been terminated and he wasn’t and he was at that gate,” he told BuzzFeed. “We might have had someone who might have done something like call ‘Code Red’ and instead we had someone with half of a brain who did nothing. And after all this, they reassigned him somewhere else where he might act this way to other girls.”
Following the massacre at the Florida high school, Medina told police investigating the shooting that he spotted and recognized the shooter, Nikolas Cruz, when he came on school property.
"We had a meeting about him last year, and we said, 'If there's gonna be anybody who's gonna come to this school and shoot this school up, it's gonna be that kid,'" Medina told investigators.
Medina failed to confront Cruz, and did not follow school protocol by calling a "code red," which would have put the school in lockdown. Medina no longer works at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school, but still has a job in the district.
[Photo: Broward State Attorney's Office]
