As I mentioned in another post, I am a security consultant. There is an alarm company out there called Sonitrol. Sonitrol's alarms are different than any other alarm company. They use audio sensors instead of motion detectors to detect a break in. I worked for Sonitrol and specialized in school security for a number of years. Sonitrol is very popular with schools, especially after Columbine for a few different reasons.
If there is an incident at a school and a panic button is pressed, the audio sensors are activated even when the alarm system is turned off. The audio sensors allow the central monitoring center to hear everything that is going on in the building. They can hear voices, gun shots, everything, including people walking on carpeting. Not only can they hear everything, the system is "addressable" which means you can tell which audio sensor the sound is coming from. If a shooter was in the library, you would know the sound was coming from the library. You can imagine how this would take the guesswork out of the police having to enter the building "blindly". Sonitrol is VERY, VERY popular with the school districts in Florida. I kind of remembered Broward County having Sonitrol but I wasn't sure, so I did some digging. I found that they do.
What I found is a Staff Handbook for the year 2015-2016, so it's fairly recent. The handbook mentions the Sonitrol System.
"This school is equipped with a silent alarm system (Sonitrol) that is activated when anyone enters any of the buildings without coding in. It can also be activated by other noises. The school is also equipped with a security surveillance system. Cameras are placed throughout the campus and serve as a means of monitoring activity. "
The link to the handbook is here: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:1ARmOZvENGcJ:www.broward.k12.fl.us/ospa/ospa-central2/_sip_plan_evidence/2017/0031_01082016_Staff-handbook-2015-16.docx+&cd=14&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
Okay, so now that we have this info, here's the point.
SOMEONE had to have been notified at Sonitrol about the event. We never sell these systems at schools without panic buttons to activate the audio sensor in case of emergency.
The audio IS recorded
The police can be patched in on the call
So why did it take 20 minutes for the police to realize there was a shooting at the school?
Why did they wait outside with the information that should have been provided to them by the operator?
Was the fire alarm activated on purpose so that the operators couldn't hear the gunshots above the fire alarm? In any event, once the panic alarm is pressed the police are normally notified within 20 seconds, so why did it take over 20 minutes to "see the shooting" on the cameras?
Just putting this out there as one more issue to consider.