Tallahassee's Chief of Police, Lawrence Revell, provided an update on his department's investigation and response to the deadly shooting at Florida State University on Thursday.
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00:00As chief of police, and certainly as just a member of this community, you hope and pray that these type of events never occur.
00:08But as chief, if they do occur, I want to assure our community that we are prepared to respond in just the way we did yesterday.
00:19The coordinated response was incredible. The first shot rang out at 11.56 or 57, and within three to five minutes, the situation was over.
00:37But the officers had already responded, already neutralized the threat, and already began the process of clearing all the buildings, making sure there were no other shooters, and all that goes into that.
00:51That is a massive response that is required, and the collaboration between all of the agencies, federal, state, and local, is just a massive endeavor.
01:02And what you, as our community, can be assured of is that we prepare for that, and we were prepared for that.
01:08And the response that you saw yesterday is exactly the kind of response that not only you should expect from us, but I guarantee you, you will get from the Tallahassee Police Department and from all of our agencies.
01:21Every agency came together.
01:24Pre-training for these type of events is critically important.
01:27You can't wait until an event happens and then expect to perform well in that event.
01:32So we do train.
01:34We train specifically and individually as the Tallahassee Police Department.
01:38We train with other agencies, the Tallahassee Fire Department, our emergency medical service, as well as our other local law enforcement entities.
01:47And so that became very evident yesterday that that training and that preparation immediately went into play.
01:55As I was responding to the scene in the very early moments of this, I saw teams running by me of officers with rifles and helmets and EMS personnel or fire paramedic personnel that were embedded in that team that were going right into the hot zone.
02:10That type of training, that type of response, doesn't happen by itself.
02:16So those relationships, that collaboration is critical to make sure that in these type of events, we handle it the way it should be handled.
02:26Some of the things we can release are the fact that at this point, there does not appear to be any connection at all between the shooter and any of the victims.
02:36So we will continue to vet that out.
02:39We'll continue to follow the leads that come in.
02:41But at this current time, there does not appear to be any connection between the shooter and, again, even one of the victims.
02:50The suspect continues to receive treatment at one of our local hospitals.
02:55He did receive significant injuries in this event and will require a significant amount of time in that facility.
03:02Once he is released from that facility, he'll be taken to a local detention facility where he will face the charges up to and including first-degree murder.
03:13And let me speak directly to anyone who may have these type of thoughts of doing this type of act.
03:20If you are thinking of causing harm to our community or disrupting the peace that we have here, let me assure you, the men and women of the Tallahassee Police Department are the best in the world.
03:34And we will not rest.
03:36We will not stop until you are brought to justice.
03:39We will stop you immediately if you try to do this, if you try to harm our community.
03:43But if you do, rest assured, we will bring you to justice.
03:49From an emotional standpoint, from the standpoint as a father of several children, you know, this is the thing we fear most.
03:59This is that random act of violence that seems to have no meaning or rhyme, reason to it.
04:06We all fear that.
04:07And so, as a father, my heart goes out to these families that are immediately and forever impacted by this type of act.
04:19We receive calls after call after call.
04:23I received calls after call after call yesterday.
04:27And, you know, the emotions that just flow through you.
04:32One of my children texted me right in the beginning of this and just said, Dad, are you okay?
04:39Still gets to me even now.
04:42You know, so to know that your child was on that campus, to know that your child may or may not have been involved and not know that,
04:53I can only imagine the terror and the fear that goes through that.
05:00But, you know, this community is strong.
05:03And, unfortunately, we've dealt with a couple of these type of incidents.
05:07And this community will rally together.
05:09And we will be stronger after this.
05:13And we'll be better after this.