An Obama-era policy designed to compartmentalize school discipline may have hamstrung law enforcement's efforts to prevent the Feb. 14 massacre of 17 students and faculty, Florida House Speaker Richard Corcoran told Breitbart News.

Broward County's implementation of the "PROMISE" program — Preventing Recidivism through Opportunities, Mentoring, Interventions, Supports & Education — was designed to keep a disproportionate number of black kids out of the "school to prison pipeline."

So, Broward schools, empowered by an Obama administration Department of Education memo in 2014, could opt out of calling the cops on kids who committed misdemeanors at school, allowing the school district to handle those internally.

Enter Nikolas Cruz.

"In the legislation that we're about to propose we're doing away with what we call the 'no-arrest policy.' They call it something nice and flowery like the 'PROMISE program,'" Corcoran told Breitbart. "It's not a promise program.

"It's supposed to only be misdemeanor behavior, but how does the school personnel know if law enforcement isn't called?" Corcoran told Breitbart. "It's felony behavior, and numerous of those felonies were alleged against [Cruz]. Nothing was done because of this PROMISE policy, and as a result, we have this tremendous tragedy that we're all suffering through."

It's analogous to a "don't' ask, don't tell" policy between Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel and the school board, part and parcel to the systemic breakdown that allowed Cruz to walk onto the campus of Marjory Stoneman Douglas in Parkland, Florida, on Valentine's Day with impunity, Breitbart reports.

Scott Israel is "investigating a deal that he made with the superintendent, that basically created under Obama a no-arrest policy. So (Israel) basically said, 'Don't tell me unless it's a serious crime,'" Corcoran told Breitbart.

"Now we know that Cruz was bringing bullets, knives, all kinds of things to school," Corcoran told Breitbart.

"All of them were given to the Broward County Sheriff's Office, nothing was done. And now (Israel's) investigating whether that happened, too, after he basically entered into an agreement with the school board not to tell him."