Seven months after the gunman within the Parkland, Fla., faculty taking pictures was sentenced to life in jail for murdering 14 college students and three workers members, prosecutors on Wednesday started attempting to persuade a jury {that a} former sheriff’s deputy also needs to be held criminally chargeable for not intervening to cease the bloodbath.
The deputy, Scot Peterson, served as the varsity useful resource officer at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas Excessive Faculty on the time of the shootings in 2018. For not confronting the gunman, he’s dealing with 10 costs, together with seven counts of kid neglect — a uncommon prosecution of a legislation enforcement officer concerned within the response to a mass taking pictures.
In opening statements, the prosecution repeatedly famous that after arriving on the scene on the afternoon of Feb. 14, Mr. Peterson stayed in a stairway of an adjoining faculty constructing whereas the shootings befell in Constructing 1200.
“The defendant won’t ever depart that alcove whereas the shooter is in that constructing,” stated Steven Klinger, an assistant state lawyer in Broward County. “Actually, he doesn’t depart it for 30 or 40 minutes when every little thing is completed.”
The protection provided a blunt response.
“We’re right here as a result of my shopper was sacrificed,” stated Mark Eiglarsh, Mr. Peterson’s lawyer, arguing that Mr. Peterson was on trial solely as a result of extra highly effective legislation enforcement officers had sought to assuage the anger of grieving dad and mom by scapegoating him. “He was thrown below the bus. He isn’t a prison.”
The sound of gunfire was echoing off buildings on the 45-acre faculty campus because the shootings befell over roughly six minutes, Mr. Eiglarsh stated, and Mr. Peterson ”couldn’t discern exactly the place the photographs had been coming from.” The protection, he added, had 22 witnesses who had been equally confused that day.
“There was a pronounced echo and reverberation that the witnesses will discuss, that left them listening to the identical photographs and questioning ‘The place is that coming from?’” Mr. Eiglarsh stated.
Just one individual was in charge, Mr. Eiglarsh stated, posting a photograph of the convicted shooter, Nicholas Cruz, for the jury to see and calling him a “sick, twisted monster.”
Mr. Peterson, wearing a blue go well with and crimson tie, listened intently and took notes all through the opening statements. The courtroom was packed to capability with spectators, together with his spouse and daughter.
A conviction of a member of legislation enforcement for inaction throughout a mass taking pictures might have sweeping repercussions for policing in Florida and past, authorized consultants say. Mr. Peterson faces a decades-long jail sentence on the accusation that he failed in his position as a caregiver for the scholars.
Mr. Peterson was the primary officer on the scene, and by his personal account he didn’t rush into Constructing 1200 at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas Excessive Faculty, the place the gunman killed 17 individuals and wounded 17 others. He as a substitute took cowl within the stairway of the adjoining constructing, partially as a result of he stated he feared {that a} sniper was firing from exterior.
Mr. Peterson additionally directed different officers away from the place the gunman was firing an AR-15-style weapon on the campus in Parkland, an prosperous neighborhood about 20 miles northwest of Fort Lauderdale.
The trial, which is anticipated to final two months, is prone to expose points that police departments throughout the USA have been grappling with because the Columbine faculty taking pictures in 1999, stated Robert Jarvis, a legislation professor at Nova Southeastern College in South Florida.
Earlier than Columbine, officers had been advised to attend for SWAT groups to confront mass shooters, however “since then, we’ve been anticipating cops to run in,” Mr. Jarvis stated. “It’s a extremely attention-grabbing query as to what we anticipate cops to do.”
That expectation was underscored in Could 2022 when the police in Uvalde, Texas, waited greater than an hour earlier than coming into a classroom at Robb Elementary Faculty, the place an 18-year-old man had fatally shot 19 college students and two lecturers. The gunman was in the end killed by members of a U.S. Border Patrol tactical group, and subsequent investigations faulted Texas police for failing to behave rapidly.
Within the Parkland case, the fees in opposition to Mr. Peterson relate to the deaths and accidents on the third ground of the constructing, which prosecutors say he had an opportunity to cease. In keeping with an investigation by the Florida Division of Legislation Enforcement, the gunman was making his technique to the third ground 73 seconds after Mr. Peterson arrived in a golf cart at Constructing 1200. Mr. Peterson was armed with a service revolver and was not carrying physique armor.
Mr. Peterson is charged with seven felony counts of kid neglect within the deaths of 4 college students and the wounding of three others, aged 14 to 17. He additionally faces three misdemeanor counts of culpable negligence for the deaths of an 18-year-old scholar and a 35-year-old cross nation coach and the wounding of a trainer.
Within the lead-up to the trial, Mr. Eiglarsh, the protection lawyer, tried to steer Decide Martin Fein of Broward County Circuit Court docket to dismiss the kid neglect costs, arguing that they weren’t justified below Florida legislation.
To be convicted of kid neglect, state legislation says, the individual should be a caregiver to the kid. Mr. Eiglarsh argued that the legislation doesn’t embody the police within the definition of a caregiver.
Noting that the Florida Supreme Court docket and different state appellate courts had discovered {that a} trainer, a babysitter and even a kidnapper had been caregivers below the legislation, Decide Fein rejected the protection request, saying, “This dedication will probably be made by the jury based mostly on the proof offered at trial.”
Mr. Jarvis, the legislation professor, stated discovering a faculty useful resource officer to be a caregiver to 1000’s of scholars “would impose legal responsibility when nobody thought it might apply.”
He added that prosecutors additionally face a frightening process in attempting to persuade the six jurors and 4 alternates that Mr. Peterson is responsible of culpable negligence. To take action, they need to present Mr. Peterson knew or ought to have recognized that his actions — or inaction — put college students and workers at risk.
Mr. Peterson can also be charged with a misdemeanor depend of perjury, with prosecutors accusing him of mendacity to investigators in telling them that he heard solely two or three photographs coming from the constructing and that he didn’t see any college students operating from it when he was within the stairwell along with his gun drawn.
Whereas different witnesses described the confusion that surrounded the taking pictures, many advised investigators that it sounded to them as if the gunfire was coming from Constructing 1200.
Mr. Peterson stated he was uncertain.
“I didn’t even assume it was even contained in the constructing ’trigger it was so clear and loud,” he stated, in accordance with a Florida Division of Legislation Enforcement report. “At that time I knew it was near this constructing, however I wasn’t even positive if it was within the constructing.”
Mr. Peterson, who would lose his $104,000 annual pension if convicted, retired after the taking pictures and was fired retroactively. He was launched on bond and moved to North Carolina.
He has expressed deep regret for the deaths.
“It’s haunting,” he advised The Washington Post in June 2018. “I’ve lower that day up a thousand methods with 1,000,000 totally different what-if situations, however the backside line is I used to be there to guard, and I misplaced 17.”
However Mr. Peterson additionally insisted that he adopted police procedures.
“I’ve my gun out and I’m scanning, and I’m trying. And that’s what we’re educated to do,” he told NBC. “Once you — whenever you get a place and canopy it, we’re educated to scan and look.”
However state investigators stated Mr. Peterson, who was an energetic shooter incident teacher for the varsity system, ignored essential components of the coaching.
“If you’re on scene or within the space and listen to gunshots, you must instantly entry what you will have and put together to reply,” investigators wrote, quoting from the energetic shooter coaching course. “Keep in mind, each time you hear a gunshot in an energetic shooter incident, you must imagine that’s one other sufferer being killed.”