By Terry Spencer
A Florida sheriff’s deputy was acquitted Thursday of felony child neglect and other charges for failing to act during the 2018 Parkland school massacre, concluding the first trial in U.S. history of a law enforcement officer for conduct during an on-campus shooting.
Former Broward County Deputy Scot Peterson wept as the verdicts were read. The jury had deliberated for 19 hours over four days.
After court adjourned, Peterson, his family and friends rushed into a group hug as they whooped, hollered and cried. Kevin Bolling, Peterson’s private investigator, chased after lead prosecutor Chris Killoran and said something. Killoran turned and snapped at him, “Way to be a good winner” and slapped him on the shoulder. Members of the prosecution team then nudged Killoran out of the courtroom.
“I got my life back. We’ve got our life back,” Peterson said as he exited the courtroom, his arm around his wife, Lydia Rodriguez, and his lawyer, Mark Eiglarsh. “It’s been an emotional rollercoaster for so long. Calling Mark at 1 in the morning.”
He also said people should never forget the victims.
“Only one person was to blame and it was that monster (Nikolas Cruz),” Peterson said. “It wasn’t any of the law enforcement who was on that scene. ... Everybody did the best they could with the information we had.”
Peterson said he hopes to one day sit down with the Parkland parents and spouses to tell them “the truth,” that he did everything he could.
“I would love to talk to them. I have no problem,” he said. “I’m there.”
The campus deputy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Peterson had been charged with failing to confront shooter Nikolas Cruz during his six-minute attack inside a three-story 1200 classroom building on Feb. 14, 2018, that left 17 dead.
He could have received nearly 100 years in prison, although a sentence even approaching that length would have been highly unlikely given the circumstances and his clean record. He also could have lost his $104,000 annual pension.
Prosecutors, during their two-week presentation, called to the witness stand students, teachers and law enforcement officers who testified about the horror they experienced and how they knew where Cruz was. Some said they knew for certain that the shots were coming from the 1200 building. Prosecutors also called a training supervisor who testified Peterson did not follow protocols for confronting an active shooter.
During his two-day presentation, Peterson’s attorney, Eiglarsh, called several deputies who arrived during the shooting and students and teachers who testified they did not think the shots were coming from the 1200 building. Peterson, who did not testify, has said that because of echoes, he could not pinpoint the shooter's location.
Eiglarsh also emphasized the failure of the sheriff’s radio system during the attack, which limited what Peterson heard from arriving deputies.
“As parents, we have an expectation that armed school resource officers – who are under contract to be caregivers to our children – will do their jobs when we entrust our children to them and the schools they guard,” Broward State Attorney Harold F. Pryor and the prosecutor's office said in a statement after the verdict. “They have a special role and responsibilities that exceed the role and responsibilities of a police officer. To those who have tried to make this political, I say: It is not political to expect someone to do their job.”
Tony Montalto, whose 14-year-old daughter Gina was killed on the first floor, and Tom Hoyer, whose 15-year-old son Luke died next to her, watched the verdict. They said they had no interest in talking with Peterson, who was not charged in connection with those deaths.
“No. No. Bring me my daughter back,” Montalto said. “We’ll all trade anything to get our kids back. The spouses, they who lost someone, they want them back, too. And if that’s not going to happen, why do we need to talk to this failure. He didn’t do the right thing. He ran away.”
Montalto said if the jurors believe Peterson acted appropriately, they should get him hired at their children’s schools.
Security videos show that 36 seconds after Cruz’s attack began, Peterson exited his office about 100 yards (92 meters) from the 1200 building and jumped into a cart with two unarmed civilian security guards. They arrived at the building a minute later.
Peterson got out of the cart near the east doorway to the first-floor hallway. Cruz was at the hallway’s opposite end, firing his AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle.
Peterson, who was not wearing a bullet-resistant vest, didn’t open the door. Instead, he took cover 75 feet (23 meters) away in the alcove of a neighboring building, his gun still drawn. He stayed there for 40 minutes, long after the shooting ended and other police officers had stormed the building.
Peterson spent nearly three decades working at schools, including nine years at Stoneman Douglas. He retired shortly after the shooting and was then fired retroactively.
Cruz’s jury could not unanimously agree he deserved the death penalty. The 24-year-old former Stoneman Douglas student was then sentenced to life in prison.
