A former sheriff’s deputy went on trial on Wednesday charged with failing to intervene during the February 2018 shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida.
Scot Peterson, 60, has pleaded not guilty to charges of felony child neglect, culpable negligence and one count of perjury.
Peterson is believed to be the first police officer facing charges in the United States for failing to take action during a school shooting.
A former student at the school, Nikolas Cruz, is serving a life sentence for the murders of 14 students and three staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
On February 14, 2018, the then-19-year-old Cruz walked into the school carrying a semiautomatic rifle. He had been expelled a year earlier for disciplinary reasons.
In nine minutes, he killed 17 people and wounded another 17 before fleeing.
Peterson is accused of failing to enter the school building where the massacre was taking place even though he was armed and had received training in confronting an active shooter.
“You’ve got to get in and you’ve got to find the shooter. Do everything you can to find them so that you can stop the killing,” prosecutor Steven Klinger said in his opening statement.
Klinger said Peterson, who had been in law enforcement for 32 years and a school resource officer, or security guard, at the school since 2009, had received “active shooter training.”
“For the most part, in an active shooter situation, you go for the gunshots. You’re trained to go for those shots, to find that shooter, because every shot could be a death,” Klinger said.
Peterson, Klinger said, took shelter in an alcove outside the building where the shooting was taking place and remained there for 48 minutes.
“The defendant will never leave that alcove while the shooter is in the building,” he said.
‘Thrown under the bus’
Mark Eiglarsh, Peterson’s defense attorney, countered that his client was being “sacrificed” and treated as a scapegoat.
“The evidence will show that he was thrown under the bus,” Eiglarsh said, and that he is not a “coward.”
Peterson could not tell where the gunshots were coming from on the sprawling Parkland campus, he said, and he “did everything that you possibly could with the limited information that he had.”
The National Association of School Resource Officers said Peterson’s case appeared to be a first in the country.
“(NASRO) is not aware of any other criminal prosecution of a law enforcement officer for failing to act during a school shooting,” a spokesman for the association said.
The Parkland shooting stunned the nation and reignited debate on gun control, since Cruz had legally purchased the gun he used despite having mental health issues.
The Justice Department reached a $127.5 million settlement with survivors and relatives of Parkland victims who had accused the FBI of negligence for failing to act on tips received prior to the attack that Cruz was dangerous.
A panel of six jurors and four alternates in the Florida city of Fort Lauderdale is hearing the case, which is expected to last several weeks.
