Deputy Who Stayed Outside During Parkland School Shooting Faces Criminal Charges
MIAMI — A former sheriff’s deputy was arrested Tuesday in connection with the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., the latest in a series of actions to hold police accountable for their response to an attack that left 17 people dead.
Scot Peterson, a former Broward County sheriff’s deputy who was the security officer assigned to the high school, faces 11 charges of neglect of a child, culpable negligence and perjury as a result of an investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the authorities said. He was taken into custody and will be booked into the Broward County jail on a $102,000 bond.
“The F.D.L.E. investigation shows former Deputy Peterson did absolutely nothing to mitigate the M.S.D. shooting that killed 17 children, teachers and staff and injured 17 others,” the department’s commissioner, Rick Swearingen, said in a statement. “There can be no excuse for his complete inaction and no question that his inaction cost lives.”
Officials determined that Mr. Peterson, as well as Sgt. Brian Miller, “neglected their duties,” and they were both were terminated on Tuesday. Mr. Peterson was taken into custody after an administrative discipline hearing.
The criminal charges were an unusual instance of law enforcement officers being held criminally liable for failing to protect the public.
Civil lawsuits have become par for the course following mass shootings in the United States. Families of the victims and survivors themselves use litigation to hold institutions, both public and private, responsible for failing to keep people safe, as well as to push for policy changes or to collect compensation for emotional and physical trauma or death.
Those lawsuits have also taken aim at companies that manufacture guns and firearm components like bump stocks.
But experts say that criminally charging a law enforcement officer for allegedly being negligent in his response to a mass shooting is new ground.
“This is the first time I have seen somebody so charged like this,” said Clinton R. Van Zandt, a former profiler with the F.B.I. and an expert on mass shootings. “I think that every police officer, sheriff and F.B.I. agent understands that you have to go to the threat and stop it and that we are no longer going to wait for SWAT or set up perimeters.”
The Department of Law Enforcement said its inquiry showed that Mr. Peterson, 56, did not investigate the source of the gunshots, retreated during the shooting while victims were still under attack and directed other law enforcement officers to remain 500 feet away from the building.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/04/u...-peterson.html