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Sheriff of Broward County
Scot Peterson has been charged with neglecting children after failing to face an active school shooter
The arrest of a school police officer who had failed to confront an armed man in a high school in Parkland, Florida, opened a debate on the type of punishment that would be just. Should he really be imprisoned for decades?
Former MPP Peterson, 56, was outside Building 1200 on the campus of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School for 48 minutes. Gunshots were heard during the 14 February 2018 massacre.
The attack killed 17 people and injured 17 others.
For his apparent inaction and for warning the other officers not to approach, Mr. Peterson was widely vilified by the parents of the victims, law enforcement officials and President Donald Trump, who claimed that he "did not like children".
Fifteen months later, the 30-year-old veteran – who worked at the school for nine years and who resigned a few days after the attack – was charged with seven counts of negligent a child who has inflicted serious bodily harm, three counts of culpable negligence and bodily harm, a perjury offender.
He is now at risk of 97 years in prison.
While many say his behavior reveals a moral failure, many legal experts question the exact responsibility of the former deputy minister for children that day and on the issue. whether prosecutors will be able to prove the negligence of a child in court. Others say that he is becoming a scapegoat.
What is he accused of?
Rick Swearingen, commissioner of the Florida Law Enforcement Department, who conducted an investigation into these deaths, said that "former MP Peterson had done absolutely nothing to mitigate" the carnage that took place that day.
"There can be no excuse for his total inaction and no doubt that his inaction has cost lives," he said in a statement, following the filing of the charges.
Mr. Peterson was the closest person to the shooter, the former student Nikolas Cruz, but only came to the outside of the building when it was too late to prevent the death of 11 people on the ground floor of the school, announced investigators.
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But if he had acted, confronting the murderer rather than sheltering himself, he could have saved people on the third floor, as some parents argue.
"It should rot," said Fred Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter Jaime was shot by a bullet in the spine while she was fleeing to save her life.
"My daughter was one of the last people to be affected, my daughter could absolutely have been saved by him and she has not been," he said, adding, "If she had had one more second, she would have been saved. "
According to the arrest warrant, Mr. Peterson made false statements by telling the investigators that he had only heard two or three shots, whereas in reality, the shooter fired about 75 times after the arrival of Mr. Peterson.
What do the investigators say?
"It's never too late to call for justice and justice," said Sheriff Broward, Gregory Tony, after firing Peterson, adding that his "inaction" during the massacre "justified both the dismissal and the criminal proceedings ".
Sheriff Bob Gualtieri of Pinellas County, who chairs a public safety commission for the 3,200-grade school, described Peterson as "cowardly, failing and criminal."
"There is no doubt in my mind that because he has not acted, people have been killed."
According to Florida law, prosecutors must establish that Mr. Peterson was the legal guardian of child victims, prove that his inaction was exposing them to harm and that he was doing so because of "reckless disregard" for human life ".
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"Parasitic loads"
Peterson's lawyer, Joseph DiRuzzo III, described the charges as "a thinly veiled attempt at retaliation of a political nature against Mr. Peterson".
"We will vigorously defend ourselves against these fallacious accusations that lack factual and legal basis," he said, adding that it was very "simplistic" to call his client a coward because he thought the blows fire had been fired out of the building.
He also claimed that Mr. Peterson could not be sued as a caregiver because he was formally performing law enforcement duties.
In an interview with NBC News in June 2018, Mr. Peterson defended his actions stating, "Families need to know, I do not understand, but it's not because I do not want I do not want to go into building (or) I do not want to deal with someone there … It was not like that at all. "
"I never thought, even for a moment, to be scared or to be a coward because I was doing things all the time, it never came to my mind," he added.
About 18 months before the shootings, according to US media reports, Mr. Peterson tried to force the accused gunman to be forcibly incarcerated in a mental hospital, but his application was rejected by school health officials. .
Could he have made a difference?
Eugene O Donnell, a professor at the John Jay College Criminal Justice and former officer of the New York Police Department (NYPD), told the Sun Sentinel newspaper in Florida that the charges were based on the assumption that Mr. Peterson could have thwarted the murders.
"The criminalization of someone for not having acted in the midst of mass murder rests on the absurd notion that police are disguised Navy SEALs that can come into action," said Mr. O & # 39; Donnell. "You never know what you're going to do when the balls start flying."
- "The day the Parkland shooter came to my school"
- A Florida school officer defends his actions
John Baeze, expert witness in police-related cases for NYPDTruth.com and a former NYPD police inspector currently living in Florida, said the school's officer had "not only a moral duty but also a departmental duty ".
Even an armed civilian who was in the area would have felt compelled to intervene, he told the BBC, adding, "This man was in uniform, armed with a firearm, service, to the school for the sole purpose of protecting the children.And he did not come in. "
He attributes Mr. Peterson's "reprehensible" actions that day to "an ubiquitous culture in the United States police service, where there is talk of" the safety of the officers first, then the citizen " ".
He adds that this mentality led to "shoot first, ask later questions" in which the police unnecessarily killed suspects.
Jeff Bell, president of the union's representatives at the Broward Sheriff's Office Deputies Association, says that the officer is not a coward, but as a result of the attack, "he's sure. He is completely collapsed and he is frozen "because of his lack of training and inner will". .
He added that the county had failed to provide police officers with an active training space for shooters, a gun range or firing range – training facilities accessible to other police officers. in Florida.
With regard to child neglect, he says the law shows that only "guardians" can be held responsible for this crime and that he has already seen cases in which babysitters or siblings could not be prosecuted for domestic violence because a custody relationship could not be proven.
"A school resource assistant is not a caretaker, it's a police officer assigned to a school.We do not have more care on campus than a school." teacher, "he says, adding that it is unrealistic to consider a school officer as a guardian for every child on campus.
"In the future, does that mean that if we work in a movie theater with out-of-work details and that there is a shoot and there are children, does that mean does this mean that we are all automatically guardians? "
"And where does it stop?" Does that mean that a firefighter who does not go in quickly enough into a building is going to be charged with negligence? Or a nurse who n & # 39; Did not manage to sort someone correctly, so it's a very slippery slope. "
Nikolas Cruz, who acknowledged the attack, faces the death penalty and should be tried early in 2020.
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