A former Florida sheriff’s deputy, charged with felony child neglect and additional counts for failing to act during the 2018 massacre at a Parkland, Florida, high school, has been acquitted of all charges.
Scot Peterson, a 60-year-old school resource officer at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. On Feb. 14, 2018, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, a former student, killed 14 students and three staff members.
After the shooting, Cruz fled on foot by blending in with other students. He then went to a Walmart, where he purchased a drink at a Subway, before walking to a nearby McDonald’s. Video footage, shared by CNN, shows Cruz at the Subway, wearing a JROTC cap and T-shirt.
Footage captured by surveillance camera’s at a nearby McDonald’s then shows Cruz slipping into a booth across from John Wilford, who had sought refuge at the fast-food restaurant after the shooting. He was waiting for his mother to come pick him up and take him home.
Cruz asked if he could get a ride. Wilford declined.
The video was shown during Wilford’s July 2022 testimony. After Cruz left, he was arrested 40 minutes later. At the time, Wilford didn’t know that his sister, Maddy Wilford, was one of the 17 who had been seriously injured by Cruz during his rampage.
As previously reported by The Epoch Times, attorneys for Cruz during his Sept. 26, 2018 trial told Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer that he was willing to enter a guilty plea in exchange for a sentence of life in prison. Prosecutors insisted he should be executed. The Epoch Times later reported that because the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict on the death penalty, Cruz was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.
It was the first time in American history that a law enforcement officer stood trial for their conduct during an on-campus school shooting.
Surveillance video released in March of 2019 showed Peterson approaching a school door as the shooting took place inside. Rather than entering the building and confronting the shooter, he ran toward another building and took up a “tactical position.” Prosecutors accused Peterson of making a false statement by claiming he did not hear gunshots. His actions were heavily criticized, prompting an internal affairs investigation, which was led by Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel.
“We understand everything wasn’t done perfectly,” Israel is reported to have said just days after the massacre. “Do I believe had Scot Peterson went into that building, there was a chance he could have neutralized the killer and saved lives? Yes, I believe that.”
Israel said he had just initiated termination proceedings when Peterson voluntarily resigned.
Israel faced his own retribution in the wake of the shooting.
On Jan. 11, 2019, DeSantis signed an Executive Order (pdf) removing Israel from his post as sheriff and effectively prohibiting him from “performing any official act, duty, or function of public office” until “a further executive order is issued.” According to reports, Israel used his connections to land a $65,000-a-year job monitoring red light camera surveillance footage in Davie, a town just north of Miami. In May 2022, Israel was tapped to become the new police chief in the city of Opa-Locka, Florida. He resigned from his position on June 1.
An investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement found that Peterson “did absolutely nothing to mitigate” the massacre of 17 people and the injuring of 17 others. While there is no law that requires law enforcement officers to place themselves in the line of fire, critics of Peterson, including then-President Donald Trump, labeled him as a coward.
In a statement, the Broward County State Attorney’s Office said that “for the first time in our nation’s history, prosecutors, in this case, have tried to hold an armed school resource officer responsible for not doing his job.”
For the 11 charges—including felony child neglect, culpable negligence, and perjury—Peterson could have been sentenced to nearly 100 years in prison. Were he found guilty, he also could have lost his $104,000 annual pension for his 30 years of blemish-free service with the Broward Sheriff’s Office.
Over the course of four days, the jury had deliberated for 19 hours. As the verdicts were read, Peterson wept.
The Epoch Times reached out to Peterson’s attorney, Mark Eiglarsh, for a statement on the verdict.
“The prosecutors tried to sacrifice and pursue baseless charges against a man who did everything he could with the limited information he had under the most stressful of circumstances,” Eiglarsh told The Epoch Times by email. “We remain concerned for future law enforcement officers who are well intended and do all they can, yet get crucified by prosecutors who revel in second-guessing and Monday morning quarterbacking their actions.”
Eiglarsh also had strong words for Sheriff Scot Israel, saying he “sacrificed my client” and “threw him under the bus for his own selfish political reasons.”
“As a result, these unfounded criminal charges were brought,” Eiglarsh said.
Tom Ozimek and Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.
From The Epoch Times
