Then-Parkland school resource officer who stayed outside during mass shooting found not guilty

Coming from Florida, I'm not that surprise of the verdict?!! To me it seems like case of cowardice?!!

He will have to live with his decision not to confront the shooter the rest of his life too?!!

Fort Lauderdale, FloridaCNN —
A jury has acquitted on all counts the former school resource officer who stayed outside during the February 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida – absolving him of wrongdoing in the rare trial of a law enforcement officer for his response to a mass shooting.

Scot Peterson, 60, took off his glasses and wept in court as the judge read the verdict, which found him not guilty of seven counts of felony child neglect, three counts of culpable negligence and one count of perjury.

“I’ve got my life back,” Peterson, a former deputy for the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, told reporters outside court, describing the years since the shooting as “an emotional roller coaster.”

State prosecutors accused Peterson of ignoring his training and doing nothing as 17 people, including 14 students, were gunned down at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in what remains the deadliest US high school shooting ever. His attorney argued the then-deputy didn’t enter the school’s 1200 building, the site of the attack, because he couldn’t tell where the shots were coming from.

“The only person to blame was that monster,” Peterson said of the shooter. “It wasn’t any law enforcement, nobody on that scene, from BSO, Coral Springs. Everybody did the best they could. We did the best we could with the information we had, and God knows we wish we had more at that point.”

Peterson was accused of failing to confront the gunman according to his active shooter training, instead taking cover for more than 45 minutes outside the school’s three-story 1200 building before the killer was apprehended.

Peterson “left behind an unrestricted killer to spend the next 4 minutes and 15 seconds wandering the halls at his leisure,” Assistant State Attorney Kristen Gomes said in closing arguments Monday. “Because when Scot Peterson ran, he left children trapped inside of the building with a predator unchecked.”

https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/29/us/scot-peterson-parkland-shooting-trial-thursday/index.html

 

Broward County strikes again.

 

it would seem an admission that good guys with guns on every corner is NOT a solution

 

He obviously wasn’t a good guy, was he?

 

a regular uniformed police officer, but one can never tell the moment mental illness will snap and set in, i suppose

 

He preferred to save his own skin.

 

Cowardice is not a crime. The lefts blood thirsty bs didn’t fly. Though he will love the rest of his life shaming himself undoubtedly.

 

Makes zero sense, considering it’s always good guys with guns stopping the bad guys with guns. Hell we just had one would be mass shooter stopped by a good guy with a gun. Lmao.

 

The resource officer blamed the mass shooter for the event in his defense. And the jury, giving police officers broad leeway, pretty much acquitted him on the basis that he was one person with a pistol. In the trial, the defense argued the following: "But Peterson's attorney, Mark Eiglarsh, argued that Peterson is being made a “sacrificial lamb” for failures by elected officials and administrators. He said the evidence proves Peterson's insistence that the gunshots' echoes prevented him from pinpointing the gunman's location is the truth and Peterson did everything he could under the circumstances. Criticizing his actions now is “Monday morning quarterbacking” using facts that were unknown to Peterson in real-time." And that appears to be enough reasonable doubt for the jury and why he was acquitted on all four counts.

 

He's a coward, not a good guy.

 

he is not the random "good guy" of the rights mythology thats all he is

 

This is a tough one for me because while I can see the side of outlawing cowardice being a bad thing I can also agree that people who can do something should do something.

Aren’t people who stand by and watch others get beaten and robbed right in front of them not potentially charged for negligence or accessory?

I think figuring out the line of what level of cowardice should be allowed and at what point you have to step in and do what you can is the tough part but one that should be drawn.

You should be allowed to be a coward to a thief robbing a store.

You should not be allowed to be a coward to a torture or rape happening right in front of you.

And I think children being slaughtered rises to the level if not surpasses any torture or rape.

it is worth noting that I don’t think an unarmed person should have to attack an armed person. Reasonable equality of force should be a big factor here.

That said, should even the worst of cowards see 90+ year sentences which this guy was on the hook for? Imo absolutely not. Should be capped at a reasonable amount of time with more emphasis on something like community service rather than imprisonment. That person after all is just a coward not a threat.

 

He was bawling like a little girl in the courtroom. This verdict isn't going over well in this house. You can't force someone to be a hero, I suppose; people are brave or not brave, and wearing a uniform doesn't necessarily indicate the former.

I suppose it isn't as bad as the Uvalde police did, and they won't face any consequences, either. Moral of the story; cops are no longer required to risk their lives if they aren't in the mood. I've known a few LEOs during my life; I can't think of one of them that would approve of this.

This is the shooting that happened a mile from a place we left about 7 years ago.

 

Not no longer, reaffirmed the almost 30 year old Supreme Court decision(1996) that cops do not have to intervene(and frankly, they charged him with crap that doesn’t apply to him. Cops aren’t caregivers when on duty). This should never have gone to trial in the first place due to that Supreme Court decision(while I don’t like that decision from ‘96, it what it is and we have to navigate things based on that fact).

 

Eh, it might not be a crime but living his entire life in shame isn't really a good enough punishment for this.

 

It absolutely is. And it will have to suffice.

 

Actually it's a condemnation of a coward for failing to do his duty.

 

I remember the day. I was here in DeSoto county fossil hunting on the Peace River and I noticed an unusual amount of aircraft traffic and later on I went home and read the news.

I don't know if the aircraft traffic was related but it's unusual to see much of it around here

 

You should be allowed to be a coward to a thief robbing a store.
You should not be allowed to be a coward to a torture or rape happening right in front of you.
If one is alone and unarmed, that person can get themselves into a lot of hurt, that's why the police say to document and call them as you rightly followed up with your next sentence about equal force.

That aside, I do expect the police to be more brave than this guy behaved.

 

He isn't. Too bad he wasn't worthy of the mission with which he was tasked.

 

Guy has a lot in common with Ozzy...

 

The sad part of this verdict is, The Coward of Broward will receive his pension now?!!
Had the jury found Peterson guilty, his sentence could have been nearly 100 years in prison and he could have lost his $104,000 annual pension.

 

Is cowardice against the law?

 

I can't see prosecuting him for being afraid to do his job. I would understand and expect him to be fired for refusing to do his job.

 

Ah, the brave keyboard warrior, sitting on his couch in safety, is quick to judge this person as a coward. The question is: What would you have done? You can't know unless you are in the situation. I hope for your sake that you'll never have to experience it.