Former Florida Deputy Goes on Trial for Not Confronting Parkland Gunman
Seven months after the gunman in the Parkland, Fla., school shooting was sentenced to life in prison for murdering 14 students and three staff members, prosecutors on Wednesday began trying to convince a jury that a former sheriff’s deputy should also be held criminally responsible for not intervening to stop the massacre.
The deputy, Scot Peterson, served as the school resource officer at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School at the time of the shootings in 2018. For not confronting the gunman, he is facing 10 charges, including seven counts of child neglect — a rare prosecution of a law enforcement officer involved in the response to a mass shooting.
In opening statements, the prosecution repeatedly noted that after arriving at the scene on the afternoon of Feb. 14, Mr. Peterson stayed in a stairway of an adjacent school building while the shootings took place in Building 1200.
“The defendant will never leave that alcove while the shooter is in that building,” said Steven Klinger, an assistant state attorney in Broward County. “In fact, he doesn’t leave it for 30 or 40 minutes when everything is finished.”
Source: The New York Times
