Armed guard at Florida high school failed to enter building and stop shooter
An armed deputy, who was on campus at Stoneman Douglas, resigns after sheriff’s reviews finds he stood outside and did not go in
The armed deputy who was on campus at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school when a gunman massacred 17 people stood outside the building as it occurred and did not go in to engage the shooter, the Broward County sheriff, Scott Israel, said on Thursday.
Deputy Scott Peterson, who was the school resource officer at Stoneman Douglas in Parkland, Florida, resigned from the department on Thursday after being told he would be suspended, Israel said.
He did not say if Peterson would face criminal charges.
Israel said he made the decision after reviewing video surveillance and interviewing witnesses, including the deputy himself. The sheriff says Peterson responded to the building where the shooting took place, took up a position outside a door and never went in.
When asked what Peterson should have done, Israel said the deputy should have “went in, addressed the killer, killed the killer”.
The sheriff said he was “devastated, sick to my stomach. There are no words.”
Nikolas Cruz, 19, fatally shot 17 people at the high school on 14 February in the second deadliest shooting at an American public school. The student survivors, supported by their families and teachers, have spoken out against Washington’s inaction and statements by the president.
The news of the deputy’s resignation came just hours after the NRA’s chief, Wayne LaPierre, broke his silence over the Parkland massacre, lambasting gun control advocates and repeating his notorious mantra from after the Sandy Hook school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012: “To stop a bad guy with a gun, it takes a good guy with a gun.”
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