Thread: Stoneman Douglas cop resigns; sheriff says he should have 'killed the killer'

Stoneman Douglas cop resigns; sheriff says he should have 'killed the killer'

Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel spoke during a press conference Thursday and revealed that the armed school resource officer never went into the building where the Parkland shooting occurred.

Stephen Hobbs, Scott Travis and Lisa J. HuriashContact Reporters Sun Sentinel
Fri. Feb 23, 2019

The police officer assigned to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School resigned Thursday, under investigation for failing to enter the building as a gunman opened fire and killed 17 people.

Sheriff Scott Israel said Deputy Scot Peterson should have “went in. Addressed the killer. Killed the killer.” Video footage showed Peterson did none of that, Israel said.

The sheriff’s office also said Thursday that two deputies were put under investigation for how they handled potential warnings about Cruz, including one from November in which a caller said Nikolas Cruz “could be a school shooter in the making.”

Peterson, 54, came under scrutiny after 19-year-old Cruz entered a school building with an AR-15 rifle and killed 14 students and three educators on Valentine’s Day. Cruz later confessed, police said.

The sheriff said video shows Peterson was outside the building for “upwards of four minutes” while students were gunned down inside.

“What I saw was a deputy arrive … take up a position and he never went in,” the sheriff said at a news conference. “There are no words. I mean these families lost their children. We lost coaches,” Israel said.

Peterson resigned, and subsequently retired, at 12:37 p.m. Thursday after he was suspended without pay earlier in the day, Israel said. An investigation into what happened will continue.

Peterson’s resignation ends a more than three-decade career with the agency, where he was often regarded by peers as a dependable employee who could communicate well with both staff and students.

The 6-foot-5-inch native of Illinois started with the agency in July 1985, after studying at Miami-Dade Community College and Florida International University, according to records released Thursday by the sheriff’s office.

Peterson had been a school resource officer at Stoneman Douglas since 2009. He was considered a trusted officer who “values his position and takes pride in protecting the students, faculty and staff at his school,” a 2017 performance review said.

His annual salary in 2016 was $75,673.72, according to sheriff’s office records, but he made $101,013 that year with overtime and other compensation. Peterson has been the subject of two internal investigations, neither of which resulted in significant discipline.

Soon after the shooting took place, Israel and Broward Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie were forced to answer questions about where Peterson was during the shooting and why he did not confront Cruz.

“I’m in shock and I’m outraged to no end that he could have made a difference in all this,” Runcie said Thursday. “It’s really disturbing that we had a law enforcement individual there specifically for this reason, and he did not engage. He did not do his job. It’s one of the most unbelievable things I’ve ever heard.”

School resource officer was elsewhere on campus during shooting, Runcie says.

Stoneman Douglas student Brandon Huff, 18, a senior, said he had seen Peterson standing outside the building and talking on his radio during the shooting.

Huff said he first learned of the shooting in a text message from his girlfriend, who said she was hiding in a corner and shots rang out.

“Two coaches went in and were shielding kids and throwing themselves in front of bullets and he did nothing.”

Peterson could not be reached for comment Thursday afternoon at his home in Boynton Beach. Neighbor Nelson Sandy said he saw Peterson leave his house around 3 p.m., driving his work vehicle and accompanied by at least two Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office deputies driving their work vehicles.

“They were here today, three police officers and they all left together,” Sandy said.

Felicia Burgin, a ninth-grade English teacher, was locked in her classroom with students on the second floor of the building, as they heard shots from the floor above.

She said the criticism of Peterson is unfair. Peterson wouldn’t have stood a chance against the gunman in hallways that were filled with students at the time, she said.

“There is no one that is going to tell you a negative thing about Deputy Peterson," she said. “He was an Eagle and he was committed to our school. I don’t know what he could have done other than literally died.”

The two deputies, Edward Eason and Guntis Treijs, were put on a restricted assignment Thursday.

Florida shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz showed warning signs for years

Col. Jack Dale, head of the agency’s internal investigations unit, said the deputies were under review for how they handled two calls, including the one from November where the caller also said Cruz “was collecting guns and knives,” according to documents released by the sheriff’s office. A deputy followed up with the caller but did not create a report documenting it.

A separate incident, from February 2016, was also under review. The sheriff’s office said a deputy responded to a tip that Cruz planned to shoot up a school and that the information was forwarded to Peterson, the school resource officer.

Israel said the agency was involved in 23 calls involving Cruz or his brother Zachary since 2008.

Eason started with the agency in 2000 and Treijs in 2002, according to state records. Both will be paid during the investigation.

The reports to the sheriff’s office are the latest acknowledgment from officials that there were concerns about Cruz before last week’s shooting. The FBI said it did not investigate a tip involving Cruz, from January, and in another case said it was alerted in September about a YouTube comment that could have led to Cruz.

“It’s unclear as to whether a policy violation occurred or not, so we feel at this point that they deserve extra scrutiny and to be reviewed and investigated,” Dale said.

Staff writers Brian Ballou, Aric Chokey, Anne Geggis and Susannah Bryan contributed to this story.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/br...222-story.html

Felicia Burgin, a ninth-grade English teacher, was locked in her classroom with students on the second floor of the building, as they heard shots from the floor above.

She said the criticism of Peterson is unfair. Peterson wouldn’t have stood a chance against the gunman in hallways that were filled with students at the time, she said.

“There is no one that is going to tell you a negative thing about Deputy Peterson," she said. “He was an Eagle and he was committed to our school. I don’t know what he could have done other than literally died.”

Yeah, see, Cruz pulled the fire alarm causing the kids to rush out into the hallways by the time Peterson got in position. Peterson wasn't getting an accurate read of the situation on his radio because the video system was delayed by 20 minutes.

Everyone is going to blame him, when the truth is probably quite different than the assumptions being made by the Sheriff's characterization of this, and that's because the whole thing is going south on the Sheriff and the School Superintendent who didn't tell the truth about Peterson's whereabouts day one.

It's interesting that officers from another county are providing him with protection.

Florida deputy who stayed outside school during massacre believes he 'did a good job,' union official says

By Stephen Sorace | Fox News
6 hours ago

The school resource deputy who remained outside of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., during last week’s bloody massacre “believed he did a good job,” a police union official said Thursday.

According to the official, Broward County Deputy Scot Peterson thought he carried out his responsibilities during the Valentine’s Day rampage, even though he failed to enter the school and engage a suspect who authorities say killed 17 students and faculty members with an AR-15-style assault rifle.

“He believed he did a good job calling in the location, setting up the perimeter and calling in the description [of the suspect],” Jeff Bell, president of the Broward Sheriff’s Office Deputies Association, told the New York Post.

At a news conference Thursday, Broward Sheriff Scott Israel excoriated Peterson -- who has resigned -- for his failure to enter the school and engage the shooter. Israel said the deputy should have “went in, addressed the killer, killed the killer.”

But Bell — while not condemning the deputy — proposed that it was an error not to engage the suspect, whom authorities identified as Nikolas Cruz, a 19-year-old former student of the school.

“We have to act, even if that means risking our lives to save many many more lives. I would demand that from our union members,” the union official told the Post.

During the attack, Peterson reportedly held a position outside the western entrance of the building for more than four minutes. The shooting lasted about six minutes.

The Thursday news conference also revealed there was a communication error between the person reviewing the school’s surveillance cameras and responding officers.

Coral Springs Police Chief Tony Pustizzi said that it “wasn't communicated to the officers that [the tape] was a 20-minute delay." Because of the delay, officers heard that the shooter was in a certain location while officers already there were saying that wasn't the case.

Responding officers had been looking for Peterson because he knew where to access the cameras, but the deputy was not inside the building at the time.

The tape delay confusion didn't put anyone in danger, Pustizzi said.

Peterson chose to resign and retire after Israel suspended him without pay and placed him under investigation.

Fox News' Katherine Lam and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/02/23...cial-says.html

“He believed he did a good job calling in the location, setting up the perimeter and calling in the description [of the suspect],” Jeff Bell, president of the Broward Sheriff’s Office Deputies Association, told the New York Post.

I say hogwash! Deputy Peterson could hear the gunshots and knew very will that each shot could mean another student had died. Peterson should have immediately set out to brace the shooter. This was not a hostage situation, it was an orgy of senseless killings!

Deputy Peterson's actions would have been appropriate in a hostage situation, but that was not the case here. Numerous shots were being fired and he should have rapidly responded to the source of the gunfire.

No police officers entered Columbine. They all waited outside, all 75 of them, surrounding the building, but none of them entered the building until long after it was all over. They waited for SWAT. The Deputy Sheriff's Deputy assigned to the school waited outside, soon joined by 6 other police officers, they all waited, none of them entered the school. By the time SWAT got there, there were 75 police officers at Columbine, but no one entered the building until after SWAT, which was 47 minutes after the shooting had started. The article says the officers that stayed outside did as they were trained to do.

Police were at the school right away. Within five minutes of the first shots fired, the sheriff's deputy assigned to work at the school was in the west parking lot. He exchanged gunfire with Harris who retreated into the school. That deputy was soon joined by six other policemen who took positions around the building. None of them entered the school, where Harris and Klebold were heading toward the library, shooting in the halls and throwing bombs into the cafeteria below. They walked into the library and began shooting students.

Among those killed there was Sophomore Kelly Fleming. Her parents, Don and DeeDee, say that the police should have entered the school earlier.

"There was no one in that school that had a gun other than the two killers," says DeeDee. "And no one pursued them. No one tried to engage them."

"For almost 20 minutes she waited. Twenty minutes, that's a long time for someone to have the opportunity to come in and make a difference."

The Jefferson County Sheriff's Office declined to speak with us, but in a letter, Sheriff John Stone described the Columbine attack as a "unique set of circumstances, the magnitude of which no one had dealt with before." He also cited some of the obstacles that kept his men from entering the building right away - including bombs, booby traps, and a lack of information about how many gunmen were in the school.

Other parents are also angry. "They're listening to kids getting shot and murdered inside the library over a 911 call and their job is to protect people," says Bruce Beck, the stepfather of Lauren Townsend, another student who was killed in the library.

In his letter, Sheriff Stone said that by taking positions around the building and waiting for SWAT teams to arrive, his officers were doing what they were trained to do. He said his officers "responded quickly, returned fire, deployed appropriately and safely extracted hundreds of trapped and terrified students and teachers." He also asked us to talk to Larry Glick, who directs a national organization that trains SWAT teams.

"They believed that they really had six to eight armed individuals inside there," says Glick of the police outside the school. "And if you're in those shoes of those officers, they felt that it was more reasonable to wait until additional personnel responded to move in."

Harris and Klebold then left the library and walked downstairs to the school commons. They were in no hurry. Harris stopped for a drink of water. Klebold wandered through the cafeteria, then lobbed a pipe bomb toward the window. It started a fire that could be seen by police officers outside the school.

When student Evan Todd came out of the school, he told police that there were wounded students in the school. He even told them how he had come out of the school. But no policeman went in that door, the shortest route to the library and to the science room, where Dave Sanders lay wounded. When Todd came out that door, there were at least 20 police officers surrounding the school. But by the time the first SWAT team was assembled and geared up to enter the building, it was 12:06 - 47 minutes after the shooting had begun. That SWAT team entered on the side of the building farthest from Dave Sanders, and from the library, where some survivors lay hidden among the dead.

By the time Klebold and Harris committed suicide at 12:08, at least 75 police officers were surrounding Columbine High School. The first SWAT team had been in the building only two minutes. It would be nearly three hours before they would know the gunmen were dead.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-re...-at-columbine/

I would caution everyone to tread carefully on judging this officer. These are law enforcement officers, not cops on a suicide mission. These are regular beat cops, not SWAT. SWAT has special weapons, special gear, special protection to enter with less risk to their lives.

There was an off-duty police officer with military experience, a recipient of a Congressional Medal of Valor, who was shot and killed trying to help a neighbor just the other day. Shot dead by the killer. He did save the woman's life, but gave his own. The officer had a wife and 4 kids.

It just bothers me to see this officer called a coward when he was actually following procedures. I think it's a big PR problem for law enforcement, they don't want the public to think they won't rush in to help them, but when it boils down to it, they will won't rush in, not until SWAT gets there. The risk to their own lives is too high in these situations.

It was the same thing at the Pulse nightclub, and I think the same thing at Sandy Hook.

That's why it is imperative that these doors be locked at all times during class-time. That is the number one goal and if for some reason that fails, then you have to have armed individuals already inside the building.

The officer did not follow procedure, Judy. It was the Columbine incident that forced the change in procedure. It didn't take a fool to see what happened at Columbine was a disaster. Law enforcement learned from the mistake. The procedure now is to rush to the gunfire in a mass shooting scenario. Deputy Peterson failed to do that because he was more afraid for his own life that he was for the children.

A single officer with no back-up? I don't agree with that. That's a suicide mission.

I heard a Columbine survivor today who is in office or running for an office and he said that everything did change in procedures for school shootings after that day. They are to confront not wait.

Camera surveillance failed in providing real time information apparently at Douglas. What are the procedures in that area for these situations?

I think the whole thing is a fiasco with failures on so many levels. Fingers could point in so many directions. Guilt may fill many hearts.

Originally Posted by MW

The officer did not follow procedure, Judy. It was the Columbine incident that forced the change in procedure. It didn't take a fool to see what happened at Columbine was a disaster. Law enforcement learned from the mistake. The procedure now is to rush to the gunfire in a mass shooting scenario. Deputy Peterson failed to do that because he was more afraid for his own life that he was for the children.

MW, I heard what you wrote about Columbine today.

Originally Posted by Judy

A single officer with no back-up? I don't agree with that. That's a suicide mission.

Same with arming teachers.