Scot Peterson, the Broward deputy assigned to be a resource officer at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, resigned last Thursday after it was revealed that he failed to enter the school building where Nikolas Cruz shot and killed 17 people.

Peterson, 54, came under scrutiny after Cruz, 19, entered the school with an AR-15 rifle and killed 14 students and three faculty members on Valentine’s Day. Cruz later confessed, according to investigators.

Broward Sheriff Scott Israel told the press that Peterson should have gone into the building and “killed the killer.” Surveillance footage from the school reportedly shows Peterson was outside the building for more than four minutes while the gunman fired at students inside. The shooting lasted six minutes.

“What I saw was a deputy arrived . . . take up a position and he never went in,” Sheriff Israel said. “There are no words. I mean these families lost their children. We lost coaches.”

Peterson resigned after he was suspended without pay on Thursday morning. He was a deputy with the agency for more than 30 years. The Illinois native joined the agency in 1985 after completing his education at Miami-Dade Community College and Florida International University. He became the school resource officer at Stoneman Douglas in 2009 and was reportedly often regarded by peers as a dependable employee who knew how to communicate with staff and students.

The teachers at Stoneman Douglas are divided on Peterson’s conduct. One teacher came to his defense, saying the criticism of Peterson was unfair.

“My take is this is misdirected anger,” ninth-grade English teacher Felicia Burgin told The Palm Beach Post. “I think that nobody knowns unless you’re actually in this situation . . . and it just seems to me his choices were to run in there, blindly, and be killed by this AR-15 with his hand gun as a defense, or be called a coward . . . from my perspective, there is nothing he could have done to prevent what happened . . . my anger is with Nikolas Cruz..”

Amid heated public debate regarding Peterson’s response, President Donald Trump called him a “coward” who “certainly did a poor job” on Friday. Broward County Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie agreed with Trump’s assessment.

“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.”

The sheriff’s office is also investigating two other deputies, Guntis Treijs and Edward Eason, for how they handled potential warnings about Cruz, including one from November in which a caller said Cruz “was collecting guns and knives” and “could be a school shooter in the making.”

Israel said the agency received 23 calls involving Cruz or his younger brother Zachary from November 2008 to November 2017.

Trejis and Eason handled two calls, including the one from November where the caller said Cruz “was a school shooter in the making,” according to documents released by the sheriff’s office. The two deputies were placed on a restricted assignment Thursday.

The reports of incompetence from the sheriff’s office are only the latest from officials. CNN reported three Broward deputies, in addition to Peterson, failed to enter the school building when the shooting began.

Coral Springs deputies who arrived at the school in response to the shooting were reportedly surprised to find that not only had Peterson not entered the building, but three other Broward deputies were positioned behind their vehicles with their pistols drawn. Not one of them had attempted to go into the school.

The reports aren’t limited to local law enforcement agencies—the FBI revealed that it did not investigate a tip about Cruz received in January. The agency was also alerted in September about a suspicious YouTube comment that was likely written by Cruz but it didn’t take action.

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Source: 2.24.18 Broward deputy who failed to engage shooter had solid work history.pdf