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(Trends Wide) –– A jury has acquitted Scot Peterson, the former Parkland school resource officer who stood outside the Marjory Stoneman Douglas School during the February 2018 mass shooting in Florida, of all charges.
Peterson, 60, removed his glasses and sobbed as the judge read the verdicts that found him not guilty of seven counts of child neglect, three counts of culpable negligence and one count of perjury.
State prosecutors accused Peterson of ignoring his training and failing to take action when a gunman opened fire, killing 17 people, including 14 students, inside the high school in what became the deadliest school shooting in history. His lawyer argued that the then agent of the Broward Sheriff’s Office did not enter the building because he could not determine where the shots were coming from.
The case ended in the unusual trial of a law enforcement officer for his response to a mass shooting. But it was doubly bizarre because prosecutors brought the child neglect charges under a Florida statute governing caregivers, arguing that Peterson, as a school resource officer, had a duty to protect students.
On the other hand, the jury consisted of only six members. Florida law requires 12 juries just for capital cases, like that of the Parkland shooter, who is serving life in prison without parole after a jury last year decided not to unanimously recommend the death penalty.
Peterson was accused of failing to confront the shooter following his training in these cases, after he took cover for more than 45 minutes outside the three-story building before the shooter was apprehended.
Peterson “let an unrestrained killer spend the next 4 minutes and 15 seconds roaming the halls at will,” Assistant State’s Attorney Kristen Gomes said in closing arguments Monday. “Because when Scot Peterson ran, he left the children trapped inside the building with a rampaging predator.”
The charges against Peterson concerned the death and injury of eight students, seven of them minors, and two school employees on the third floor of the building: teacher Scott Beigel and students Meadow Pollack, Jaime Guttenberg, Cara Loughran , Joaquin Oliver and Peter Wang were killed, while teacher Stacey Lippel and students Anthony Borges, Kyle Laman and Marian Kabachenko were injured and survived.
Peterson was not charged in connection with the victims on the first floor because he had not yet arrived on scene; no one died on the second floor.
The former officer, who retired as criticism mounted for his actions, never knew where the shooter was, defense attorney Mark Eiglarsh told jurors, pointing to other witnesses who testified they could not pinpoint where the fatal shots came from. The trial included testimony from alumni, staff, and members of the police who supported Peterson’s claim that it was difficult to hear where the shots were coming from.
“Two dozen witnesses came here one by one and told him they couldn’t tell from the sounds precisely what area we’re talking about,” Eiglarsh said in his closing argument Monday. And even if Peterson had known where the shooter was, speculation that it could have made a difference is false, Eiglarsh argued.
Jurors also heard from witnesses who testified that they knew the shots were coming from the 1200 building, as well as law enforcement officers who testified that their training dictated that they move toward the sound of gunshots to confront a potential attacker. .
Eiglarsh has emphasized that Peterson was on the scene for the last 4 minutes and 15 seconds of the shooting, which lasted about 6 1/2 minutes. Peterson also arrived at the scene without a bulletproof vest or rifle and called for action to shut down the school, the lawyer told the jury.
