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Amy Beth Bennett

PARKLAND, Fla. — Scot Peterson is about 750 miles away and more than five years removed from the worst day of his life. The former school resource officer is 60 now and lives a modest, anonymous existence in a mountain town in rural North Carolina.

Yet no matter the distance or time, Peterson finds himself reliving Feb. 14, 2018, the day a gunman killed 17 people and injured 17 others at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in South Florida while he stood at a safe distance, branding him as “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/is-cowardice-a-crime-scot-petersons-failure-leaves-us-with-complicated-questions/2019/06/14/5853ba6e-8948-11e9-a870-b9c411dc4312_story.html" target=_blank>the Coward of Broward</a>.”

“I reflect on that shooting every single day, many times per day,” Peterson told The Washington Post in an email. “How can you not when a monster shot 34 people?”

Now Peterson is gearing up to defend himself at a trial that is believed to mark the first time a U.S. police officer faces trial in connection with alleged inaction during a school shooting. Peterson has insisted there was nothing else he could have done, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/it-was-my-job-and-i-didnt-find-him-stoneman-douglas-resource-officer-remains-haunted-by-massacre/2018/06/04/796f1c16-679d-11e8-9e38-24e693b38637_story.html" target=_blank>contending </a>the lack of information and echo of gunfire made it impossible to determine where the shooting was coming from. Jury selection began Wednesday at the Broward County Courthouse.

“I’ve never heard of a case like this,” said Mac Hardy, a spokesman for the National Association of School Resource Officers, a nonprofit based in Hoover, Ala.

The school’s resource officer for nearly a decade, Peterson didn’t set foot inside the building where the shooting was happening, despite being the first armed officer at the scene. The Broward Sheriff’s Office fired him in response, and later he was charged with seven counts of felony child neglect for allegedly not doing more to protect students.

John Mccall

Peterson’s case has taken on new relevance in the year since 21 people, including 19 children, were killed at an elementary school in Uvalde, Tex. Parents and legal experts say that in both cases there are similar questions surrounding whether and how to hold officers accountable for inaction after a shooting. Parents of victims in Texas have urged prosecutors to hold accountable officers who waited 77 minutes to confront the gunman. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/05/24/uvalde-school-shooting-police-response/" target="_blank">None have been charged</a> to date.

The Peterson case hinges on prosecutors proving he was working that day in the capacity of a caregiver, which could be difficult, as the term usually does not refer to a law enforcement officer — underscoring the challenges in criminally prosecuting officers for missteps in a crisis.

Pool

Peterson, through his attorney, Mark Eiglarsh, declined to meet for an in-person interview but agreed to answer a list of questions sent to him via email. Prosecutors with the Broward State Attorney’s Office declined to comment. Eiglarsh said he believes Peterson will be acquitted.

“It’s the only verdict that speaks the truth,” the attorney said. “He’s not a caregiver.”

But for the Parkland parents whose sons and daughters should now be in college instead of cemeteries, their truth is that Peterson should have done more.

“He had a duty to act,” said Lori Alhadeff, a member of the Broward County School Board whose 14-year-old daughter, Alyssa, was among the victims. “He was supposed to be ‘the good guy with the gun.’ It was his job to go into that building.

Wilfredo Lee

On a rainy April day in Fort Lauderdale, Eiglarsh is sitting at a desk covered in overstuffed folders and binders that look like they’re ready to explode. They’re all dedicated to a man who he initially believed was a coward, in a case he wanted nothing to do with.

“I knew of him the same way most people knew of him,” the attorney said. “He looked like a coward. He looked bad.”

Eiglarsh added, “And that’s just not the case.”

A father of four who was twice divorced, Peterson ingratiated himself to the Parkland community after he became the school resource officer for Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2009. He was honored by the sheriff’s office in 2014 as its school resource officer of the year for proving he was “reliable in handling issues with tact and judgment.”

“He was actually built to be a school resource officer,” said Kevin Bolling, a former Broward County sheriff’s deputy who had no role in the Parkland response. Both of his children at one point or another worked or attended the school. “I had no fear because I knew Scot was there.”

It was the last class period of the day and, Peterson said, he was investigating a counterfeit driver’s license case in his office and thinking about a quiet Valentine’s Day with his wife. Then an Uber driver pulled up near the school’s entrance. Inside the vehicle was Nikolas Cruz, 19, carrying a large bag holding an <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/interactive/2023/ar-15-damage-to-human-body/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">AR-15-style rifle</a> and several loaded magazines, according to a <a href="http://www.fdle.state.fl.us/MSDHS/CommissionReport.pdf" target=_blank>458-page report</a> by the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission.

The first shots erupted at 2:21 p.m. in the 1200 building. In a statement to investigators, Peterson said he heard what he thought might be firecrackers. Two minutes later, he and two other officers arrived on a golf cart near the building where Cruz was still firing. At that time, 21 people had already been shot, including nine who were fatally wounded, the report notes.

Joe Raedle

While Cruz was still shooting, Peterson and another officer walked away from the 1200 building and established a position 75 feet away at the 700 building. Peterson “remains at this position for the duration of the incident and only transmits information via his radio,” according to an investigation from the sheriff’s office.

One of the deputies radioed at 2:25 p.m. that he heard gunshots over by the football field, causing some confusion about the shooter’s location on the sprawling 45-acre campus. Other officers later testified that they heard multiple shots but were not sure where they were coming from.

“The pronounced echo that I and countless others experienced under the most stressful moment of my life made it impossible to determine the precise location of the shooter,” Peterson told The Post.

Surveillance video and records show that Peterson ordered his colleagues to stay at least 500 feet away from the 1200 building instead of storming it. When other officers from Coral Springs arrived at 2:29 p.m., Peterson told one of them that the shooter’s location remained unclear.

Eleven minutes after the massacre began, the first officers entered the school. Peterson was not among them. It was 2:32 p.m., and Cruz had exited the 1200 building five minutes earlier.

The Broward Sheriff’s Office response sparked outcry and eventually the resignations of several officers as well as the sheriff’s ouster. Much of the criticism was directed toward Peterson. David Hogg, a survivor of the shooting and an activist, <a href="https://twitter.com/MSNBC/status/967535284681433088" target=_blank>said </a>in the days after the massacre that while Peterson was “a good person,” there were “no words to explain why he wouldn’t take action to take out this individual.” Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Rick Swearingen later summed up what Peterson had done, or didn’t do, in announcing his arrest in 2019.

“He stood there for some 45 to 48 minutes and did nothing,” Swearingen said.

The Alhadeffs’ home in Parkland is filled with reminders of Alyssa. Framed pictures and the text of laws passed in her name cover the walls. A painting of the forever teenager smiling in her soccer outfit hangs near the living room, impossible for anyone to miss as they walk into the house.

Since <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2018/08/29/her-daughter-was-killed-parkland-shooting-she-just-won-seat-county-school-board/" target="_blank">winning a seat</a> on the school board, Lori Alhadeff has pushed for the school to tear down the 1200 building. Prosecutors have insisted that officials hold off on demolishing it until the Cruz and Peterson trials are complete.

“I am really looking forward for this Scot Peterson trial to be over so we can take the 1200 building down,” Alhadeff said on a recent morning. “It’s very painful for the students that go to school there, for the community that has to drive past there.”

Brynn Anderson

She and other parents will be in the courtroom for Peterson’s trial, hoping it might provide some form of closure. The life sentence in the Cruz verdict left many victim families feeling betrayed by the justice system. They had to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeTd0wNLwpg" target=_blank>publicly share</a> their private pain and relive in anguishing detail the violence of that day. Many were convinced the evidence pointed toward capital punishment. Cruz’s defense attorneys said aggravating factors including mental illness disqualified him.

Jurors needed to reach a unanimous verdict to sentence Cruz to death, but three on the 12-member panel voted against it. The verdict sparked a debate in Florida over the state’s death penalty law, and earlier this year, lawmakers voted to allow a jury to sentence someone to death if <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/04/14/florida-death-penalty-threshold-ron-desantis/" target=_blank>eight of 12 jurors approve</a>, scratching the unanimity requirement.

For Peterson’s critics, his case — though not a death penalty trial — offers one more opportunity to find a sense of justice and accountability. They also believe that it could set a precedent for other law enforcement officers.

Each conviction for child neglect, a second-degree felony when there is bodily harm, could result in up to 15 years in prison — meaning Peterson could face a sentence of nearly 100 years.

“The outcome of the Scot Peterson trial will have a ripple effect across this country and set a precedent moving forward,” Alhadeff said. “Because if it’s acceptable for a school resource officer to not go and engage the threats during a shooting, then you are giving a pass to every SRO to decide, ‘Maybe I go in or maybe I won’t.’”

Max Schachter, whose 14-year-old son, Alex, was among those murdered, wants the Peterson verdict to send a message to all of law enforcement: “If you choose to do nothing, you will be held accountable.”

“Even though the coward did not pull the trigger,” he said, “he left my kid to die.”

For Peterson’s attorney, the case is more complicated than meets the eye.

Eiglarsh said he became convinced of that during a visit the defense team made to the school to prepare for the trial. Standing in the same spot he did years before, Peterson recounted scanning for the gunfire, not knowing if it was coming from the parking lot, the roof or inside the building.

“I was covering this area, looking to see if I can find where the shooter or shooters were,” he told Eiglarsh and Bolling, the former deputy who knew Peterson through his children’s involvement at the school and is now assisting the defense.

Seeing Peterson act out his perspective from that day made Eiglarsh “a believer.”

“He did the best he could with the information that he had and is facing a life sentence,” Eiglarsh said. “How does anybody not get outraged by that?”

In his responses to questions from The Post, Peterson urged the families of the victims to “keep an open mind” and “listen to all the evidence” before making any judgments.

“I’m 100 percent certain that during the trial they will learn things that were never shared with them, which hopefully will alter their opinion about my actions that day,” he said.

For the last four years, Peterson said, little has crossed his mind apart from the shooting. He fills his days spending time with his wife, Lydia, and dog, a Havanese named Tucker, or distracting himself by finding his next home improvement project around the cabin or a game of pickleball with those who probably don’t know who he is.

“I’ve been living a nightmare that I wouldn’t wish on anyone,” he said.

For the families of victims, it’s hard to imagine how any explanation could change their perspective. But they hope to be able to share theirs, too. Alhadeff doesn’t know if she’ll get a chance to confront or speak with Peterson. But she knows what she would say.

“I hope that when you look in the mirror, you see a coward,” she said. “That the lives of the 17 people, including my daughter, Alyssa, never leaves your memory, and that the pain and suffering that I feel you feel for the rest of your life.”

Timothy Bella was a staff writer and editor for the General Assignment team, focusing on national news. His work has appeared in outlets such as Esquire, the Atlantic, New York magazine and the Undefeated.

Timothy Bella

washpost

Scot Peterson was called a ‘coward’ after Parkland. Now he faces trial.

the-washington-post

Scot Peterson

POOL

He was called a coward after Parkland. Now he faces trial.

(Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun-Sentinel/Pool/AP)

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