Once again, Deep Blue Broward County has failed its residents. To be fair, a jury of Broward residences actually failed residents after it found former Parkland school resource officer Scot Peterson not guilty on the seven counts of felony child neglect and three counts of culpable negligence he was charged with.
Peterson’s attorney argued that his client stayed outside the building where the mass shooting killed 17 innocent children and teachers because he didn’t know where the shots were coming from.
Florida Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D), who represents Parkland and is an alumni of the high school, stated that Peterson “failed” and because he failed, “kids died.”
“The good guy with the gun didn’t do his job. He failed. Kids died. The message this sends to parents around the country is if the people you depend on to keep your kid safe fail, nothing happens,” stated Rep. Moskowitz.
Moskowitz continued, explaining the Peterson allowed children to “bleed to death because he didn’t go into the building,” calling the deputy’s actions “shameful.”
“There has been no Justice for the Parkland families. The killer doesn’t get the death penalty and now the officer, that the students trusted, that he let bleed to death because he didn’t go into the building since he was close to retirement gets no repercussions. This is shameful,” added Moskowitz.
One of the fathers of the victims, Andrew Pollack tweeted that the verdict was “disgusting” and that “Broward County never fails to be biggest joke in America.”
Pollack’s daughter Meadow perished in the shooting.
Another father, Ryan Petty, who lost his daughter Alaina in the shooting, said that Peterson “will have to lives with his failures the rest of his life.”
“Nothing in today’s verdict absolves Scot Peterson of his failures on February 14, 2018. Peterson was at the door of the building, heard shots and retreated to cover, remaining there for 48 minutes while the killer continued his rampage. Peterson remained behind that cover even after other members of law enforcement had entered the building and were treating casualties. He will have to live with his failures for the rest of his life,” stated Petty.
Peterson defended his actions, saying that he and others did best, the only thing they could considering how fluid the situation was.
“The only person to blame was that monster,” Peterson said in his defense. “It wasn’t any law enforcement, nobody on that scene, from BSO, Coral Springs. Everybody did the best they could. We did the best we could with the information we had, and God knows we wish we had more at that point.”
The shooter, Nikolas Cruz, was convicted and given a life sentence for his actions.
Gov. Ron DeSantis took issue with the sentence, arguing that Cruz deserved the death penalty.
"The jurors came back and apparently it was 11 to 1 with 1 holdout refusing to authorize the ultimate punishment, and that means that this killer is gonna end up getting a same sentence as people who committed bad acts but acts that did not rise to this level," DeSantis added, affirming that he doesn't "think anything else is appropriate except a capital sentence in this case."
