Former Broward Sheriff’s Deputy Scot Peterson says he was improperly blamed for the Parkland high school massacre and that he actually acted appropriately that fateful day.
In a 14-page report, which Peterson sent to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Public Safety Commission, the former school resource officer says he isn’t the coward he was made out to be in the commission’s report.
He says he followed the Broward Sheriff’s Office’s training and policies for handling an active-shooter crisis.
“I assessed the situation and acted accordingly to the real time intelligence I assessed on the scene,” his response to the commission says.
Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, chairman of the MSD Commission, called Peterson’s rebuttal a “fairy tale.” He said Peterson refused to appear before the commission, even when subpoenaed, but then accused it of being one-sided.
“It makes me mad,” Gualtieri said. “The reason why is he continues to engage in this self-serving rhetoric. He needs to take responsibility for his actions. He needs to fess up.”
Peterson’s 14-page rebuttal stands in stark conflict with the findings of the MSD Commission, which investigated law enforcement’s response to the Feb. 14, 2018, shooting in which 17 people were killed and 17 injured.
The commission said there was “overwhelming evidence that Deputy Peterson knew that the gunshots were coming from within or within the immediate area of Building 12” and there was no evidence that he “attempted to investigate the source of the gunshots.”
Rather, the commission found, Peterson “retreated to an area of safety.”
Peterson asked that his rebuttal be added to the MSD Commission’s full report. Gualtieri said Peterson’s rebuttal will “absolutely not” be attached to the report.
Widely branded a coward for failing to run into the school when he heard gunshots, Peterson said his actions were “consistent with the training I had received for the past 30 years.”
He said he didn’t know the gunshots were coming from inside the 1200 Building of the high school.
Among his assertions:
— He was “not given any information whatsoever by BSO communications” about the shooter, his location, or the fact that there were victims inside the 1200 Building.
— He did call a Code Red to lock down the school, contrary to the MSD Commission’s conclusion that he did not.
— He took control of the scene and started to secure the perimeter of the school, “to safeguard the public from entering.”
— He gave classroom keys to Coral Springs officers who arrived on the scene and relayed information to first responders.
— He obtained “critical information” about shooter Nikolas Cruz’s identity and where he had gone, and yelled it out to other first responders, because the radios weren’t working.
— During his eight years working at the school, he was never informed by the Broward Sheriff’s Office or the city of Parkland that 911 calls made on wireless phones from the school were routed to the city of Coral Springs instead of the Sheriff’s Office.
Other deputies on the scene said Peterson, who worked at the high school for eight years, was emotional and had to take a break to calm down.
Broward Sheriff’s Deputy Robert Rausch told Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigators he saw Peterson in the back of the agency’s “Bearcat” armored vehicle later on the day of the shooting.
“I know he was distraught and they were just trying to let him sit in the air conditioning and — and hang out,” Rausch said.
“He looked like flustered. Um, I don’t remember any specific mannerisms that he did. I just remember seeing him flustered and just, you know — he was — apparently he needed to sit down and have a drink of water, sit in the A/C.”
In its initial report released in January, the commission said Peterson was “derelict in his duty” and could have “engage(d) Cruz and mitigate(d) further harm to others.”
The commission found that Peterson had a “hiding place,” at the base of a stairwell and stayed there for about 48 minutes.