Legal experts say move to charge ex-Parkland school resource officer is unprecedented, and that the case will be closely watched amid calls to arm teachers and other school personnel as a way to prevent future school shootings.
Scot Peterson, the Parkland, Florida school resource officer who failed to confront a shooter who killed 17 last February, has been branded a “coward” by everyone from victims' family members to President Donald Trump. But will his inaction that day also make him a felon?
“I can’t think of a case where someone has been charged with not going into harm’s way.” said Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles."Basically, they’re charging him with being a coward." "What they’re doing in Florida is try to apply general laws regarding child neglect -- laws that keep people from doing reckless things that cause injury -- they’re applying those to police practice," Hutchinson said.
Peterson's lawyer, Joseph DiRuzzo, said at the time that his client's actions were"appropriate" and said he would ultimately be exonerated based on the video evidence. DiRuzzo said Peterson took up a"tactical position" in response to what he believed was outdoor gunfire, notified the sheriff's dispatch and initiated a"Code Red" lockdown.
"By absolutely no stretch of the imagination do we condone the actions, or inaction, of Deputy Scot Peterson on February 14, 2018," Rod Skirvin, president of the Broward County Police Benevolent Association, which includes Parkland, told ABC News in an interview Thursday."That being said, we feel the ramifications of charging a law enforcement officer with a criminal act as a caregiver is highly concerning to us.
Peterson appeared in court Thursday and a judge reduced his bond. He was released and has not yet entered a plea.
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