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| Scot Peterson Faces Court on Parkland School Shooting Neglect Charges | |
| (32 minutes later) | |
| FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Scot Peterson, the former sheriff’s deputy and school resource officer at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., made his first court appearance on Wednesday on charges connected with failing to protect students during the mass shooting there on Feb. 14, 2018. | |
| He appeared for a bond hearing in magistrates court in Fort Lauderdale via video link from the Broward County Jail. | |
| The attack, one of the worst school shootings in United States history, left 17 students, teachers and staff members dead. An additional 17 people were wounded. In an unusual prosecution launched Tuesday, the authorities charged Mr. Peterson, 56, with seven counts of felony neglect of a child, culpable negligence and perjury. | |
| The former deputy, who was the only armed guard on campus but retreated to a position of safety during the attack, was found to have done “absolutely nothing to mitigate” the carnage, according to law enforcement officials following an investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. | |
| He was booked into the county jail on a bond of $102,000, and appeared from there at Wednesday’s bond hearing wearing a beige jail uniform, showing no sign of emotion. | |
| [Here are the three crucial steps officials say Scot Peterson missed] | [Here are the three crucial steps officials say Scot Peterson missed] |
| During the hearing, his lawyers raised the issue of whether Mr. Peterson, who had worked as a school resource officer for eight years, met the statutory definition of “caregiver.” The criminal statutes under which Mr. Peterson was charged for his behavior during the shooting were not specifically drafted for law enforcement officers and are usually applied to parents. Police officers are not thought of as caregivers for children, legal experts said. | |
| The lawyers also asked if Mr. Peterson could travel to North Carolina to retrieve his passport so that it could be surrendered to satisfy one of the conditions to gaining bond. The judge denied both requests, and the hearing was over in a matter of minutes. | |
| Afterward, his defense lawyer, Joseph DiRuzzo of Fort Lauderdale, said he expected that his client would be able to post bond and be released. | |
| “We are waiting for the case to be assigned to a circuit criminal judge. We intend to file a motion to reduce bond and a motion to modify the terms of pretrial release,” he told reporters, adding that he was “anticipating it shouldn’t take very long.” | |
| “We expect Mr. Peterson to be treated fairly, just like every other person,” he said. | |
| Experts say that criminally charging a law enforcement officer for negligence in his response to a mass shooting is new ground. | Experts say that criminally charging a law enforcement officer for negligence in his response to a mass shooting is new ground. |
| “This is the first time I have seen somebody so charged like this,” Clinton R. Van Zandt, a former profiler with the F.B.I. and an expert on mass shootings, said. “I think that every police officer, sheriff and F.B.I. agent understands that you have to go to the threat and stop it and that we are no longer going to wait for SWAT or set up perimeters.” | “This is the first time I have seen somebody so charged like this,” Clinton R. Van Zandt, a former profiler with the F.B.I. and an expert on mass shootings, said. “I think that every police officer, sheriff and F.B.I. agent understands that you have to go to the threat and stop it and that we are no longer going to wait for SWAT or set up perimeters.” |