Jury Acquits Deputy Who Failed to Confront Parkland Gunman

A former Florida sheriff’s deputy who failed to confront the gunman at a Parkland high school five years ago, and instead backed away from the building while the students and teachers inside endured a deadly barrage, was found not guilty of child neglect and other crimes on Thursday.

Scot Peterson, a former Broward County sheriff’s deputy, was acquitted of seven counts of child neglect and three counts of culpable negligence for the deaths and injuries of 10 people on the third floor of the building where the shooting occurred. He was also found not guilty of one count of perjury for claiming to the police that he heard only a few gunshots and saw no children fleeing.

When Mr. Peterson’s behavior was revealed after the shooting, critics — including some fellow police officers — painted him as being too scared to face a heavily armed gunman. His actions outraged the Parkland community, and Mr. Peterson was cast as the central character in a morality tale about cowardice and law enforcement’s duty to protect children. One victim’s father told him to “rot in hell,” and he was derided in national media outlets as the “coward in Broward.”

In all, 17 people were killed and 17 were wounded in the shooting, which was carried out by a former student. The gunman was sentenced last year to life in prison. Mr. Peterson was the lone armed resource officer assigned to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School during the Feb. 14, 2018, massacre.

On Thursday, Mr. Peterson, 60, sobbed as Judge Martin S. Fein of the Broward County Circuit Court read the verdict to a courtroom in downtown Fort Lauderdale, where only a few members of victims’ families were present.

The trial was believed to be the first in the nation against a police officer for inaction during a mass shooting. A conviction could have paved the way for prosecutors to pursue charges against other members of law enforcement over their response to mass shootings. The police in Uvalde, Texas, are being investigated because officers waited more than an hour before entering two classrooms at Robb Elementary School during a May 2022 shooting in which 21 people were killed.

But from the start, experts considered it long odds for Florida prosecutors to succeed. By charging Mr. Peterson with child neglect, an unusual legal approach, they had to persuade jurors that the former deputy was a “caregiver” responsible for the welfare of students, a designation not typically applied to police officers.

The jury of three women and three men, which deliberated for about 19 hours over four days after a two-and-a-half-week trial, found that prosecutors had not proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Peterson should be considered someone “responsible for a child’s welfare.”

“He’s not there sure to make sure that their bellies are full and that they are hydrated properly,” Mark Eiglarsh, his defense lawyer, told jurors on Monday, calling the caregiver argument “ludicrous.”

It was the second stinging defeat involving the Parkland shooting for the Broward State Attorney’s Office. Prosecutors had sought the death penalty for the gunman.

Though a state investigation found widespread failures, including other police shortfalls, Mr. Peterson was the only person other than the gunman to be charged in the shooting.

Mr. Peterson, who did not testify at trial, had expressed in news interviews his deep remorse over the deaths and said he was haunted by the shooting. If convicted, he faced a maximum sentence of 96 years and the loss of his $104,000 annual pension.

Mr. Peterson arrived outside what was known as the 1200 Building about two and half minutes into the shooting. He backed away and remained in the alcove of a stairway of an adjacent building for the remaining roughly four minutes of the shooting — and for more than 40 minutes after that, long after the gunman had fled from the building and other police officers had rushed in.

Killed in the shooting were Alyssa Alhadeff, 14; Scott Beigel, 35; Martin Duque, 14; Nicholas Dworet, 17; Aaron Feis, 37; Jaime Guttenberg, 14; Christopher Hixon, 49; Luke Hoyer, 15; Cara Loughran, 14; Gina Montalto, 14; Joaquin Oliver, 17; Alaina Petty, 14; Meadow Pollack, 18; Helena Ramsay, 17; Alex Schachter, 14; Carmen Schentrup, 16, and Peter Wang, 15.

The charging of Mr. Peterson in 2019 raised a fundamental question about whether he had frozen under pressure — and whether such a reaction constituted a crime for a sworn police officer assigned to a school.

Police officers were once trained to wait for SWAT teams to confront mass shooters, but that changed after the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo. The head of the training unit for the Broward Sheriff’s Office testified that Mr. Peterson had been trained to try to confront a gunman, even without police backup, to stop the killing.

“From my personal experience in my schools, the students were my students and it was my school,” said Mac Hardy, the director of operations for the National Association of School Resource Officers. “When you put that gun belt on every morning and leave your house, you know your responsibilities and the things you have to do to be successful to keep your kids safe.”

Prosecutors conceded that Mr. Peterson could not have stopped any of the deaths or injuries on the first floor of the three-story building, which took place before he arrived. But they said he might have had a chance to prevent 10 deaths or injuries on the third floor. No one was hurt on the second floor.

“He chose his life over everybody else’s,” Chris Killoran, an assistant state attorney, said on Monday.

Police officers were once trained to wait for SWAT teams to confront mass shooters. That changed after the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo. The head of the training unit for the Broward Sheriff’s Office testified that Mr. Peterson had been trained to try to confront a gunman, even without police backup, to stop the killing.

Mr. Peterson told investigators that he had not been sure of where the gunfire was coming from or how many shooters there were. Mr. Eiglarsh emphasized during closing arguments that his client called a “code red” to lock down the school and did the best he could under stressful conditions with limited information and poor radios.

“He truly is innocent,” Mr. Eiglarsh said, “and did everything he could that day.”