The state commission investigating the Parkland school shooting is reviewing footage of the actions taken by former Deputy Scot Peterson, the school resource officer who did not go into the building. Here is what they have said about it. It is not easy to hear (or read):
A little context: Commissioners are reviewing the Peterson footage side-by-side with a police animation of what was happening inside the building. So they can try to figure out where Peterson was and where the gunman was at the same time.
The key conclusion: Peterson reached the door of the building - the same door the gunman had gone into moments earlier - while the gunman was still on the first floor, down the other end of the hall. Peterson did not go in. The gunman had already killed his first floor victims.
So if Peterson had gone through the door, he would have encountered the shooter? "Entirely possible," says Detective Zack Scott of the Broward Sheriff's Office, a lead investigator in the case.
But Peterson did not go in. He "fled," according to Sheriff Bob Gualtieri of Pinellas County, the commission chairman, to a position 69 feet away from the freshman building. Meanwhile, the gunman moved up to the second floor and third floor, where he would target more victims.
Peterson has said he did not go in because he didn't know where the gunman was. But the commission appears highly skeptical of this, seeing the footage and hearing Peterson over the radio calling in potential gunshots.
After calling in the gunshots, however, Peterson offered little guidance to his sheriff colleagues, Detective Scott noted: "Nothing's going on in the radio. At no point is anyone notifying the rest of the world." It was a 911 call from inside the building that notified dispatch.
That's partly why Coral Springs Police went into the building before BSO did, Gualtieri says. While Peterson was advising BSO to secure roads and intersections, Coral Springs officers "weren't hearing this nonsense direction."
The commission has subpoenaed Peterson to testify next month.
A reminder that active shooter protocols for the Broward Sheriff's Office required confronting the gunman as quickly as possible. When there's gunfire, Detective Scott said, "You move towards it."
