Former Broward Deputy Scot Peterson has been arrested on felony charges.
He cowered in Parkland while my sister died defenseless and lied about his failure to confront the shooter.
I hope he spends the rest of his life in prison.
— Hunter Pollack (@PollackHunter) June 4, 2019
That’s a big surprise in terms of some of the charges. But the perjury charge isn’t a surprise.
Via Miami Herald:
Scot Peterson, the former Broward Sheriff’s deputy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, has been criminally charged for failing to confront a gunman who methodically shot and killed 17 students and staffers, state authorities said Tuesday.
The 56-year-old ex-deputy was arrested Tuesday on 11 charges — including child neglect, culpable negligence and perjury — for his role in the massacre that shocked the United States, galvanized gun-control activism and led to changes in Florida’s law.
Peterson, who has long insisted he acted properly, faces nearly 100 years in prison if convicted.
The criminal charges against Peterson stemmed from an investigation by the Florida Department of Law of Enforcement, tasked by former Gov. Rick Scott to examine the response of law enforcement to the worst school shooting in state history. Peterson was charged with seven counts of child neglect, six of them felonies, plus three misdemeanor counts of culpable negligence and one misdemeanor count of perjury.
His arrest caught many in the law enforcement community off guard. Filing of criminal charges against police officers for failing to act is virtually unheard of in Florida.
But some state officials and parents of the dead students reacted with satisfaction that Peterson was jailed alongside Nikolas Cruz, the teenage gunman who launched the attack on Feb. 14, 2018.