As gunman Nikolas Cruz went on a rampage at Stoneman Douglas High School on February 14, firing on students and teachers until his semiautomatic AR-15 jammed, Broward Deputy Scot Peterson cowered outside behind the safety of cover, “pointing his gun at nothing.”
Peterson publicly stated that he thought gunfire was happening outside on campus, not inside the building – perhaps to justify not going in to stop the shooting which claimed 17 lives.
He lied.
Internal radio dispatches released by the Broward County Sheriff’s Office Thursday reveal Peterson immediately focused on Building 12 and radioed that gunfire was happening “inside.”
What’s more – Peterson warned his fellow officer to stay away – despite wounded students and staff inside who required assistance. Broward Sheriff’s Office (BSO) policy requires deputies to engage an active shooter and eliminate the threat.
“Do not approach the 12 or 1300 building, stay at least 500 feet away,” shouted a panicked Peterson as people screamed in the background.
The timeline of events and audio recording of police radio chatter shed new light on the response by the BSO.
BSO police union president Jeff Bell welcomed the release of the audio and timeline of events.
“It certainly backs up that he never went into the school,” Bell said of Scot Peterson. “At one point he says to keep back 500 feet. Why would he say that?”
Timeline of events via the Miami Herald
Cruz was dropped off at the school by an Uber at 2:19 p.m. Two minutes later, he entered Building 12. He began firing within 15 seconds. Peterson, at the time, was near the administration building.
At that moment, according to the video, Peterson arrived at the southeast corner of Building 12, where he appeared to remain “for the duration of the incident.” “We’re talking about the 1200 building, it’s going to be the building off Holmberg Road,” Peterson said frantically seconds later.
“Get the school locked down, gentlemen!” he shouted.
As the shots intensified, other deputies began racing to the scene, radioing in. One believed he heard shots by the football field, something Peterson mentioned in a statement released last month by his attorney, arguing that the school resource deputy thought shots were coming from outside the 1200 building.
“BSO trains its officers that in the event of outdoor gunfire one is to seek cover and assess the situation in order to communicate what one observes with other law enforcement,” Peterson’s attorney said.
But Peterson, according to the timeline and radio dispatches reviewed by the Miami Herald, remained focused on Building 12.
“All right… We also heard it’s by, inside the 1200,” Peterson said at 2:25 p.m.
Joseph DiRuzzo, Peterson’s attorney, did not respond to an email and a call to his office. Peterson resigned eight days after the shooting rather than be suspended without pay pending an internal affairs investigation.
As the shooting progressed, calls began “blowing up” the 911 call centers. Students were spilling out of the campus. Peterson radioed to make sure “no one comes inside the school.”
At 2:27 p.m., six minutes after Cruz went into Building 12, the shooting stopped. Cruz ditched his AR-15 in the third-floor stairwell and left.
Five seconds later, Peterson radioed for officers to “stay at least 500 feet away at this point.” A dispatcher repeated, “Stay away from 12 and 1300 building.”
Coral Springs officer Tim Burton had just arrived at Douglas High. At 2:28 p.m., he radioed out the first description of Cruz: “White male with ROTC Uniform Burgundy Shirt” — exactly what the shooter was wearing when he was arrested later. How Burton obtained the information was unclear from the timeline.
At 2:29 p.m., as officers began encountering wounded students, Burton met with Peterson outside Building 12.
The chaos continued. Deputies tried getting into Building 13 next door, but it was locked. A fleeing student appeared to be stuck in a fence; a deputy asked for bolt cutters. One deputy called for a command post to be set up.
“We need to get units in here so we can try to find this guy,” a deputy radioed.
At 2:31 p.m., BSO Capt. Jan Jordan, whose supervision of the response has also been scrutinized amid questions about whether she slowed police response by ordering a perimeter, speaks for the first time: “Do we have a perimeter set up right now and everyone cleared out of the school?”
“That’s negative,” a dispatcher responds.
It was at 2:32 — 11 minutes after the shooting began — that four Coral Springs officers and two BSO deputies made the first police entrance into the building, helping to “extract a victim.”
Jordan is back on the radio one minute later: “I want to make sure that we have a perimeter set up (unintelligible), all the kids are getting out, but we need to shut down around this school.”
By 2:35 p.m., officers were seen transporting a victim on a golf cart. One minute after that, 10 officers burst into Building 12 through an east-side entrance.
Down the street, Cruz had entered a Walmart and bought a drink at the Subway inside. At 3:40 p.m., a Coconut Creek officer saw Cruz and arrested him without incident. Cruz was indicted Wednesday on 17 counts of first-degree murder and 17 counts of attempted murder.
The Broward Sheriff’s Office released the timeline Thursday following weeks of mounting pressure to make the details of its police response public. The Miami Herald, South Florida Sun-Sentinel and CNN sued the agency last month to force it to release surveillance video outside of the 1200 building, and their lawyers argued in court Thursday that it was in the public interest to release the footage.
Also Thursday, the sheriff’s office released 911 calls received by dispatchers and police documents related to its handling of calls to Cruz’s various addresses detailing his family’s troubled domestic life.
The sheriff’s office tweeted about the case Thursday evening.
“BSO agreed in court today with the media that surveillance video from outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High should be released publicly. Legal exemptions block the release unless a judge approves. The judge took it under advisement and we hope for a ruling shortly.”
https://www.infowars.com/disgraced-parkland-officer-lied-radio-dispatch-recordings-reveal/
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