Shootout rings out again at Parkland school as families try to prove police let their kids down

Scot Peterson reacted to being found not guilty of all criminal charges by a Broward Co court last month. Photo: AMY BETH BENNETT/POOL SOUTH FLORIDA SUN-Sentinel

The court has not yet decided whether the recording will be played in court.

Security footage from the day of the attack shows Mr. Peterson jumping into a golf cart with two unarmed civilian guards. guards seconds after the shooting started, arriving at the building a minute later.

He climbed out of a cart near the east doorway into the hallway on the first floor, where 19-year-old Cruz was firing an AR-15-rifle.< /p>

But Mr. Peterson, who was armed, did not open the door, but instead walked about 75 feet into another building, where he radioed for help. He stayed there for about 40 minutes, long after the shooting ended and the police stormed the school.

Tony Montalto, who lost his 14-year-old daughter Gina in the shootout, said that while Peterson was acquitted of criminal charges, «it doesn't mean he's not guilty of not doing the right thing.»

He continued: “He failed to properly respond to the tragedy, was unable to enter the building and did not provide assistance. The dramatization is intended to refute some of the allegations made during the criminal process.

Mr Peterson, who did not testify at the criminal trial, insisted that he would have broken into the building had he known the whereabouts of the gunman.

“My children were there,” he said in a 2018 interview with the show NBC Today Show. “I would never sit there and let my children be killed. Never.”

Before reconstruction begins, two South Florida congressmen, Democrat Jared Moskowitz and Republican Mario Diaz-Balart, will give School Safety Board members a tour of the three-story building where the massacre took place.

It was left virtually untouched by the shooting . The floors are still covered in gore, and the classrooms have withered Valentine's Day flowers and deflated balloons. Books and computers remain on the desks.

After Friday, the Broward School District will begin demolition of the building, which remains evidence in the Cruise and Peterson criminal trials.

Mr. three decades working in schools, including nine years at Stoneman Douglas. He retired shortly after the massacre and was then retroactively fired.

Cruz, a former high school student, was arrested by police at a local McDonald's shortly after the shooting.

He pleaded guilty. guilty and was sentenced to life in prison last year after the jury failed to unanimously decide whether he deserved the death penalty. Prosecutors asked the jury to sentence the shooter to death. Of the 12 jurors, three voted to keep him alive.