Broward Deputy Who Stood Outside Parkland School Says He’d Enter ‘in a Heartbeat’ Now

Broward County deputy Scot Peterson says knowing what he knows now he would enter the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School “in a heartbeat” if he was there when a shooting occurred.

Peterson came under heavy scrutiny in the immediate aftermath of the February 14 attack on Stoneman Douglas when it was learned that he stood outside the building throughout the attack. As pressure mounted he resigned his position rather than face suspension over his decision not to enter and confront the gunman.

Surveillance video from the school was released March 15 and it appears to show Peterson arriving on scene approximately 90 seconds into the six-minute attack. It then appears to show him standing outside the building while the last four and a half minutes of the attack play out.

CBS News reports that an interview with Peterson will air Tuesday on NBC.  They discuss his initial call into dispatch, “Be advised we have possible—could be firecrackers—I think we have shots fired, possible shots fired.” Seconds later he followed up with, “Make sure we get some units over here, I need to shut down Stoneman Douglas.”

But he did not enter the building.

Peterson says if he knew then what he knows now he would have “been in that building in a heartbeat.”

Andrew Pollack, the father of Meadow Pollack—an 18-year-old senior who was slain in the Parkland attack—has filed suit against Peterson. In announcing the suit Pollack made clear he does not want Peterson to be able to go out in public without being called “one of the cowards of Broward County.”

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.