‘He Is Not a Victim’: Parkland Parents Blast ‘Pathetic’ Former Broward Deputy

In an interview with the Washington Post taped on June 4, Parkland, Florida, Officer Scot Peterson said there was “no time” for him to be a coward during the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting because “things went so fast.”

“It’s haunting,” Peterson said. “I’ve cut that day up a thousand ways with a million different what-if scenarios, but the bottom line is I was there to protect, and I lost 17.” The former “school resource officer”– now holed up for about three months in his Boynton Beach home — has asked, “how can they keep saying I did nothing?”

During the tragic slaughter of 17 students, Peterson was “getting on the radio to call in the shooting. I’m locking down the school. I’m clearing kids out of the courtyard. They have the video and the call logs. The evidence is sitting right there.” But according to him, that is a matter of perception. “You’re a hero or a coward, and that’s it.”

But parents of the Parkland victims remain unmoved. Fred Guttenberg, the father of fallen 14-year-old Jaime Guttenberg, was particularly incensed by the response. “I’m tired of him trying to paint himself as the victim,” he said. “He is not a victim. He created victims. He keeps referring to them as his kids. They are not your kids, Scot Peterson! You let them die!”

“He keeps mentioning the third floor,” Guttenberg continued. “If he had done his job, this killing wouldn’t have made it to the third floor. Those people who lost their lives, including my daughter, are victims of his inability to do his job; victims of his failure.” He said that “this interview makes him even more pathetic than he already was” and issued a challenge to Peterson himself: “You failed me and my daughter. If you are truly sorry, I challenge you to face me.”

Andrew Pollack, who lost 18-year-old Meadow Pollack in the shooting, also had something to say. “I think the whole country knows he didn’t do his job and this interview was his way of him trying to live with it,” he said. “He’s just a liar. It’s all on tape.” And to Peterson, who said he did not “find” shooter Nikolas Cruz, Pollack has one simple question: “How could he find him if he’s hiding behind a wall?”

Peterson will receive an annual pension in excess of $100,000, collecting about $8,700 per month from taxpayers for his service. But Pollack has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against both Peterson and the shooter, Cruz. “He could have stopped it. Could have saved my kid,” Pollack said. “Nobody should be able to not do their job, receive a pension and ride off into the sunset.”