An attorney for the former school resource officer at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School defended the officer’s response to the Parkland shooting, saying in a statement Monday that allegations Scot Peterson failed to act appropriately are “patently untrue.”
“Let there be no mistake, Mr. Peterson wishes that he could have prevented the untimely passing of the seventeen victims on that day, and his heart goes out to the families of the victims in their time of need,” the statement from Joseph DiRuzzo III says.
“However, the allegations that Mr. Peterson was a coward and that his performance, under the circumstances, failed to meet the standards of police officers are patently untrue.”
Peterson resigned on Thursday after Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel suspended Peterson without pay for allegedly waiting outside the Florida school as the shooting unfolded.
“What I saw was a deputy arrive at the west side of building 12, take up a position,” Israel said of the footage. “And he never went in.”
President Donald Trump said Peterson did a “poor job” and suggested he was a “coward” in how he responded to the shooting.
“When it came time to get in there and do something, he didn’t have the courage or something happened, but he certainly did a poor job. There’s no question about that,” Trump said Friday.
“But that’s a case where somebody was outside, they’re trained, they didn’t react properly under pressure or they were coward,” Trump added. “It was a real shot to the police department.”