The Parkland, Fla., sheriff’s deputy who failed to confront school shooter Nikolas Cruz while he opened fire on Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students provided more excuses for his actions (or lack thereof) in a Tuesday interview.
“’It’s so difficult, Savannah,” Scot Peterson said to his interviewer when asked why he couldn’t locate the shooter, “to be out — when you’re outside there and — and that building, it’s a three-story … it’s a hurricane-proof building. You can … it’s hard to even hear. Those shots I heard, I was like — immediately, I thought they were outside. I didn’t know where they were coming from, if there were coming from the 1200 building.”
“If I’m a parent whose child died in that building, you do think there’s a shooter inside why aren’t you going inside?” @savannahguthrie to Parkland school resource officer Scot Peterson pic.twitter.com/Z9VLr1pwSp
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) June 5, 2018
On February 14, 2018, seventeen people were gunned down even with an armed officer paid to guard the school’s campus.
Peterson elaborated, “And, you know, it’s easy, you know, to sit there for people to go, ‘Oh, he should have known that that person was up there.’ It wasn’t that easy. It wasn’t. It really wasn’t.” (Parkland Hero Who Was Shot Five Times Rips Sheriff Israel)
When asked why he didn’t think there was an active shooter in the school, Peterson responded, “Because when I heard those shots outside, I didn’t even think that someone was inside the building … because my mind was racing.”
“I didn’t know if it was in there. I didn’t know if it was outside,” he said, excusing himself for not immediately entering the building. He also maintained his stance that he remained outside of the school because he was “containing” the area.
“Those are my kids in there,” the sheriff’s deputy said. “I never would have sat there and let my kids get slaughtered. Never.”