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Cop Who Stayed Outside During Florida Mass Shooting Heard Shots Inside School

March 10, 2018 16:48·
Disgraced Parkland School Resource Officer Told Fellow Cops To Keep 500 Feet Away From Location Of Shooting

Disgraced Parkland School Resource Officer Told Fellow Cops To Keep 500 Feet Away From Location Of Shooting

The armed resource officer for Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School who didn't enter the building where an active shooting was taking place said through his attorney that he thought the shots were coming from outside.

"Do not approach the 12 or 1300 building, Stay at least 500 feet away at this point", ex-Deputy Scot Peterson says on police radio minutes after the shooting had stopped and students and staff lay dying.

Beyond, that, the dispatch records show that Peterson warned other officers to stay away. Peterson can be heard telling an officer who thought he heard gunfire outside that the shots were going off inside Building 12, yet Peterson nor any other police officer from the Broward County Sheriff's Department entered the building during. Newly released audiotape of police scanners confirm Peterson's comments; with screams heard in the background as the shooting unfolded.

Internal radio dispatches released by the sheriff's office Thursday show Peterson immediately fixated on Building 12 and even radioed that gunfire was happening "inside". Peterson, at the time, was near the administration building.

Investigators say Peterson then arrived outside the building, where he appeared to remain for the "duration of the incident".

The radio dispatches appear to support Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel's assertion that Peterson should have entered the building and engaged the shooter.

Sheriff Scott Israel told media last month he was "devastated" and "sick to my stomach" over Peterson's actions, adding that Peterson should have "went in" and "addressed the killer - killed the killer".

"We also heard it's by, inside the 1200", Peterson said two minutes later.

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According to the logs, Peterson says at 2:26 p.m.: "We're locking down the school right now, make sure there's no pedestrian traffic anywhere on Holmberg Rd".

"Get the school locked down, gentlemen!" he shouts.

Joseph DiRuzzo, Peterson's attorney, did not respond to an email and a call to his office.

Peterson is seen on video surveillance at 2:23 p.m. on the outside of the building. "At one point he says to keep back 500 feet". Peterson could be heard fixating on Building 12 (the one Nikolas Cruz began firing inside of), and indicated that he heard the gunshots from "inside" the building.

Coral Springs officer Tim Burton had just arrived at Douglas High.

Peterson's warning to officers to stay "500 feet away" is directly contrary to what police are supposed to do in active shooter situations like this. Finally, 10 officers entered the building together at 2:35 pm.

"We need to get units in here so we can trying to find this guy", a deputy radioed. Officers and deputies call in information of victims and ask if there is a perimeter set up, to which a dispatcher replies, "that's negative".

It was at 2:32 - 11 minutes after the shooting began - that four Coral Springs officers and two BSO deputies made the first police entrance into the building, helping to "extract a victim".

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