President Trump called former Broward County Sheriff’s Deputy Scot Peterson, who served as the School Resource Officer at Marjory Stoneman Douglas school, a “coward.” Much as, this time, it may be hard to feel badly about Trump’s noise, it raises a question. Had Peterson done what his job demanded, it would have violated the First Rule of Policing.
As Nikolas Cruz was shooting, Peterson was cowering. Gun drawn, outside the school, hiding behind a car. And he was not alone.
Scot Peterson, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas school resource officer who declined to confront alleged mass killer Nikolas Cruz in the midst of his attack, wasn’t alone in remaining safely away from the massacre: three Broward County sheriff’s deputies waited outside the school as well.
When Coral Springs police officers arrived on scene, they discovered several officers who “had their pistols drawn and were behind their vehicles…and not one of them had gone into the school,” according to a CNN report that described the Coral Springs officers as “stunned and upset” to discover that no one else in law enforcement had dared to take on the shooter.
There is a question about what an SRO should have done under these circumstances. Call for the SWAT team and wait? Rush in, armed with his handgun facing an AR-15 with greater distance accuracy? Something more than wait outside as children were being killed and he was the only person, at least at first, in a position to do something to stop it?
This was hardly the only failure revealed in the aftermath of the Parkland shooting. There was failure aplenty, failure to go around, from the FBI to the local cops. There was the fact that this kid, who people said was bound to “explode,” had a gun. There are questions about mental illness. There are questions about the experiences that gave rise to someone so angry and isolated that he became a 19-year-old killer. It’s much easier to focus on one factor as if the rest didn’t happen, so that we can pretend one simple solution will fix complicated problems.
But the problem of Scot Peterson is separate from the others. It’s easy to be a hero from an armchair. It’s far harder to make the decision to rush in without knowing that you will go home that night to have dinner with your spouse and kids. This is the First Rule of Policing, make it home for dinner.
We have images of cops making the decision to dedicate their lives to saving ours, having the fortitude to rush into danger for the sake of another. Cops love that fantasy. They use it to challenge anyone who doubts their bravery, their “split second decisions.” Of course, the ones who use it are alive. Dead cops have nothing to say about whether they would make that choice again.
Is it a job or is it a calling? Is it realistic to expect a guy who goes to work in the morning, comes home in the evening, to knowingly choose a course of action that may well end his life? Most cops want what the rest of us want, to die in bed at a ripe old age. But most cops are never put to the test, despite their stories. Scot Peterson was put to the test. He made his choice. He chose to let Cruz kill students rather than him.
We would all like to believe that we would do better than Peterson. In our internal narrative, we are heroes. It’s not that we have a death wish, but we would undertake the risk to save others, to save children especially, because we want to believe our time on earth means something. Fortunately, few of us are ever put in the position of having to take that risk.
Some people, however, find themselves in that position. They may not ask to be put in the position of having to choose whether it’s their life or another’s, but that choice is thrust upon them. And some people make the heroic choice. And some people die because of it.
We applaud their choice at the time, maybe for the next few days. They get a street named after them, maybe a bronze plaque, and then the rest of us move on with our lives. We come home for dinner with the spouse and kids, even though they never will again. Maybe their spouse and kids get a sum of money to cover food and college, which is something, but not enough. There will be no one on the other side of the bed again.
But cops aren’t in the same position as the ordinary person upon whom the choice is forced. Cops are people who made an earlier decision to take on a responsibility. They chose a job that might one day demand they rush in, knowing that they were facing a significant possibility of death, and they still decided that was the place they wanted to be.
Broward County Sheriff’s Deputies waited outside the school, guns drawn, safely protected by their cars and ready to shoot, but unready to take any great risk that they would die. Whether they would have saved any child’s life had they rushed in can’t be known for certain. Whether they would have taken out Cruz or died in a hail of his bullets also can’t be known for certain. Had they been heroic, they may well have died and saved no one.
That was the life they chose, to take that chance, to face death if it called for them. Nobody forces a person to become a cop. Nobody demands they strap on a gun and shield and be braver than they’re built to be. Nobody would call them cowards if they chose to be something else, a teacher, an artist, a lawyer. But they chose cop, and that meant they chose to take the risk of death to save the children.
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The corollary to this story being that a supposedly brave cop would wait the extra second, at risk of his own life,to be sure that the threat he is about to use deadly force against is actually a threat.
Is it a corollary or a different situation with different rules? Is knowing that he’s rushing into a deadly situation and choosing to do so isn’t the same as anticipating a threat of death a couple steps too soon?
I think the Parkland SRO saw himself as a deterrent. Once gunshots are heard, it’s obvious the deterrent didn’t work. Time to saddle up and head out. Go the the nearest McDonald’s to get a big Mac to hold you over until you get home for supper. You an read about what happened in the papers.
You may be right, whether it was the SRO’s personal view of his duty or the Sheriff’s view of why his deputy was assigned to the school. Many of our simple solutions are nothing more than wishful thinking combined with fantasies of how theory works out in practice.
Dear Papa,
The people involved seem to agree that the proper police response to an active shooter is exactly what the SRO didn’t do. So there’s not really a question there. The training apparently is to gather up teams of officers, rush in, and engage, even walking past wounded to do so. Even if alone, a single officer should rush in and attempt to engage at personal risk. That didn’t happen. So we don’t have to wish they were heroes, just that they did their jobs.
Of course we can’t know who would or wouldn’t have died if people acted differently. Maybe no one could have died. That would have been nice.
Yours,
PK
From most of what I’ve seen (but not all), that’s the proper response. Years ago, I repped an airport security officer whose job it was to search for bombs. I asked her what she would do if she found a bomb. She told me, “run like hell. They don’t pay me enough to lose my life.”
So how much WOULD they have to pay her? To not run like hell. To do what they trained her and pay her to do.
Enquiring minds want to know.
The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.
Make that “gang aft a-gley” there laddie boy. Robt. Burns. “Awry” being an acceptable transliteration, according to the dictionary. Also, “many a slip twixt cup and lip.” That’s one of my favorites.
There’s a special team trained to deal with the bombs. Their crest says something in French or Latin that I think translates to “No second chance.”
Ordinary officers are not trained to safely detonate bombs, and are supposed to get people away from the bomb and call in the special officers. Sometimes there is not enough time for them to do all of that because the bomb goes off. It is what it is.
This was a long time ago. And there are other responsibilities beyond bomb disposal. Sometimes I think you’re just trying to fill the gap Tyre left behind, but Bill likes you.
A lot of people do, but there seems to be some regional aspect to it.
” [T]hat meant they chose to take the risk of death to save the children[…]” but they did not. And this is why it is so important to stop this nonsensical “Gun Free Zone” practice, and have as many willing adults, teachers or security or whoever they may be, carry concealed and train and be ready. Because if 100 carry, maybe only 1 or 2 will risk, time coming and situation requiring, confronting a shooter, and maybe stop him, before harm, or at lest more harm than strictly avoidable, is done; most who carry will freeze, and not be willing to risk their lives and not going home that day to their families and loved ones. The chance some may do just that, and risk it all, exponentially increases when the number of carrying, able and ready increases, and has it does, the less chances of seeing maniacs succeed when they go on a rampage.
Just to get this out of the way, this is not a post about the merits and unintended consequences of having armed people in schools. This ends here.
I hope this is not OT, but I always get angry when I see pictures of kids who have been shot at and are in a panic, when rushing from a school, pass through a phalanx of “heroes” with their arms raised.
I hope that if they learn one thing, it is not to bow down blindly at the altar of “first responders” as so many in the public and especially the judiciary are inclined to do. Maybe the “real survivors” will be able to change future public opinion about a great many topics.
Does anyone remember the July 07 Cheshire, CT home invasion where the husband was injured, and the wife and two daughters murdered? Where were the cops? Outside waiting for the intruders to emerge. A terrible tragedy might have been averted.
According to the N.Y. Daily News Nov. ’15 update, “Court documents filed in 2014 also allege that that police response to the crimes were inadequate and that officers wasted time setting up perimeters before ever approaching the home.” In addition to Sandy Hook in CT, we have this screwup which is largely forgotten.
In my opinion, it helps to have real combat experience to be a police officer. Recently I asked a local cop why he entered the field? His candid answer: “Because the pay was good.” He did not say anything about *serving and protecting*. However, we did not prompt him either. (We were *under arrest* and just killing time together,… get it!?!) John McCain and John Kerry, representing both sides of the aisle, would have made heroic cops. Ha. Most of em–a lot of em?–just want to make it home for supper. Shameful. Split-second decision making is not as easy as its cracked up to be, especially when you’re a coward behind a badge. Many of them make out better than some of you flunky lawyers.
And their shoes look better!
It’s not that the Cheshire murders are forgotten, but it raises very different issues. Focus, Bill.
Maybe in your mind, but not mine. Will start focusing when the President does, our Fearless Leader!
Your mind. I’m literally shaking.
This blog really needs a set of icons for posts. I wanted to click on the High-Five icon for this one, but it was, like certain minds, nowhere to be found.
I was considering emojis, but I have no clue what they mean and keep getting them wrong. Why do people hate palm trees so much?
I think that most cops, including Scot Peterson, are fully aware of the implications of Warren vs DC and Castle Rock vs Gonzalez.
I’m sure they are, but that fundamentally misses the point.
You state that they chose a job that might one day demand they rush in. Their job does not demand that. They have no duty to rush in. The disconnect in the media and with the public is that they are not aware that the cops do not have to rush in; though every cop is aware of that.
I’m aware of the caselaw as to their lack of liability for failure to act. And you still missed the point.
Apologies if I miss the point or we are talking past one another. If the point is that cops chose to take the risk of death, unlike others of us, then it has no foundation in case law, much less in the statistical rate of death or their daily action. As for others of us, many knowingly do take jobs where the risk of death is much greater than for cops. And unlike cops, say roofers or trash collectors, they cannot choose not to climb that roof or collect the trash. If a cop hears about something dangerous, he has the choice of delay or not appearing at all.
Why is it people who are told they missed the point would rather keep doing the same rather than step back and figure out why. Or at least ask why. Instead, they remain locked in their mode of thinking and dig harder, harder, harder. Oh well, that’s people for you.
As cops armed with pistols hid behind their cars, teachers armed with nothing at all risked and lost their lives attempting to protect their students. How much were they paid to do that? Less, I imagine.
Then again, maybe the cops did what was expected of them, given that the courts have ruled that there’s no duty of cops to do anything at all.
The teachers were heroic, but the choice was thrust upon them.
Sometimes, you just have to remember what the Klingons said best: It is a good day to die.
And then you suck it up and go do your job.
I’m a former cop in neighboring city. Had a friend’s kid in the building, locked down for hours after an attempt to flee was met with gunfire and a mass retreat of 100 kids into one classroom. I work & socialize right there. The entire sense of a safe, secure community is gone. But I see the survivors becoming the next generation of social activists. All OT I know but that’s my intro.
At Broward Sheriff’s Ofc (BSO), it’s common for someone a few years from retirement to go to the airport for overtime to boost their pension calculation, or to an easy job like SRO to slide through those last few years. First impression for Peterson is the latter as Parkland is small & affluent, a seemingly easy gig for an SRO. The new assertions that the first three backup deputies (probably the entire day shift patrol for the small city) also took cover rather than storm the building supports the notion that Parkland was like Siberia for the giant agency. Probably no SWAT or special response units among their regular patrol deputies. They are in the busier, high crime cities where the Sheriff took over local police by contract to save $$.
I think he should have gone in. He likely (but we’ll never be sure) could have saved lives by at least distracting Cruz, drawing fire away from students or at least make Cruz realize he was now a target as well. Going in would not have been an automatic death sentence for Peterson but I expect someone with thirty years on the job to keep a level head and at least make the attempt. All of the damage was done in that 4 minutes and it’s likely Cruz went right past him
hiding in the escaping crowd.
As SHG said, there were multiple failures going back years that led up to this, but not on this thread. I counted 8 during a conversation yesterday & I want to go OT on only 2- the local BSO background check he passed before buying the AR-15 was performed by the same agency that had 18 ? 20 ? reports on him in their records. As for the FBI – remember Special Agent Colleen Rowley?
Since the SRO assignment sucks, I assumed Peterson was on the sheriff’s shit list, but you’re right, it could have been a retirement position as well. I haven’t seen his age/years of service, so I can’t say. Nobody wants to die on the last day on the job, but then, an active shooter happens when it happens. There’s no control over bad shit happening, and the only choice is what to do about it.
“make Cruz realize he was now a target as well.”
As far as I can tell, most of these shooters are not military-trained or focussed on a particular target, they are just bullies.
Making them realise they have someone stronger standing up to them and that they may die in the next few seconds would certainly change their tune.
Inside a building has no advantages for a long gun, the distances are room-sized. Noise and anger (what cops are good at) are probably more important.
You got that right. All it takes is one bullet going in the wrong direction or a man charging unarmed.
You can saw “what if” all you like. I have known far too many men and women who would have gone in. Good folks do good deeds. It really is that simple.
Character. You can’t teach it, and it isn’t magically bestowed upon someone merely by pinning a badge to their shirt. While many believe otherwise, it isn’t a requirement for the job of police officer either. There’s no pre-employment test that can accurately detect how one will act when they’re facing a life and death situation. It comes from someplace deep inside us. Often, it is hidden away even from ourselves and those who display it in times like this are just as surprised by their actions/ inactions as anyone.
Until tested, one can never been sure they’re of the character they believe themselves to be. And once tested, it’s often surprising to find who has it and who doesn’t.
My experience is those that fantasize (especially openly) about how their character would shine in “tests” that might require it, are more likely to not step up.
There has been a lot of discussion about this around the Internet, but your closing paragraph is basically where it comes out. Since the Columbine shootings, the standing order for departments everywhere is to go in. The Coral Springs officers knew that, and they did it (even though they had to move past the static line of Broward County officers on their way).
Undoubtedly all of the officers could tell (from the reports of the rifle shots) that they would be facing a weapon superior at long range, possibly rounds that might be armor-piercing, possibly directed by an experienced, tactical shooter. They had no way of knowing who it was, or what other equipment or armor the shooter might have. It was truly dangerous. They might have all been killed.
It was what they signed up for. I’m sure the kids in the school and the coach who confronted Cruz without a weapon of any kind would also have liked to make it home for dinner. So, it is a pretty bad week for the Broward County officers, but they’re going to make it. Maybe not all as officers hereafter, but there are limits on what they should expect.
When Coral Springs police officers arrived on scene, they discovered several officers who “had their pistols drawn and were behind their vehicles…and not one of them had gone into the school,”
Hmmm…another question that comes to mind is why weren’t they using their assault….I mean patrol rifles.
Pretty sure the vast majority of patrol cars have long guns just these types of scenarios.
Well sure, hiding behind cars outside with rifles rather than handguns is the really important question. To someone.
There’s no doubt in my mind that the SRO at my daughter’s school would have either stopped the shooter or been one of the casualties. Around here (upper East Tennessee) our SROs are part of the school. Our kids make them Valentine’s Day cards, bring them cookies, they hold doors open for our kids and help them in and out of our cars. In a very real sense our kids are THEIR kids. You can see it in how they treat each other and you can hear it when they talk to and about the children in their charge.
I think it takes a very special kind of cop to do that job. Im so sorry for the kids at that high school who had the wrong kind. 🙁
I hope your faith in your SRO is never tested. Other students aren’t as fortunate to have a caring SRO.
I was always under the impression (hope) that people who became police officers did so because it was a calling.
I had a chance at an FBI job, and did not apply because I knew that I never wanted to be in the position of deliberately shooting and killing another person. I knew the possibility was highly remote, but I knew I didn’t have it in me.
I couldn’t imagine someone knowingly applying to be a police officer as a power trip, or as a job they just wanted to come home from at the end of the day.
Then again, I grew up on Dragnet and Adam-12.
Now, I read about police, and while I realize a lot of the problems being publicized now happened then, I can’t help but feel sorrow and anger.
For those officers who set up outside the school and waited, knowing there was no officer inside, I am sad, because they failed the test. They aren’t about “Protect and Serve”.
I am also angry. They failed the citizens they were supposed to be there as protectors.
They failed. I suppose that them getting to go home at the end of the day is one heck of a consolation prize, but they all need to find a new job. One that isn’t life and death, because they failed that test.
In a lot of departments, what Officer Petersen did was… what he was supposed to do. Regular officers are supposed to form the initial perimeter, and wait for “trained professionals” (i.e. SWAT) to arrive. Letting regular patrol officers handle a tactical situation? And this has been the case since the Columbine shooting. It will be interesting to see what happens after the outrage dies down (probably because of another shooting). The people in charge aren’t going to let ordinary patrol officers get all the glory without a fight. (No, that’s not how I see things; but then, I’m not running a police department.)
There may be some departments where the protocol for an active school shooter is to wait outside as the kids get slaughtered, but that’s not the protocol for the vast majority of departments, including the Broward County Sheriff. What benefit is there to pulling crap you know nothing about out of your ass and spewing it to make people stupider?
I see visions of old Rosco P Coltrane, drawn 6-shooter in one hand and a Basset Hound in the other.
Once again, the myth of the good guy with a gun has been disproven. I would have thought it was completely busted in 2009 at Fort Hood or again there in 2014, two mass casualty events where the presence of the 89th Military Police Brigade was not enough to deter or significantly curtail the effects of a determined shooter.
And you do know that soldiers are almost never armed, that includes MPs,. So you are either an idiot or a liar. Pick one.
If only there was a tool on the internet where I could search for pictures of the military police at Fort Hood, and find, after 3 seconds of scanning the results that you, sir, are in fact the undisputed imbecile in this conversation. Because nobody* would be stupid enough to lie so ridiculously in the face of such overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
*These are strange times we are living in. I’d not base my life on a bet that a stranger on the internet might look at 100’s of images of armed military police officers and declare they are all part of some vast conspiracy.
It’s not unreasonable to mistakenly assume that there are armed people readily available on a military base. It may not be accurate, but neither idiotic nor a lie.
My statement was not an assumption. It is an indisputable fact that there were and still are armed, military law enforcement personnel at Fort Hood.
They don’t walk around the base generally armed, like cops on the street. They have arms available, and will bear arms when necessary, but they are not carrying otherwise.
You are incorrect sir. A simple search will prove your folly, but I see you, like Edward, are incapable of using Google. I doubt you will take my word for it, as someone who trained to be an MP, so we are at an impasse.
It’s funny that you keep referring to Google, since I learned about it from my military lawyer friends who were at Fort Hood. But maybe they’re wrong, you’re right, Google knows stuff and I have been grossly misled. It could happen.
“It’s funny that you keep referring to Google, since I learned about it from my military lawyer friends who were at Fort Hood. But maybe they’re wrong, you’re right, Google knows stuff and I have been grossly misled. It could happen.”
My guess, in your case, is it’s more in the grey area of past conversations. There was a prevailing lefty narrative that all personnel on a military base are armed and they call couldn’t stop the shooters in 2009 and 2014. This is a ridiculous assertion. Rank and file soldiers do not walk around armed unless they are at an FOB, but could quickly visit the armory in the event of a real attack.
Fort Hood is one of the largest military bases in the world, home to a community of ~75k soldiers and civilian personnel. Like any other community that size, it needs armed law enforcement. Like any military installation that size, it also needs a considerable security force and quick reaction teams on duty 24/7 to protect the billions of dollars in assets that live there.
Your examples aren’t as good as you think they are, but that said, there is likely nothing that will curtail a determined shooter. Except a bullet finding its way to him.
True, but there are things that would significantly impact the cost and availability of mass casualty weapons, thereby producing the aggregate effect of saving lives in the future.
Well, the President just pinned a medal on some police chief up in the flatlands who went into a factory by himself and took out a mass shooter who was going postal on co-workers.
This isn’t just a matter limited to whether a cop has the duty to protect students from a school shooter. It seems like it is the moral duty of any adult to protect children, or other vulnerable people, in a dangerous situation whether that is a burning building, a child drowning, or a child being assaulted. If you were in a burning building and there were children who needed help, would you feel okay if you just left them to die? If you were on a ship that was capsizing would you jump in a lifeboat ahead of some disabled person? This doesn’t mean being foolhardy and rushing into a situation in which you are incompetent, but it does mean taking risks , including risking one’s own life, to take actions which you are able to protect the innocent.
I have never been tested and so don’t know if I would be a hero or failure, but it doesn’t mean that the duty doesn’t exist and that I wouldn’t be shamed for the rest of my life if I saved my own skin at the expense of children or old folks.
You lost it on “moral duty.” That’s a wonderful notion of moral duty, but that’s yours. Others may have similar sensibilities of morality, and some will feel that yours doesn’t go far enough, but any reliance on morality makes it meaningless to anyone else. You don’t get to dictate theirs. They don’t get to dictate yours. When moral duty is your measure, it’s worthless to anyone else.