PARKLAND, FLA. (WSVN) - Former Broward Sheriff’s Office deputy Scot Peterson spoke out about the Marjory Stoneman Douglas massacre, but parents and students said his story does not sound like the whole truth.
Peterson said in a “Today Show” interview that he wasn’t a coward during the Feb. 14 shooting, but that he didn’t have a chance to enter the building where accused shooter Nikolas Cruz was firing off bullets.
Speaking with 7News on Tuesday, Stoneman Douglas student Brandon Huff said he was standing next to Peterson during the last few minutes of the shooting. Huff said Peterson wasn’t being truthful.
“I mean, he lies and he goes back and forth on his stories,” Huff said. “The biggest lie to me was probably that he didn’t know where the gunshots were coming from.”
Huff said on Feb. 14, he got a text from his girlfriend Jessica, who was inside the 1200 building. “As soon as I ran there, and I was next to him and a security guard, there were more gunshots going off,” Huff said. “As soon as I was there, he had already been there for a while.”
Surveillance video showed officials running to a golf cart and taking off. The audio recorded also could be heard: “We have possible firecrackers. I think we’ve got shots fired.”
When Peterson arrived, the shooter was making his way to the third floor.
“Those shots I heard, I thought they were outside,” Peterson said in the interview. “I didn’t know where they were coming from, if they were coming from the 1200 building.”
He said the radio confusion and not knowing where the gunshots were coming from paralyzed him, so that’s why he took a position and stayed there.
“When you’re outside there, and that building, it’s a three-story building, it’s a hurricane-proof building. It’s hard to even hear,” he said.
When asked about receiving information, Peterson said, “No intel, no real-time intelligence whatsoever.”
But Huff doesn’t buy it. “I was there. I saw him. I knew where the shooter was,” he said. “There’s no way he couldn’t have not known, and I said, ‘No, my girlfriend is in there. She texted me that there was a shooter in the building. He’s firing into her class right now.’ And I mean, more gunshots were going off then.”
The student said Peterson just pointed his gun at the building and didn’t move.
“He must have known where he is,” Huff said. “Why else would you just have your gun drawn, pointing at a building if you don’t think that’s where he’s located?”
“For people to go, ‘Oh, he should have known that person was up there.’ It wasn’t that easy,” Peterson said in the interview. “I’m never gonna get over this. Those were my kids.”
Manuel Oliver, whose son Joaquin Oliver was killed, spoke out after the interview aired. “I don’t want this person to become a victim, and I don’t think it’s fair,” Manuel said. “I think he failed.”
“He could have saved a whole lot of lives, the rest of the lives on the third floor, most likely, if he would have just went in there and tried to stop him, and just done his job,” Huff said.
Many of the victims’ families are questioning Peterson’s intentions for doing the interview after the graduation of the Class of 2018. They said it should be a time for the children to heal and not a time to reopen old wounds.
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