PARKLAND, FLA. (WSVN) - Students and parents were stunned to hear that the school resource officer at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School did not race to the rescue during the shooting.
There was still shock among students who comforted each other at a growing memorial outside the Parkland school, Friday morning.
“I thought the thing was, like, protect and serve, right?” said student Ricardo Aranbelo. “If you didn’t do that, I don’t know why you applied to be a cop.”
“I thought it was cowardice to not go in,” said student Megan Leahy.
Parents like Lori Alhadeff, who lost her daughter in the gunfire, also called the resource officer a coward after hearing the news.
“He could have went into that school. There was time,” Alhadeff said. “He took two minutes and just sat there and did nothing. He’s a coward.”
Many others are also feeling anger and outrage knowing the school resource officer at Stoneman Douglas did not react to the shooting as they would have hoped last Wednesday.
Alhadeff’s daughter Alyssa was one of the 17 victims killed in the school shooting.
Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter Jamie was also among the shooting victims, also expressed his dismay.
“I am all for enhancing security on school campuses, and maybe a campus of that size shouldn’t have just one armed resource officer,” he said. “Not teachers, but security who’s a trained police officer, they should have more than one.”
The school resource officer, Scot Peterson, resigned after he was suspended without pay.
“When you’re in a position of being a police officer at a school, you have to act,” said Alhadeff. “It is your duty to act.”
Students said this news is heartbreaking because Coach Aaron Feis, Coach Chris Hixon and Mr. Scott Beigel died while trying to save the lives of students. But to make matters worse, they said, the school resource officer was close friends with Hixon.
“I saw him all the time just hanging out with Coach Hixon and every day when I was walking to class, you know, just very calm and laid back,” said Stoneman Douglas High senior Alicia Sucher, “and I guess, you know, it’s just insane.”
“We saw people like Feis who risked his life. Hixon who risked his life, and they don’t even have guns,” Korsten said, “and he if he’s the one with the gun, he should have been the one out there.”
“I think what he did was disgusting,” Seigel said. “He could have saved many more lives.”
With classes resuming next week, students have already expressed fear about returning to school.
Now they are demanding a school resource officer they can rely on.
“I hope that it’s one that will act when he needs to act,” Sucher said.
Guttenberg said such an officer should not be a law enforcer nearing retirement age. “It shouldn’t be who has kind of gone through their best police years, but maybe it should be [expletive] police officers who are going to take action and run in and not worry about the consequences to their public safety to save lives.”
Students 7News spoke to said that when the district reassigns a new school resource officer, they want to meet and interview the individual.
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