As Gunman Rampaged Through Florida School, Armed Deputy ‘Never Went In’

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The only armed sheriff’s deputy at a Florida high school where 17 people were killed took cover outside rather than charging into the building when the massacre began, the Broward County sheriff said on Thursday. The sheriff also acknowledged that his office received 23 calls related to the suspect going back a decade, including one last year that said he was collecting knives and guns, but may not have adequately followed up.

The deputy, Scot Peterson, resigned on Thursday after being suspended without pay after Sheriff Scott Israel reviewed surveillance video.

“He never went in,” Sheriff Israel said in a news conference. He said the video showed Deputy Peterson doing “nothing.”

“There are no words,” said Sheriff Israel, who described himself as “devastated, sick to my stomach.”

Two other deputies were placed on restricted duty on Thursday because they may have mishandled tips called in to the sheriff’s office over the past two years warning that the suspect, Nikolas Cruz, appeared intent on becoming a school shooter, Sheriff Israel said.
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The revelations added to a growing list of failures and missed signs by the authorities that might have helped prevent one of the deadliest school shootings in American history.

The F.B.I. received a tip last month from someone close to Mr. Cruz that he owned a gun and had talked of committing a school shooting, the bureau revealed last week, acknowledging that it had failed to investigate. The tip about Mr. Cruz appeared to be the second in four months, after another person told the bureau about an online comment apparently posted by Mr. Cruz that he wanted to become “a professional school shooter.”

Source: nytimes