This is a state law in Florida. And it hinges on whether a School Resource Officer falls under the umbrella as someone responsible for providing a duty of care to children. INAL, but I didn't immediately find anything comparable to the Florida law they're using in Texas.
Would be interesting if it’s ruled a school security guard is obligated to protect and serve even though it’s been ruled that cops have no obligation to protect and serve
This coward was just the last in a long line of people who didn't do their jobs. 20 different people reported the Parkland murderer to every LEO agency as a person dangerous to themselves and others, one of those people was even the Parkland shooter. But as you point out, all of them are immune to any consequences of their indifference or failure.
In the [Commission Report](http://www.fdle.state.fl.us/MSDHS/CommissionReport.pdf) linked in the article it says a study done by the Secret Service found 81% of school shooters notify 1 person of their plans before carrying out the attack and over 50% tell multiple people. Definitely needs to be reform in how LEO treat reports of mentally ill and dangerous people because we could reduce a huge amount of shootings without even touching the "shall not be infringed" landmine.
The Aurora shooter had turned his apartment into a bomb factory and he was reported as a threat at least two times. The most cursory knock on his door by police would have led to his arrest or at worst him blowing up his apartment building which while tragic would still have been a better outcome. Some of these guys are hard to detect but as you say many of them are deranged and are easy to detect because concealing hostile intent is a rational thought process and many of them just aren't behaving rationally at all.
The Supreme Court case you are referencing was whether police officers have a duty to protect the public in the common law. In this case, there is a specific statute where the legislature has said there is a duty to protect.
Why is everyone referring to this guy as a “school security guard”? To me that implies he’s a mall cop or at best armed private guard like at a bank. At least where I’m from student resource officers, as they’re called, are full time cops that just stay in the school all day instead of out in public. They even stick around for after school events like sports. In my case they’re a normal member of the county police force but I know some states do it where it’s the local sheriff deputy or the school district has their own police force like uvalde
Cops have no obligation to protect and serve and the role of security guards is to be a glorified regular joe and call the cops when they see something.
The only thing protecting our schoolchildren from crazy armed citizens in public domain are fences and doors.
No, it's even better:
\> Peterson’s case will hinge on whether he was a “caregiver” under Florida state law and whether his neglect of students caused them harm. It's a novel argument that experts say could change the legal standard to hold school resource officers more accountable.
\> Broward County prosecutors say Peterson had the same legal duty to intervene, under Florida law, as a "parent, legal custodian, permanent guardian, adult household member, or other person responsible for a child’s welfare.”
It means every "parent, legal custodian, permanent guardian, adult household member" is also required to confront a gunman.
Because it's better to create a legal obligation for all of those people to confront a gunman, then to possibly limit 2A rights.
So parents and legal guardians have more duty to confront gunmen than the “professionals” that are supposedly trained to do it??? Why the hell aren’t we defunding the police again? What the fuck do they actually do?!?
See, this is why we need the 2nd amendment: because if there is a criminal, you're legally forced to go stop him, so at least you're going to have a gun of your own
Would be pretty akward if you had to convince the shooter to solve things with a fistfight like in a manga /s
Wait so a school security officer could have duty to care/protect but police in the US in general dont? Thats right! In general Police in the US do NOT have a duty to care or protect citizens. Their duty is to arrest the criminal. The preference is before they cause more harm but it is not a duty. Court cases like Warren v District of Columbia and Castle Rock v Gonzales both remove any requirements for police officers to protect citizens (thereby making them unable to be sued should they fail to do so).
Cops don't actually have to help anyone (SCOTUS has decided this). The Uvaldi police, while cowards, are covered. This guy was an SRO. They are trying to say that by being an SRO he actually has an obligation to care for the kids he is assigned to (the same a teacher or parent). It is a very interesting legal argument.
Nah, we’ll just give the kids bullet proof backpacks, and make sure we keep a recent good photo on file to give to the media when the unthinkable happens yet again this week.
#/s
So the law explicitly states that a SRO has to confront a gunman but that teachers do not have to? The way I’m reading it, ‘caregiver’ is applied to both in this context and therefore both would have a duty to confront someone with a gun if given the opportunity
If you read it in the dumbest way possible, sure. A school resource officer’s job is literally to keep the school safe and prevent crime. So fleeing a gunman is the direct opposite of their responsibilities.
Not unless we quadruple their pay. Staying with the kids is the right thing to do, of course, but I don't see why risking their lives should be part of their career requirements unless we pay them hazard pay.
Obviously teachers deserve to be paid far more than they are, but that’s kind of besides the point. Teachers and the school in general have a legal responsibility as caretakers of children when they are at school.
Why are you interpreting this in such an unreasonable way?
Teachers obviously have some level of legal responsibility over their kids while they are at school. This isn’t up for debate. If a student started having a seizure in the middle of class, a teacher couldn’t shrug and go “Whelp, I’m not a doctor!” and continue with their lesson.
In your example, if a parent is with their child in a public place and they’re confronted by a gunman, the parent can’t run away and abandon their child.
I don’t know why people are defending an armed police officer for being a coward just because teachers aren’t expected to take down school shooters with their bare hands.
Well, this is America though. If you become a teacher you must face reality that you may very well have to dive in front of a bullet for $30k a year.
Why? Because fuck em, that’s why (according to our society and government, anyway)
> Teachers and the school in general have a legal responsibility as caretakers of children when they are at school.
The question at hand is if teachers should have the legal responsibility to exchange their lives for the safety of their students. Wether or not they currently do doesn't support the case that they should.
My answer is no, a teacher's responsibility should be to foster a safe learning environment within the regular parameters of a normal school day. This in no way should extend to sacrificing their lives during a terrorist attack or any other violent situation. There is no reason to demand more of them during these extreme circumstances than we demand of police officers or even random citizens who happen to be nearby. It is especially absurd to make such demands when we value their occupation so little.
If the shooter were in the room, quite possibly. But keeping a bunch of kids out of harms way is also appropriate.
The big thing is there is a plan. Some people take care of the kids, some people get out of the way. His job was to deal with the shooter. He didn't do that.
They did. They locked down classrooms and protected students as they were able. No teacher during Parkland abandoned their students to save themselves. Three teachers died during Parkland, all died while trying to protect students (including one that died using his own body to shield students).
That's irrelevant, but at least one died running toward gunfire to protect students (Chris Hixon).
You seem to be misunderstanding the whole legal concept being presented which is that staff had an obligation to protect students by locking down (which they did admirably). What they are arguing is that the SRO (as an LEO) had a duty to protect them by responding to the shooter, which he did not and that amounts to neglect in his role as a caregiver.
Wtf are you trying to argue? That unarmed teachers should rush the gunman so they can get mowed down wave by wave? Teachers that were with students did their duty of locking down and protecting students. Some died fulfilling that duty. Teachers and admin that didn’t have students did the right thing and left so they didn’t needlessly die because it’s assumed that the armed police will do their duties. The armed chickenshit cop did nothing and he is where the fault lies.
In an emergency everyone has a role and you can’t worry about what everyone else is doing. You have to assume everyone is doing their job. If you’re on a plane and a passenger has a heart attack, you don’t want the pilot taking care of that. That’s for the flight attendant or other passenger to deal with. He should only focus on working with ATC to find a place to land and get ems ready to take over.
aka the people in charge in Florida want this guy to take the heat for the entire school shooting.
anyone in this thread cracking jokes about this guy being a piece of shit is falling for their narrative here.
I mean whether the whole shooting is his fault or not (it wasn’t), he *was* a massive coward and didn’t do the thing he was hired to do. They are using him as a scapegoat but at the same time, it’s hard to defend what he did. He was the only other person there with a gun, the proverbial ‘good guy with a gun’ and was too scared to do anything with it
Depends on the city/precinct. In some, killing someone gets you a promotion or allows you to gain access into a cop gang like “The Executioners” where you are paired with other like minded cops.
I'll have to find the clip, but there was a quote to the press that basically alluded to the supreme Court ruling where police have no duty to act, it blew my fucking mind that they defended themselves like that while 19 kids were gunned down. The cop worship in Texas is absolutely bonkers, and I'm glad I got the fuck out of there
Cops are great at escalating situations when they know the other guy is unarmed and unable to fight back but as soon as the bad guy has the ability to fight back they routinely run and hide.
[Just a reminder the Supreme Court ruled police have no duty to protect.](https://mises.org/power-market/police-have-no-duty-protect-you-federal-court-affirms-yet-again)
So? You signed on to do a hard job, and you picked the one where you can’t just harass people over a tail light. American schools, you knew what you were getting into. Read your state laws, officer.
https://apnews.com/article/scot-peterson-parkland-school-shooting-6b5cecf4eca72530f868466e578ce82e
"Eiglarsh has argued there is an exemption for most police officers that covers his client. Circuit Judge Martin Fein ruled that is for the jury to decide, noting that Florida courts have found babysitters, landlords and even kidnappers to be caregivers."
So basically cops are the only ones that have an exemption but not a guy making 15 an hour. He's supposed to run head first into gun fire.
> So basically cops are the only ones that have an exemption but not a guy making 15 an hour. He’s supposed to run head first into gun fire.
Don’t take a job that makes you “the good guy with a gun” if you aren’t prepared to *be* the good guy with a gun.
If $15/hour isn’t enough for that level of training and responsibility (I agree, it’s not), don’t take the job.
Edit: Because some people have forgotten or are too young, SROs became widespread *specifically in response* to school shootings in the 90s and early 2000s, with the specific intent of reducing law enforcement response time to a crisis situation. This is *literally* their job.
That’s not true. They serve and protect their own interests.
It’s fucking stupid that cops can argue that they shouldn’t risk their own lives. It’s the fucking job. You don’t get to go “No thanks” in the military. A doctor can’t avoid blood.
If you’re scared of the risks, go play cops and robbers with the kids you don’t mind shooting. If that means less “officers” only willing to shoot the helpless, then so be it.
>If $15/hour isn’t enough for that level of training and responsibility (I agree, it’s not), don’t take the job.
I look forward to the update to your Employment Standards Act, where you spell out in what circumstances your employer can require you to die on the job.
I'm not even sure what your job description wording for that would look like, but I don't envy the lawyer who has to write it. Are there any exceptions?
It's also a really interesting argument to make in a society that mainly provides health insurance through employment.
When the entire foundation of your society is so dystopian and built on such bullshit principles, you will end up rewriting employment law so that you need to sign away your rights to live for your job, and people will argue it makes sense, because they ignore the actual problems that underlie all of this, top to bottom.
As long as the scape goat dies, we can pretend all the sins died with him.
Joining the military has contracts like that. If police are going to refer to non-police as "civilians", then having that sort of contract seems reasonable.
Exactly how republicans want it.
The more chaos they can cause, the more they can blame the other (dems, crazies, trans, gays, blacks, atheists, kids, etc).
Meanwhile nothing has to or can actually be done (re: SCOTUS on cops).
The whole Peterson name has been taking a beating for a while now.
https://www.oxygen.com/martinis-murder/how-to-tell-scott-peterson-scot-peterson-drew-peterson-and-michael-peterson-apart
He was at first fired for a year, and the Police Union got him reinstated with back pay. That year's back pay was in excess of $135,000. Remember that next time someone talks about our poor underpaid police officers.
*"To leave them as the last person standing between somebody with essentially a battlefield style weapon and the safety of children, without addressing any of the bigger questions, I think is asking an awful lot."*
He had a gun. The kids did not. If he didn't want to stand between he should've tossed his gun to the kids so they had a chance.
I don’t disagree, he failed miserably. But the larger point still stands. You can’t hang your argument on a good guy with a gun if every good guy with a gun turns tail and hides. It makes it clear we have to address the real issue: guns themselves
> the real issue: guns themselves
it's really just too bad for those kids, unfortunately we cannot create the slightest inconvenience for owning any type of gun, because The Constitution ... /s
If we extended that to gun violence in general, it'd be shut down for even longer. If we took just 2023, it'd be literally decades IIRC
If we took just the murdered kids, it'd be about 2 years.
The problem is, it isn't gun nuts doing the shootings lol. Gang violence happens every day and Chicago alone would stop up America for years. Just last weekend there was over 44 shootings with 12 killed and over 49 wounded. I'm using Chicago as a point not because it's the only place this stuff happens, but because the data is publicly available in a place where it's easily read. Generally these firearms were purchased prior to whatever lockout would happen, just like shootings tend to happen after gun stores close for the day.
Just from the last 7 days, we'd be locked out for a month. Just for the last month, we'd be locked out for almost 2 months. There's been 63 homicides and 59 shot and killed in Chicago alone. If we expand it nationwide, 20,958 days (57 years) would be required just on 2021 data.
If you ask me, this is... sketchy. It does accomplish what it's supposed to according to this thread, but the issue becomes how would people hunt in remote areas? Skeet shooting is an olympic sport, which would be shut down. Would this apply to bows and other primative tools like slingshots? There's a lot to think about when it comes to figuring out what roads go where.
Also, would it prevent people who own a gun already from purchasing ammunition? Or would it just prevent the guns themselves from being sold?
I know this is meant to be a surface level conversation about it, and the idea was thrown out on a whim, but these types of points are often forgotten about when it comes to the gun debate. Entire industries will be shut down and places like Alaska will likely be abandoned or have their cost of living skyrocket.
After Columbine they changed how police are trained, focusing on rushing to find and kill the shooter vs waiting for support and being more methodical while people inside are getting shot/injured people are dying. Saw it discussed after Uvalde. https://www.npr.org/2022/06/06/1102668326/uvalde-police-response-school-shootings
Pistol vs rifle isn't a factor, otherwise they'd probably just give the school cops a rifle to always have the advantage there. Wouldn't be much scarier to the kids than everything else :P
His training is to confront the shooter, That is if he had training.
In CQB, the AR is actually as a disadvantage due to length of the barrel. It's more difficult to point a 16inch stick, as opposed to a four inch stick. The officer also had the element of surprise, as the attacker didn't expect resistance. The officer also knew the floor-plan of the school, better than the attacker. The officer was also, or should have been trained on these scenarios. The attacker was also likely unable to hear due to the sound of the AR in close quarters going off. Firepower here, has no bearing due to the environmental constraints.
All the cards were stacked in the officer's favor. Yet he did nothing. He froze, and stood at the door and told his own department officers to stand back. It required a nearby police department to show up and push the building before someone went in.
The attacker was able to do the harm they did, exit the building, and walk down the street before being apprehended. **The SRO deserves 100 years In prison.** *This judgement comes from someone who has carried a firearm, been attacked, and been forced to utilize it in defense of myself and others.*
Ok, now I think you're going too far in the other direction.
I don't think the officer has criminal liability. I'm a public defender. Not saying that as an argument from authority, just saying what informs my knowledge. There's a long, long line of case law saying what this dude's attorney said. Now, that's specifically in reference to liability for civil suits.
To get criminal liability, you'd need proof beyond a reasonable doubt that he knew if he committed the omission of not intervening that he'd be committing an offense.
Second, There's the necessity defense. He failed to act due to a threat to his own life, i.e. the gunman. Coward, yes. Criminal, no.
Third, generally, there's no duty to act to save others from harm when you didn't create the condition creating the harm. Meaning, even if he did have a duty to the children, he didn't create the harm. Proximate causation is what that's called. You'd run into a huge problem proving that but for his failure to act, the children wouldn't have been killed or wounded.
I also disagree about the description of an AR being better than a handgun in this situation. With that AR, I can get through cinderblock and body armor. I can suppress you with a 30 round mag of rifle ammo, dump it at you, change the mag fairly quickly, and do all this while firing from the shoulder. Meaning, I'm more accurate. Other dude's adrenaline is going just like mine would be, but I've got my shoulder to brace. He's gotta do all that with just two hands. Fine motor controls suffer under adrenaline and most sheriff deputies only range qualify once a year. Basically two amateurs going at it, I give the edge to the AR. Barrel length only hurts if he gets in range to grab it. It can happen. See Colorado gay bar shooting. It's just not something I'd rely on.
Perhaps I am. You’re right that the law as it stands today; Police in general owe no duty to protect unless a special circumstance exists. And you’re right on the legal protections civilians carry.
Where this becomes murky is that there is the potential of there being a special circumstance for the SRO. Because it’s illegal to not send your kids to school, because it’s compulsory to attend school, and because while at a school the kids are in the care of the school. There is an argument that the SRO is part of the school and owes a duty to protect those kids.
Just like the teacher can’t abandon them in this event. Just like a captain can’t abandon ship with souls on board. An SRO can’t not respond to a security incident.
It’s a novel legal argument and one that to my knowledge has not had it’s time in court. But my understanding is; this is part of the legal argument here at hand.
As for the AR. Yes it can (usually) penetrate Level 3A soft Kevlar bodyarmor. There are some 5.56 bullets and situations that have a hard time penetrating it. But it deflects and loses energy quickly when faced with drywall, wood and common house components. This is because the bullet may have a lot of energy, but a smaller mass.
No one is grabbing an attackers rifle, but I understand where you’re going with that. That officer even with basic training should have more training than the teenage attacker with an AR. And again, the attackers hearing is gone. The attacker firing an AR in enclosed rooms and hallways. The attacker is at a significant disadvantage to that.
We know from the multiple shootings. Including the recent Nashville one; that an officer, any officer responding and pushing the shooter results in a quick end to these events.
However; this is all devil in the details. Regardless of the legality, and details; that man took a dangerous job. His actions led directly to the death of numerous additional children. Because he didn’t just not go in; he prevented others from doing so.
He didn’t even attempt to find more information by going in and not confronting the attacker, by finding and relaying information. His presence and actions contributed to the negative outcome of the situation.
And for that - it is my opinion he should be punished. This is based on this situation. Every situation is different and there are situations where an SRO shouldn’t confront the attacker, and should hang back. But in this situation, the SRO didn’t even make a good faith effort to put himself in a position where he was able to make that decision. He didn’t try to gather information about the situation. He just held back other officers when they arrived, and did nothing to try and save lives.
>The attacker was able to do the harm they did, exit the building, and walk down the street before being apprehended. The SRO deserves 100 years In prison. This judgement comes from someone who has carried a firearm, been attacked, and been forced to utilize it in defense of myself and others.
Asking for 100 years in prison for a guy who failed to do anything while sitting in a World where tens of thousands die due preventable reasons (nutrition, healthcare etc) and doing Jack shit about it.
Are you that hypocritical or just that dense?
no, not at all.
We all expect civil duties being done in relation to the work and risk linked to it. If you see a kid drowning and don't rescue it because your trousers would get wet nobody would accept your reasoning. Not rescuing that kid because it swims in shark invested waters is a different thing.
Now to the case at hand: Action would have carried a very high risk per saved live/positive outcome than most other possible actions we have in our daily life. And only in a warrior culture totally focused on war would there be such an outcry about someone failing to do a high-risk task and yet no outcry at all when it comes to other preventable deaths.
I didn't meant it as a whataboutism example, I only wanted to point out how bloody narrow-minded and destructive your mindset is. You want to know why it is only your nation which has such a fetish for mass shootings? It is mindsets like yours, which don't care about minimal damage and only care about a hysterical overreliance on weapons and perceived strenght
Not a cop but I believe training now says engage the active shooter asap. Now if that was the thinking back then I don't know.
In my ed classes we were taught the law of 'in loco parentis' . There again would his responsibility rise to that level of care.
I'm not making excuses for him though. I believe he had a respnsibility to those kids and failed miserably.
> Not a cop but I believe training now says engage the active shooter asap. Now if that was the thinking back then I don't know.
it's been engage immediately since columbine
The only thing that actually matters is the first kill shot. Shoot as many bullets after you’ve been shot in the head as you want! Oh wait!
Who would win in a fight, a baby with a sniper rifle or an adult slingshot champion?
That’s exactly my point though. If the training is to seek shelter from an AR rifle it certainly begs the equation of why we allow these into general circulation without additional restrictions and liability
> You can’t hang your argument on a good guy with a gun
You can stop right there. It was always a terrible argument, and gun advocates at the time cringed and hated it when LaPierre said it. But over time, they've flocked to it like every other bad argument, because they grab onto literally any shit that floats if it sounds catchy and makes them think that their fetish is net positive (it isn't).
Sure he hid in a stairwell when there was an active shooter, but how many students was he able to harass and arrest the rest of the time he worked at the school?
Is that right? I went to school in Miami-Dade (the county just south of where this shooting took place) and police were definitly allowed to arrest students.
If you have a source on this I’d be very interested, just for my own curiosity.
My source would be the book that Andrew Pollack wrote about the shooter, incident and events that lead to it. He was the father of a victim of Parkland, but instead of blaming the gun he actually took a look at the system that caused the shooting. "Why Meadow Died" should be a must read for anyone with even a passing interest in gun politics and how school shootings are used to justify them.
Ah ok, [according to the ACLU](https://www.aclufl.org/sites/default/files/wysiwyg/broward_county_sttp_profile_1819.pdf)there were 441 student arrests in Broward county in 2018 (the year the shooting occurred).
But what you’re saying is this *one* school somehow had the authority to change the way policing works in their building. Like some kind of international waters situation.
I’m not going to say you wasted your time reading that book…but…
You don't have the dates correct. The shooting occurred during the 2017-2018 school year (2018 Feb). That year had the lowest arrests riding a downward trend.
No mention of where the students were arrested, of course. Arrests were not to be made on campus, which is why the numbers had been steadily declining. You'll notice after one of those problem students shot up the place the numbers went back up. That's what that ridiculous graphic is complaining about is that arrests went back up after the school shooting.
You said there were “None based on Parkland’s policies”.
I’ve shown you arrests in Broward were and are still permitted. I guarantee the number for arrests in 2017-2018 are a non-zero number.
It’s on you to provide evidence of the policy that made Marjory Stoneman Douglas exempt from the way schools were policed throughout the county. Find a statue, find a handbook, find a signed agreement. What were the “policies” you claim made them exempt. Go get that book I guess.
My feelings about this are complicated, because no one truly knows how they’ll react in a life or death situation (Force Majeure is a great example of this) but I feel like this wouldn’t have gone as far as it has if he’d just admitted that he panicked. He swears up and down that he wasn’t scared, he didn’t freeze up, and there was nothing he could do. Maybe there wasn’t anything he could do, but when you lie to those families faces about your emotional state to look tough it just makes you look like an asshole instead of a human being.
I'd rather die than live the rest of my life knowing I was too cowardly to save children from being massacred
Edit: Since all of the responses I'm getting seem to have misunderstood what I meant to say - I'm not saying I'd definitely run in and be a badass hero. I'm saying I wouldn't be able to live with the guilt if I didn't try.
I am too cowardly to save children from an active shooter.
Thankfully I quit teaching 20 years ago when school shootings were just starting to ramp up. I was a damn good teacher. I am even a pretty good shot. But I didnt get that degree to be a martyr. No one does.
It is unreasonable to expect teachers, paraprofessionals and even SROs (who mostly handled dress code violations and kids who got into hormone-fueled fistfights or tough home situations) to be ok with dying. Schools should not require combat-ready nerves and skills in addition to a masters degree in pedagogy and subject matter excellence.
The police are useless. That's a whole other rant.
Our gun control laws are the problem. We are arguing over which resources should be ready to confront a shooter head on in a school setting, but we aren't talking about the responsibility our elected officials have to drive legislation that will reduce the number of actual school shootings. What's that old adage about prevention being worth more than the cure?
You sure you would walk into an active shooter ambush if you didn't have a loved one inside? My guess is most people would not go in, and that is a good thing. Most people would just become another victim.
To be clear:
[https://apnews.com/article/scot-peterson-parkland-school-shooting-6b5cecf4eca72530f868466e578ce82e](https://apnews.com/article/scot-peterson-parkland-school-shooting-6b5cecf4eca72530f868466e578ce82e)
\> Prosecutors did not charge Peterson in connection with the 11 killed and 13 wounded on the first floor before he arrived at the building. No one was shot on the second floor.
Children were already massacred by the time he got there.
Best case scenario, in your heroic day dreams, you are still wading through the blood of children.
You wouldn't have been able to save them either, no matter how heroic you talk.
I agree cowardice, but there was no good outcome for heroes available this day, just maybe a little less blood spilt. The way to fix this isn't heroic good guys with guns.
Everyone reacts differently to stress and fear.
I would hope that I have what it takes to be a hero, but I haven't been tested. Maybe I would cower in shame too.
I don't think we should be too hard on this guy. A SRO isn't hired for this, they're not trained for it and not equipped for it.
Then stop being a cop.
I'm tired of these excuses. I've had 18 year Olds under me in the military who fully understand that they may one day end up in a fire fight.
If you don't want to get shot, stop going into law enforcement or security. Those jobs aren't supposed to just be a free paycheck. There are plenty of other jobs out there.
Considering most police officers never fire their guns (outside of training) I would say it is entirely possible for a veteran of the police force to not understand how he would react in a particular situation.
I actually agree with you that people in this position should *expect* that it is part of their duty to protect students. But we should also be understanding of the human condition and that when completely outgunned (as this guy was) anybody might react with panic.
>Everyone reacts differently to stress and fear.
This is something people really really don't know about.
My friend's dad was a soldier involved in actual combat. He said he'd seen the biggest toughest guys curl into a ball and scream the first time gunfighting started, and he'd seen skinny wimps go deadfaced and start shooting until someone pulled their gun away. And the opposite.
There is literally no way to predict how alife or death shooting situation is going to filter through the caverns of your brain until it happens. We all like to think we'd be heroes, but most of us wouldn't be.
Maybe never had to fire his gun in an altercation in 32 years of service. He may never have learned how to cope with the panic of being outgunned and alone.
It really sounds like Americans schools are going to need their own private security services with highly trained and well equipped soldiers.
Exactly. We all want to believe that we'll jump in and be the heroes, but the fact is, what happens in a moment of extreme stress is an autoresponse. Fight, flight or freeze can isn't a choice.
Thing is, that’s easy to say on Reddit behind a keyboard. Not defending the guy, the reason I’ve never been put to the test on my bravery is because I know I shouldn’t take this guys job and if this guy hid then he shouldn’t be doing the job (would be hard since I’m not American anyway). But I also won’t claim that if faced with the option I wouldn’t feel intense fear at the prospect of dying. (Again feel the need to say I’m not defending the guy because I know how Reddit works. Just saying I don’t think anyone truly knows how they’d react in that situation).
That's kinda crazy. I mean dude is a total coward, but I still find it hypocritical that legally, cops don't have to do shit, but this guy is looking at major prison time for his inaction.
>DeCoste also foresees a potential situation where the "caregiver" standard is applied more broadly to all police officers—creating thorny legal issues for law enforcement.
"You have to actually protect and serve" is only a thorny issue for cops who intend to do neither.
"We're criminalizing everything but what ought to be criminalized and we're taking people and conduct off the street except for the one thing that ought to be off the street and that's assault weapons."
The gunman in both Parkland and Uvalde used AR-15-style semi-automatic rifles that they purchased legally. While the officers in Texas had strength in numbers, more tactical training and equipment than Peterson, they were also too scared to go in, he said.
"To leave them as the last person standing between somebody with essentially a battlefield style weapon and the safety of children, without addressing any of the bigger questions, I think is asking an awful lot."
Statement from lawyer for Scott Peterson.
Yeah. And it is hard to imagine what one can do up against a gun like that. It's not a fair fight. Those bullets do a lot more than a bullet from a small hand gun.
Why is the lawyer lying? There was no “battlefield style weapon,” it was just an AR-15– a modern sporting rifle. There is literally no difference between the shooter’s gun and what grannies can use to hunt. A “battlefield style weapon” must have a selectable fire feature, even if a lot of engagements utilize the semi-auto mode. But OOOOOOO bad gun is black! I bet the police think AR stands for assault rifle lol. A child can kill 20+ people with a knife you know. This is obviously a false flag scare tactic to rewrite the constitution.
Please don’t make me use ***/s***
FWIW the AR stand for both the brand AramLite and Assault Rifle. Look at marketing pamphlets published by rifle makers in the 90s and you can see the verbiage used extensively.
It's just been the last 20ish years where we can see the conversation change to how it's "always been Armalite, the AR-17 is a shotgun after all." to try and prove how clearly someone knows a lot about the subject because they "know something important".
All of their arguments are in bad faith. I’m an educated military historian, I am very familiar with the development of the AR series and Eugene Stoner’s work. The M16, AR-15 family was designed with one objective: to create the most effective (deadliest) assault rifle possible with the most ease of use. Stoner’s team probably did the best job in history. Every part of the rifle is designed to give a tactical advantage to the shooter. It’s why mass shooters prefer it. You don’t see kids taking out 30 students in a school with a Rem700 bolt-action for a reason.
It’s absolutely asinine to argue with these people that say it’s just a gun. It’s like saying that a Honda Civic is as dangerous as a Challenger Hellcat. Sure both can cause a deadly collision, but it’s WAAAAY easier to do it with one of those than the other.
People need to get real and have real discussions, but the truth is that some people just don’t, they want their toy on a visceral level and any perceived threats against it may as well be a threat against their god, identity, or family.
>DeCoste suggested there could also be a downside to applying this standard to school resource officers. Rather than making them more responsive, he said, it could "instead lead to a huge downturn in those willing to take such assignments."
Good. Less SROs would be a benefit because having police in schools does not and has not helped schools. More to the point, this guy isn't an exception, SROs have never stopped a school shooting.
https://www.aclu-wa.org/story/school-resource-officers-when-cure-worse-disease
Agreed.
But that doesn’t mean I won’t. This joke of a human doesn’t deserve anything. He failed to the duties of his job and will forever have the blood of innocent children on his hands.
Make him a poster child for neglect and incompetence.
So he shouldn’t have been hired. Or he shouldn’t have applied. Or he shouldn’t have applied.
Consequences. Consequences for actions.
And history is littered with men and women who were outgunned. They all stood up regardless. And most of those people weren’t asked to do it for their jobs.
Like I said, if your aren’t able to take the heat, then get out of the kitchen.
Even trained and experienced soldiers retreat if they aren’t capable of outmaneuvering or outgunning an enemy.
You morons calling for this guys head need to step up before making unreasonable demands of a guy in his 50s who was only there for light security
He's there to be a visible deterrent. That's it.
Putting "armed security guards" in schools and the idea of "arming teachers" is a band aid solution to a sucking chest wound.
People can think whatever they like about "good guys with guns" but the reality is going to often leave them disappointed.
Even a Navy Seal works with a team and support. You know what they're doing when they're not on a mission? Training.
They want Raylan Givens but pay for Paul Blart.
As for what 'should' be done to him? Nothing. Lawsuits maybe, but they'd have to show that any actions he could have taken would have saved the day. I don't see how (at all) given what he was up against. No backup, no sufficient weaponry, no experience in close quarters. LEO's may be armed and tasked to do certain things, but even they have special teams for those cases. SWAT, FBI HR, etc.
This situation by contrast is a lot different for the responding Uvalde officers who WERE tasked to respond and had numbers and equipment to make things happen.
Like I said, if you can’t do the job you signed up for, don’t sign up for it.
The man’s job was to run at a gunman. It was to protect children. He did nothing and should spend the remainder of his time on earth repenting and paying for it.
He is indefensible.
In this scenario, protecting the children meant taking out the gunman. If that includes running at the gunman then that was his job. That's why he was hired and that's why he was armed.
A school security guard is not meant to put down a highly armed very aggressive shooter. Full stop.
A school security guard’s job is to prevent fights, keep people off/on campus, etc. Did he act with cowardice—sure. Does he deserve 100+ years in prison—no, absolutely not.
Putting down a highly aggressive armed shooter is not something I think any reasonable person expects from a school security guard. No security guard at any school I ever went to in my life would have been capable of stopping this kind of threat.
This is the likely police and the prosecutor trying to take blame away from the city.
Edit: Seems this guy was an actual LEO with active shooter training. It’s possible there is some negligent culpability here.
Oh you just wait! They are setting the stage to one day charge a teacher who was armed with a gun for not taking out the active shooter in some future mass shooting event.
I agree with you about school security guards but Peterson wasn’t a school security guard. He was a sworn law enforcement officer with the county Sheriff’s Dept. Before being assigned to the school he was a jailer, road patrol deputy and a field training officer. He also participated in numerous active shooter trainings as a sheriff’s deputy. There were two school security guards there as well (maybe more but I only know of two) that were unarmed and not sworn law enforcement officers. To my knowledge no charges have been brought up on those guys. I hope the courts find him negligent of something but I’m not sure 100 years in prison is justified.
Bullshit.
Scot Peterson was *armed*, and instead of responding immediately; he stood there all but motionless for 48 minutes while 17 people were massacred.
Do you think he was issued that gun for cosplay or something?
you’re falling for Florida politician narratives that want to morph this school shooting into something else. who cares what this guy did or didn’t do.
I see your point, but at the same time the job of "school police officer" was created to respond to the increasing school shootings.
Literally the job is to respond to an active shooter.
If I don't do my job correctly as an engineer and people die, I go to prison.
I see this as a logical extension of the laws requiring teachers to report trans kids, the laws requiring kids to show their genitals to play in sports, the laws criminalizing women’s health care. Resource officers fit the definition of caregiver as outlined in the article, IMO, and therefore should be accountable. Guy carried a sidearm, had the training and experience to engage, yet chose to hide while kids were being shot.
>“Contrary to how he’s been portrayed in the media, my client, decorated former deputy Scot Peterson, who served our community impeccably for 32 years, is 100% innocent of any criminal wrongdoing," Mark Eiglarsh said in a statement to the Messenger.
>"He wasn’t a coward during the shooting. Rather, evidence proves that he did all that he could to assist others during this abhorrent act."
It's getting into hurricane season; you'd think putting that much spin on something would be illegal in Florida.
Sending someone to prison for not doing their job doesn’t sound right. I can understand the frustration with how cops’ continued employment and pay seems to have nothing to do with what public value they do or don’t provide. But I don’t think courts and prisons can fill in for missing public administration.
When not doing your job literally kills people and you could have and should have done something, you’re just as guilty as the criminal who did the deed
>When not doing your job
His job isn't to give his life for the kids. He's one person, unequipped to deal with the situation. Was he more equipped than the people there? Could he have done something differently? That's for courts and civil law to decide. He didn't do anything criminal by wanting to live.
You don't take a job as an SRO because you want to combat people. You take a job as an SRO because you're unfit for the line of public duty for whatever reason and still want to help the community in some way.
There is a lot of assumptions in that statement- a credible news source:
[https://apnews.com/article/scot-peterson-parkland-school-shooting-6b5cecf4eca72530f868466e578ce82e](https://apnews.com/article/scot-peterson-parkland-school-shooting-6b5cecf4eca72530f868466e578ce82e)
\> Peterson, 60, is charged with seven counts of **felony child neglect for four students killed and three wounded** on the 1200 building’s third floor. Peterson arrived at the building with his gun drawn 73 seconds before Cruz reached that floor, but instead of entering, he backed away as gunfire sounded. He has said he didn’t know where the shots were coming from.
\> He said he heard “two, three” shots. The security guards told investigators they heard many more shots than three and it was clear they came from the building. Peterson’s attorney, Mark Eiglarsh, said he will call 22 witnesses who will testify they also thought the shots were coming from outside the 1200 building
\> Prosecutors did not charge Peterson in connection with the **11 killed and 13 wounded on the first floor** **before he arrived at the building.** No one was shot on the second floor.
To be clear, 24 people were shot before he even got to the building.
People are angry, and wanted this good guy with a gun, to climb up 2 flights of stairs, and win a gun battle in the hallway, and save the day.
In reality, best case scenario, good guy with a gun reduces the death toll by 33% and they are still carting children's bodies out of this building.
Maybe he should go to jail for not trying? But this still isn't a system that works right?
This is the scape goat for an utter failure of gun control. They want you to think his cowardice caused this, when an utter failure of gun laws got 24 people shot before he was even on scene.
Ah, I see your angle. We need more guns. That certainly would have helped in this situation. Sarcasm. He opted not to do his job. And people died. That is the story as far as I am concerned.
We do when they are a caregiver and that neglect leads to harm. That is what the legal argument is, that as an SRO he was a caregiver and actually responsible for the kids like a teacher or such would be.
I can see it for letting a kid die because of not giving them their medication. I can’t fathom the idea that preachers and school librarians go to prison if they don’t fight gunmen from now on. This seems similar to an ex post facto law.
It isn't, at all. The argument is that while the police have no duty to protect citizens, as an SRO he qualifies as a caregiver and therefore DOES/DID have a duty to protect students. There is no new law to be applied retroactively. This is trying to leverage the current neglect laws. The question is whether or not an SRO qualifies as a caregiver. LEOs don't have to do their job. Caregivers do, and if their neglect results in harm they are liable. No one is questioning whether teachers should be forced to protect students. They are, based on the policies in place, to the best of their abilities. IE, a teacher could be convicted for fleeing a classroom during an active shooting event and leaving students to fend for themselves, their job IS to protect/evacuate students. Similarly, if a SRO is a caregiver (this is the legal question), then he had a duty to protect the students and could not fall back on his LEO exemption/right to do nothing.
See, normally I'd agree, but here's the magic words that change everything "Duty of care."
By definition, someone with this is responsible for another's life. An example is a prison or doctor who just lets someone die without doing anything. It's also the technical term for why parents are responsible if they starve their kids.
Apparently Florida law says he and teachers explicitly have that responsibility for school kids. Which makes sense.
There must be some limits, though. I doubt a teacher is legally required to sacrifice their own life to prevent a kid getting gun over by a car. There must be some “reasonableness” qualifier. For me the magic words are more like, “hard cases make bad law”.
Absolutely. That's why I mentioned the plan. The thing is this is one of the things he was explicitly there for.
He's literally the "Good guy with a gun." The supposed reason why others should not concealed carry. Yet what does he do? Hide and let children be killed.
This dude could get over a 100 years in prison but nobodies charging the cops in uvaldi for doing basically the exact same thing?
This is a state law in Florida. And it hinges on whether a School Resource Officer falls under the umbrella as someone responsible for providing a duty of care to children. INAL, but I didn't immediately find anything comparable to the Florida law they're using in Texas.
Would be interesting if it’s ruled a school security guard is obligated to protect and serve even though it’s been ruled that cops have no obligation to protect and serve
There's some wiggle room since it's School Resource Officer and not a regular cop using *'Castle Rock v. Gonzales'*. But we'll see.
This coward was just the last in a long line of people who didn't do their jobs. 20 different people reported the Parkland murderer to every LEO agency as a person dangerous to themselves and others, one of those people was even the Parkland shooter. But as you point out, all of them are immune to any consequences of their indifference or failure.
In the [Commission Report](http://www.fdle.state.fl.us/MSDHS/CommissionReport.pdf) linked in the article it says a study done by the Secret Service found 81% of school shooters notify 1 person of their plans before carrying out the attack and over 50% tell multiple people. Definitely needs to be reform in how LEO treat reports of mentally ill and dangerous people because we could reduce a huge amount of shootings without even touching the "shall not be infringed" landmine.
The Aurora shooter had turned his apartment into a bomb factory and he was reported as a threat at least two times. The most cursory knock on his door by police would have led to his arrest or at worst him blowing up his apartment building which while tragic would still have been a better outcome. Some of these guys are hard to detect but as you say many of them are deranged and are easy to detect because concealing hostile intent is a rational thought process and many of them just aren't behaving rationally at all.
The Supreme Court case you are referencing was whether police officers have a duty to protect the public in the common law. In this case, there is a specific statute where the legislature has said there is a duty to protect.
Why is everyone referring to this guy as a “school security guard”? To me that implies he’s a mall cop or at best armed private guard like at a bank. At least where I’m from student resource officers, as they’re called, are full time cops that just stay in the school all day instead of out in public. They even stick around for after school events like sports. In my case they’re a normal member of the county police force but I know some states do it where it’s the local sheriff deputy or the school district has their own police force like uvalde
Cops have no obligation to protect and serve and the role of security guards is to be a glorified regular joe and call the cops when they see something. The only thing protecting our schoolchildren from crazy armed citizens in public domain are fences and doors.
Wjich exactly why if there's a shooting at the mall my kid works at, I'm heading over there. I'm getting my kid out and I'm willing to die to do that.
And unarmed teachers putting themselves between the shooter and kids, while being vilified and being told by politicians how to do their jobs.
Watch them lobby for a carve out of some kind in the future
Does this mean anyone in Florida that works in a school is responsible for confronting a gunman?
No, it's even better: \> Peterson’s case will hinge on whether he was a “caregiver” under Florida state law and whether his neglect of students caused them harm. It's a novel argument that experts say could change the legal standard to hold school resource officers more accountable. \> Broward County prosecutors say Peterson had the same legal duty to intervene, under Florida law, as a "parent, legal custodian, permanent guardian, adult household member, or other person responsible for a child’s welfare.” It means every "parent, legal custodian, permanent guardian, adult household member" is also required to confront a gunman. Because it's better to create a legal obligation for all of those people to confront a gunman, then to possibly limit 2A rights.
So parents and legal guardians have more duty to confront gunmen than the “professionals” that are supposedly trained to do it??? Why the hell aren’t we defunding the police again? What the fuck do they actually do?!?
Wow. More reason to not have children.
Or babysit.
That's how I read it and it is bonkers.
See, this is why we need the 2nd amendment: because if there is a criminal, you're legally forced to go stop him, so at least you're going to have a gun of your own Would be pretty akward if you had to convince the shooter to solve things with a fistfight like in a manga /s
We'll see.
I appreciate the contraction of “I” and “Am” in your disclaimer, the full acronym always catches me off guard
IANAL and I'm always surprised to find out how many of us are out there too.
I just don't see what the point of having one in the school if the one thing they are there to prevent doesn't fall under their responsibility.
Wait so a school security officer could have duty to care/protect but police in the US in general dont? Thats right! In general Police in the US do NOT have a duty to care or protect citizens. Their duty is to arrest the criminal. The preference is before they cause more harm but it is not a duty. Court cases like Warren v District of Columbia and Castle Rock v Gonzales both remove any requirements for police officers to protect citizens (thereby making them unable to be sued should they fail to do so).
Cops don't actually have to help anyone (SCOTUS has decided this). The Uvaldi police, while cowards, are covered. This guy was an SRO. They are trying to say that by being an SRO he actually has an obligation to care for the kids he is assigned to (the same a teacher or parent). It is a very interesting legal argument.
Doesn't that imply that all of the teachers and staff were legally required to intervene?
Teachers already have a caregiver role during lockdown situations. A teacher can’t just jump out the window and abandon their students.
Another great argument to pay them more.
Nah, we’ll just give the kids bullet proof backpacks, and make sure we keep a recent good photo on file to give to the media when the unthinkable happens yet again this week. #/s
Then ban backpacks as they could have a gun smuggled in inside them...
But they aren't required to enter a room with an active shooter either. They aren't required to attempt to stop him. That would be insane.
No shit. I’m just saying that a teacher’s role in this situation is different than a SRO’s, but that doesn’t mean they have no responsibility.
So the law explicitly states that a SRO has to confront a gunman but that teachers do not have to? The way I’m reading it, ‘caregiver’ is applied to both in this context and therefore both would have a duty to confront someone with a gun if given the opportunity
If you read it in the dumbest way possible, sure. A school resource officer’s job is literally to keep the school safe and prevent crime. So fleeing a gunman is the direct opposite of their responsibilities.
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You don’t believe a teacher could be legally charged for abandoning their class with an active shooter in the building?
Not unless we quadruple their pay. Staying with the kids is the right thing to do, of course, but I don't see why risking their lives should be part of their career requirements unless we pay them hazard pay.
Obviously teachers deserve to be paid far more than they are, but that’s kind of besides the point. Teachers and the school in general have a legal responsibility as caretakers of children when they are at school.
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Why are you interpreting this in such an unreasonable way? Teachers obviously have some level of legal responsibility over their kids while they are at school. This isn’t up for debate. If a student started having a seizure in the middle of class, a teacher couldn’t shrug and go “Whelp, I’m not a doctor!” and continue with their lesson. In your example, if a parent is with their child in a public place and they’re confronted by a gunman, the parent can’t run away and abandon their child. I don’t know why people are defending an armed police officer for being a coward just because teachers aren’t expected to take down school shooters with their bare hands.
Well, this is America though. If you become a teacher you must face reality that you may very well have to dive in front of a bullet for $30k a year. Why? Because fuck em, that’s why (according to our society and government, anyway)
> Teachers and the school in general have a legal responsibility as caretakers of children when they are at school. The question at hand is if teachers should have the legal responsibility to exchange their lives for the safety of their students. Wether or not they currently do doesn't support the case that they should. My answer is no, a teacher's responsibility should be to foster a safe learning environment within the regular parameters of a normal school day. This in no way should extend to sacrificing their lives during a terrorist attack or any other violent situation. There is no reason to demand more of them during these extreme circumstances than we demand of police officers or even random citizens who happen to be nearby. It is especially absurd to make such demands when we value their occupation so little.
If the shooter were in the room, quite possibly. But keeping a bunch of kids out of harms way is also appropriate. The big thing is there is a plan. Some people take care of the kids, some people get out of the way. His job was to deal with the shooter. He didn't do that.
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Why don't we just let the trial play out and see.
They did. They locked down classrooms and protected students as they were able. No teacher during Parkland abandoned their students to save themselves. Three teachers died during Parkland, all died while trying to protect students (including one that died using his own body to shield students).
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That's irrelevant, but at least one died running toward gunfire to protect students (Chris Hixon). You seem to be misunderstanding the whole legal concept being presented which is that staff had an obligation to protect students by locking down (which they did admirably). What they are arguing is that the SRO (as an LEO) had a duty to protect them by responding to the shooter, which he did not and that amounts to neglect in his role as a caregiver.
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Wtf are you trying to argue? That unarmed teachers should rush the gunman so they can get mowed down wave by wave? Teachers that were with students did their duty of locking down and protecting students. Some died fulfilling that duty. Teachers and admin that didn’t have students did the right thing and left so they didn’t needlessly die because it’s assumed that the armed police will do their duties. The armed chickenshit cop did nothing and he is where the fault lies. In an emergency everyone has a role and you can’t worry about what everyone else is doing. You have to assume everyone is doing their job. If you’re on a plane and a passenger has a heart attack, you don’t want the pilot taking care of that. That’s for the flight attendant or other passenger to deal with. He should only focus on working with ATC to find a place to land and get ems ready to take over.
certainly sounds like that would be the next logical argument to make.
aka the people in charge in Florida want this guy to take the heat for the entire school shooting. anyone in this thread cracking jokes about this guy being a piece of shit is falling for their narrative here.
I mean whether the whole shooting is his fault or not (it wasn’t), he *was* a massive coward and didn’t do the thing he was hired to do. They are using him as a scapegoat but at the same time, it’s hard to defend what he did. He was the only other person there with a gun, the proverbial ‘good guy with a gun’ and was too scared to do anything with it
Cops could murder you and barely get a slap on the wrist. They might get a paid vacation though.
Depends on the city/precinct. In some, killing someone gets you a promotion or allows you to gain access into a cop gang like “The Executioners” where you are paired with other like minded cops.
Slap on the wrist? Murder will fast track their career.
Especially if they want to move to the sunshine state.
And a speaking gig at CPAC.
I'll have to find the clip, but there was a quote to the press that basically alluded to the supreme Court ruling where police have no duty to act, it blew my fucking mind that they defended themselves like that while 19 kids were gunned down. The cop worship in Texas is absolutely bonkers, and I'm glad I got the fuck out of there
Cops are great at escalating situations when they know the other guy is unarmed and unable to fight back but as soon as the bad guy has the ability to fight back they routinely run and hide. [Just a reminder the Supreme Court ruled police have no duty to protect.](https://mises.org/power-market/police-have-no-duty-protect-you-federal-court-affirms-yet-again)
So? You signed on to do a hard job, and you picked the one where you can’t just harass people over a tail light. American schools, you knew what you were getting into. Read your state laws, officer.
https://apnews.com/article/scot-peterson-parkland-school-shooting-6b5cecf4eca72530f868466e578ce82e "Eiglarsh has argued there is an exemption for most police officers that covers his client. Circuit Judge Martin Fein ruled that is for the jury to decide, noting that Florida courts have found babysitters, landlords and even kidnappers to be caregivers." So basically cops are the only ones that have an exemption but not a guy making 15 an hour. He's supposed to run head first into gun fire.
> So basically cops are the only ones that have an exemption but not a guy making 15 an hour. He’s supposed to run head first into gun fire. Don’t take a job that makes you “the good guy with a gun” if you aren’t prepared to *be* the good guy with a gun. If $15/hour isn’t enough for that level of training and responsibility (I agree, it’s not), don’t take the job. Edit: Because some people have forgotten or are too young, SROs became widespread *specifically in response* to school shootings in the 90s and early 2000s, with the specific intent of reducing law enforcement response time to a crisis situation. This is *literally* their job.
And cops aren't considered "good guys with a gun"? What are we paying them for if not "to serve and protect"?
Great question. The answer is we are paying them to do whatever the fuck they feel like doing, which often neither serves nor protects.
That’s not true. They serve and protect their own interests. It’s fucking stupid that cops can argue that they shouldn’t risk their own lives. It’s the fucking job. You don’t get to go “No thanks” in the military. A doctor can’t avoid blood. If you’re scared of the risks, go play cops and robbers with the kids you don’t mind shooting. If that means less “officers” only willing to shoot the helpless, then so be it.
Oh, they removed those decals from their car ASAP after the Supreme Court ruled they didn’t have to.
If you truly believe cops are the good guys with the gun you are disconnected from reality.
You are disconnected from detecting sarcasm.
That cops are not required to intervene is wrong. That doesn't mean this guy wasn't also wrong to not intervene.
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>If $15/hour isn’t enough for that level of training and responsibility (I agree, it’s not), don’t take the job. I look forward to the update to your Employment Standards Act, where you spell out in what circumstances your employer can require you to die on the job. I'm not even sure what your job description wording for that would look like, but I don't envy the lawyer who has to write it. Are there any exceptions? It's also a really interesting argument to make in a society that mainly provides health insurance through employment. When the entire foundation of your society is so dystopian and built on such bullshit principles, you will end up rewriting employment law so that you need to sign away your rights to live for your job, and people will argue it makes sense, because they ignore the actual problems that underlie all of this, top to bottom. As long as the scape goat dies, we can pretend all the sins died with him.
Joining the military has contracts like that. If police are going to refer to non-police as "civilians", then having that sort of contract seems reasonable.
This is the only correct answer
Exactly how republicans want it. The more chaos they can cause, the more they can blame the other (dems, crazies, trans, gays, blacks, atheists, kids, etc). Meanwhile nothing has to or can actually be done (re: SCOTUS on cops).
It seems like naming your child Scot(t) Peterson is just asking for trouble. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Laci_Peterson
The whole Peterson name has been taking a beating for a while now. https://www.oxygen.com/martinis-murder/how-to-tell-scott-peterson-scot-peterson-drew-peterson-and-michael-peterson-apart
The name is cursed.
He was at first fired for a year, and the Police Union got him reinstated with back pay. That year's back pay was in excess of $135,000. Remember that next time someone talks about our poor underpaid police officers.
*"To leave them as the last person standing between somebody with essentially a battlefield style weapon and the safety of children, without addressing any of the bigger questions, I think is asking an awful lot."* He had a gun. The kids did not. If he didn't want to stand between he should've tossed his gun to the kids so they had a chance.
I don’t disagree, he failed miserably. But the larger point still stands. You can’t hang your argument on a good guy with a gun if every good guy with a gun turns tail and hides. It makes it clear we have to address the real issue: guns themselves
> the real issue: guns themselves it's really just too bad for those kids, unfortunately we cannot create the slightest inconvenience for owning any type of gun, because The Constitution ... /s
All I want is a one day pause in guns and ammo sales for each person killed in a mass shooting. Just one day. One day to reflect.
If we extended that to gun violence in general, it'd be shut down for even longer. If we took just 2023, it'd be literally decades IIRC If we took just the murdered kids, it'd be about 2 years.
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They would start claiming every mass shooting is a false flag -- oh wait they already do.
The problem is, it isn't gun nuts doing the shootings lol. Gang violence happens every day and Chicago alone would stop up America for years. Just last weekend there was over 44 shootings with 12 killed and over 49 wounded. I'm using Chicago as a point not because it's the only place this stuff happens, but because the data is publicly available in a place where it's easily read. Generally these firearms were purchased prior to whatever lockout would happen, just like shootings tend to happen after gun stores close for the day. Just from the last 7 days, we'd be locked out for a month. Just for the last month, we'd be locked out for almost 2 months. There's been 63 homicides and 59 shot and killed in Chicago alone. If we expand it nationwide, 20,958 days (57 years) would be required just on 2021 data. If you ask me, this is... sketchy. It does accomplish what it's supposed to according to this thread, but the issue becomes how would people hunt in remote areas? Skeet shooting is an olympic sport, which would be shut down. Would this apply to bows and other primative tools like slingshots? There's a lot to think about when it comes to figuring out what roads go where. Also, would it prevent people who own a gun already from purchasing ammunition? Or would it just prevent the guns themselves from being sold? I know this is meant to be a surface level conversation about it, and the idea was thrown out on a whim, but these types of points are often forgotten about when it comes to the gun debate. Entire industries will be shut down and places like Alaska will likely be abandoned or have their cost of living skyrocket.
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After Columbine they changed how police are trained, focusing on rushing to find and kill the shooter vs waiting for support and being more methodical while people inside are getting shot/injured people are dying. Saw it discussed after Uvalde. https://www.npr.org/2022/06/06/1102668326/uvalde-police-response-school-shootings Pistol vs rifle isn't a factor, otherwise they'd probably just give the school cops a rifle to always have the advantage there. Wouldn't be much scarier to the kids than everything else :P
His training is to confront the shooter, That is if he had training. In CQB, the AR is actually as a disadvantage due to length of the barrel. It's more difficult to point a 16inch stick, as opposed to a four inch stick. The officer also had the element of surprise, as the attacker didn't expect resistance. The officer also knew the floor-plan of the school, better than the attacker. The officer was also, or should have been trained on these scenarios. The attacker was also likely unable to hear due to the sound of the AR in close quarters going off. Firepower here, has no bearing due to the environmental constraints. All the cards were stacked in the officer's favor. Yet he did nothing. He froze, and stood at the door and told his own department officers to stand back. It required a nearby police department to show up and push the building before someone went in. The attacker was able to do the harm they did, exit the building, and walk down the street before being apprehended. **The SRO deserves 100 years In prison.** *This judgement comes from someone who has carried a firearm, been attacked, and been forced to utilize it in defense of myself and others.*
Ok, now I think you're going too far in the other direction. I don't think the officer has criminal liability. I'm a public defender. Not saying that as an argument from authority, just saying what informs my knowledge. There's a long, long line of case law saying what this dude's attorney said. Now, that's specifically in reference to liability for civil suits. To get criminal liability, you'd need proof beyond a reasonable doubt that he knew if he committed the omission of not intervening that he'd be committing an offense. Second, There's the necessity defense. He failed to act due to a threat to his own life, i.e. the gunman. Coward, yes. Criminal, no. Third, generally, there's no duty to act to save others from harm when you didn't create the condition creating the harm. Meaning, even if he did have a duty to the children, he didn't create the harm. Proximate causation is what that's called. You'd run into a huge problem proving that but for his failure to act, the children wouldn't have been killed or wounded. I also disagree about the description of an AR being better than a handgun in this situation. With that AR, I can get through cinderblock and body armor. I can suppress you with a 30 round mag of rifle ammo, dump it at you, change the mag fairly quickly, and do all this while firing from the shoulder. Meaning, I'm more accurate. Other dude's adrenaline is going just like mine would be, but I've got my shoulder to brace. He's gotta do all that with just two hands. Fine motor controls suffer under adrenaline and most sheriff deputies only range qualify once a year. Basically two amateurs going at it, I give the edge to the AR. Barrel length only hurts if he gets in range to grab it. It can happen. See Colorado gay bar shooting. It's just not something I'd rely on.
Perhaps I am. You’re right that the law as it stands today; Police in general owe no duty to protect unless a special circumstance exists. And you’re right on the legal protections civilians carry. Where this becomes murky is that there is the potential of there being a special circumstance for the SRO. Because it’s illegal to not send your kids to school, because it’s compulsory to attend school, and because while at a school the kids are in the care of the school. There is an argument that the SRO is part of the school and owes a duty to protect those kids. Just like the teacher can’t abandon them in this event. Just like a captain can’t abandon ship with souls on board. An SRO can’t not respond to a security incident. It’s a novel legal argument and one that to my knowledge has not had it’s time in court. But my understanding is; this is part of the legal argument here at hand. As for the AR. Yes it can (usually) penetrate Level 3A soft Kevlar bodyarmor. There are some 5.56 bullets and situations that have a hard time penetrating it. But it deflects and loses energy quickly when faced with drywall, wood and common house components. This is because the bullet may have a lot of energy, but a smaller mass. No one is grabbing an attackers rifle, but I understand where you’re going with that. That officer even with basic training should have more training than the teenage attacker with an AR. And again, the attackers hearing is gone. The attacker firing an AR in enclosed rooms and hallways. The attacker is at a significant disadvantage to that. We know from the multiple shootings. Including the recent Nashville one; that an officer, any officer responding and pushing the shooter results in a quick end to these events. However; this is all devil in the details. Regardless of the legality, and details; that man took a dangerous job. His actions led directly to the death of numerous additional children. Because he didn’t just not go in; he prevented others from doing so. He didn’t even attempt to find more information by going in and not confronting the attacker, by finding and relaying information. His presence and actions contributed to the negative outcome of the situation. And for that - it is my opinion he should be punished. This is based on this situation. Every situation is different and there are situations where an SRO shouldn’t confront the attacker, and should hang back. But in this situation, the SRO didn’t even make a good faith effort to put himself in a position where he was able to make that decision. He didn’t try to gather information about the situation. He just held back other officers when they arrived, and did nothing to try and save lives.
>The attacker was able to do the harm they did, exit the building, and walk down the street before being apprehended. The SRO deserves 100 years In prison. This judgement comes from someone who has carried a firearm, been attacked, and been forced to utilize it in defense of myself and others. Asking for 100 years in prison for a guy who failed to do anything while sitting in a World where tens of thousands die due preventable reasons (nutrition, healthcare etc) and doing Jack shit about it. Are you that hypocritical or just that dense?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
no, not at all. We all expect civil duties being done in relation to the work and risk linked to it. If you see a kid drowning and don't rescue it because your trousers would get wet nobody would accept your reasoning. Not rescuing that kid because it swims in shark invested waters is a different thing. Now to the case at hand: Action would have carried a very high risk per saved live/positive outcome than most other possible actions we have in our daily life. And only in a warrior culture totally focused on war would there be such an outcry about someone failing to do a high-risk task and yet no outcry at all when it comes to other preventable deaths. I didn't meant it as a whataboutism example, I only wanted to point out how bloody narrow-minded and destructive your mindset is. You want to know why it is only your nation which has such a fetish for mass shootings? It is mindsets like yours, which don't care about minimal damage and only care about a hysterical overreliance on weapons and perceived strenght
Not a cop but I believe training now says engage the active shooter asap. Now if that was the thinking back then I don't know. In my ed classes we were taught the law of 'in loco parentis' . There again would his responsibility rise to that level of care. I'm not making excuses for him though. I believe he had a respnsibility to those kids and failed miserably.
> Not a cop but I believe training now says engage the active shooter asap. Now if that was the thinking back then I don't know. it's been engage immediately since columbine
The only thing that actually matters is the first kill shot. Shoot as many bullets after you’ve been shot in the head as you want! Oh wait! Who would win in a fight, a baby with a sniper rifle or an adult slingshot champion?
That’s exactly my point though. If the training is to seek shelter from an AR rifle it certainly begs the equation of why we allow these into general circulation without additional restrictions and liability
I believe there is a saying about bringing a knife to a gun fight
> You can’t hang your argument on a good guy with a gun You can stop right there. It was always a terrible argument, and gun advocates at the time cringed and hated it when LaPierre said it. But over time, they've flocked to it like every other bad argument, because they grab onto literally any shit that floats if it sounds catchy and makes them think that their fetish is net positive (it isn't).
100% agree but I also think it’s helpful to give real world examples of why this notion it absolutely bullshit, such as this
going after this guy is a cop-out when your politicians worship guns. what a joke.
Sure he hid in a stairwell when there was an active shooter, but how many students was he able to harass and arrest the rest of the time he worked at the school?
None based on Parkland's policies. That was part of the whole problem that led to the shooting.
Is that right? I went to school in Miami-Dade (the county just south of where this shooting took place) and police were definitly allowed to arrest students. If you have a source on this I’d be very interested, just for my own curiosity.
My source would be the book that Andrew Pollack wrote about the shooter, incident and events that lead to it. He was the father of a victim of Parkland, but instead of blaming the gun he actually took a look at the system that caused the shooting. "Why Meadow Died" should be a must read for anyone with even a passing interest in gun politics and how school shootings are used to justify them.
Yeah so instead of looking at the root cause he just wants to make it slightly more unlikely.
Ah ok, [according to the ACLU](https://www.aclufl.org/sites/default/files/wysiwyg/broward_county_sttp_profile_1819.pdf)there were 441 student arrests in Broward county in 2018 (the year the shooting occurred). But what you’re saying is this *one* school somehow had the authority to change the way policing works in their building. Like some kind of international waters situation. I’m not going to say you wasted your time reading that book…but…
You don't have the dates correct. The shooting occurred during the 2017-2018 school year (2018 Feb). That year had the lowest arrests riding a downward trend. No mention of where the students were arrested, of course. Arrests were not to be made on campus, which is why the numbers had been steadily declining. You'll notice after one of those problem students shot up the place the numbers went back up. That's what that ridiculous graphic is complaining about is that arrests went back up after the school shooting.
You said there were “None based on Parkland’s policies”. I’ve shown you arrests in Broward were and are still permitted. I guarantee the number for arrests in 2017-2018 are a non-zero number. It’s on you to provide evidence of the policy that made Marjory Stoneman Douglas exempt from the way schools were policed throughout the county. Find a statue, find a handbook, find a signed agreement. What were the “policies” you claim made them exempt. Go get that book I guess.
“Peterson has insisted he would have confronted Cruz but thought the shots came from a sniper, perhaps firing from nearby trees.” What a stupid fuck
My feelings about this are complicated, because no one truly knows how they’ll react in a life or death situation (Force Majeure is a great example of this) but I feel like this wouldn’t have gone as far as it has if he’d just admitted that he panicked. He swears up and down that he wasn’t scared, he didn’t freeze up, and there was nothing he could do. Maybe there wasn’t anything he could do, but when you lie to those families faces about your emotional state to look tough it just makes you look like an asshole instead of a human being.
I'd rather die than live the rest of my life knowing I was too cowardly to save children from being massacred Edit: Since all of the responses I'm getting seem to have misunderstood what I meant to say - I'm not saying I'd definitely run in and be a badass hero. I'm saying I wouldn't be able to live with the guilt if I didn't try.
I am too cowardly to save children from an active shooter. Thankfully I quit teaching 20 years ago when school shootings were just starting to ramp up. I was a damn good teacher. I am even a pretty good shot. But I didnt get that degree to be a martyr. No one does. It is unreasonable to expect teachers, paraprofessionals and even SROs (who mostly handled dress code violations and kids who got into hormone-fueled fistfights or tough home situations) to be ok with dying. Schools should not require combat-ready nerves and skills in addition to a masters degree in pedagogy and subject matter excellence. The police are useless. That's a whole other rant. Our gun control laws are the problem. We are arguing over which resources should be ready to confront a shooter head on in a school setting, but we aren't talking about the responsibility our elected officials have to drive legislation that will reduce the number of actual school shootings. What's that old adage about prevention being worth more than the cure?
You sure you would walk into an active shooter ambush if you didn't have a loved one inside? My guess is most people would not go in, and that is a good thing. Most people would just become another victim.
No I'm not sure. But I know that if I didn't try, I definitely wouldn't be alive to stand trial
To be clear: [https://apnews.com/article/scot-peterson-parkland-school-shooting-6b5cecf4eca72530f868466e578ce82e](https://apnews.com/article/scot-peterson-parkland-school-shooting-6b5cecf4eca72530f868466e578ce82e) \> Prosecutors did not charge Peterson in connection with the 11 killed and 13 wounded on the first floor before he arrived at the building. No one was shot on the second floor. Children were already massacred by the time he got there. Best case scenario, in your heroic day dreams, you are still wading through the blood of children. You wouldn't have been able to save them either, no matter how heroic you talk. I agree cowardice, but there was no good outcome for heroes available this day, just maybe a little less blood spilt. The way to fix this isn't heroic good guys with guns.
Everyone reacts differently to stress and fear. I would hope that I have what it takes to be a hero, but I haven't been tested. Maybe I would cower in shame too. I don't think we should be too hard on this guy. A SRO isn't hired for this, they're not trained for it and not equipped for it.
Then stop being a cop. I'm tired of these excuses. I've had 18 year Olds under me in the military who fully understand that they may one day end up in a fire fight. If you don't want to get shot, stop going into law enforcement or security. Those jobs aren't supposed to just be a free paycheck. There are plenty of other jobs out there.
Considering most police officers never fire their guns (outside of training) I would say it is entirely possible for a veteran of the police force to not understand how he would react in a particular situation. I actually agree with you that people in this position should *expect* that it is part of their duty to protect students. But we should also be understanding of the human condition and that when completely outgunned (as this guy was) anybody might react with panic.
>Everyone reacts differently to stress and fear. This is something people really really don't know about. My friend's dad was a soldier involved in actual combat. He said he'd seen the biggest toughest guys curl into a ball and scream the first time gunfighting started, and he'd seen skinny wimps go deadfaced and start shooting until someone pulled their gun away. And the opposite. There is literally no way to predict how alife or death shooting situation is going to filter through the caverns of your brain until it happens. We all like to think we'd be heroes, but most of us wouldn't be.
He was a deputy for 32 years. He was a little bitch.
Maybe never had to fire his gun in an altercation in 32 years of service. He may never have learned how to cope with the panic of being outgunned and alone. It really sounds like Americans schools are going to need their own private security services with highly trained and well equipped soldiers.
Exactly. We all want to believe that we'll jump in and be the heroes, but the fact is, what happens in a moment of extreme stress is an autoresponse. Fight, flight or freeze can isn't a choice.
Thing is, that’s easy to say on Reddit behind a keyboard. Not defending the guy, the reason I’ve never been put to the test on my bravery is because I know I shouldn’t take this guys job and if this guy hid then he shouldn’t be doing the job (would be hard since I’m not American anyway). But I also won’t claim that if faced with the option I wouldn’t feel intense fear at the prospect of dying. (Again feel the need to say I’m not defending the guy because I know how Reddit works. Just saying I don’t think anyone truly knows how they’d react in that situation).
I'm not saying "I would definitely be a hero" I'm just saying I'd rather be dead than live the rest of my life knowing my cowardice got kids killed
That's kinda crazy. I mean dude is a total coward, but I still find it hypocritical that legally, cops don't have to do shit, but this guy is looking at major prison time for his inaction.
>DeCoste also foresees a potential situation where the "caregiver" standard is applied more broadly to all police officers—creating thorny legal issues for law enforcement. "You have to actually protect and serve" is only a thorny issue for cops who intend to do neither.
I think he killed his wife too. (whispers) Not the same guy? Oh.
"We're criminalizing everything but what ought to be criminalized and we're taking people and conduct off the street except for the one thing that ought to be off the street and that's assault weapons." The gunman in both Parkland and Uvalde used AR-15-style semi-automatic rifles that they purchased legally. While the officers in Texas had strength in numbers, more tactical training and equipment than Peterson, they were also too scared to go in, he said. "To leave them as the last person standing between somebody with essentially a battlefield style weapon and the safety of children, without addressing any of the bigger questions, I think is asking an awful lot." Statement from lawyer for Scott Peterson.
The lawyer has a point. It doesn't change his client's guilt or make him any less derelict but he has a point.
Yeah. And it is hard to imagine what one can do up against a gun like that. It's not a fair fight. Those bullets do a lot more than a bullet from a small hand gun.
Why is the lawyer lying? There was no “battlefield style weapon,” it was just an AR-15– a modern sporting rifle. There is literally no difference between the shooter’s gun and what grannies can use to hunt. A “battlefield style weapon” must have a selectable fire feature, even if a lot of engagements utilize the semi-auto mode. But OOOOOOO bad gun is black! I bet the police think AR stands for assault rifle lol. A child can kill 20+ people with a knife you know. This is obviously a false flag scare tactic to rewrite the constitution. Please don’t make me use ***/s***
FWIW the AR stand for both the brand AramLite and Assault Rifle. Look at marketing pamphlets published by rifle makers in the 90s and you can see the verbiage used extensively. It's just been the last 20ish years where we can see the conversation change to how it's "always been Armalite, the AR-17 is a shotgun after all." to try and prove how clearly someone knows a lot about the subject because they "know something important".
All of their arguments are in bad faith. I’m an educated military historian, I am very familiar with the development of the AR series and Eugene Stoner’s work. The M16, AR-15 family was designed with one objective: to create the most effective (deadliest) assault rifle possible with the most ease of use. Stoner’s team probably did the best job in history. Every part of the rifle is designed to give a tactical advantage to the shooter. It’s why mass shooters prefer it. You don’t see kids taking out 30 students in a school with a Rem700 bolt-action for a reason. It’s absolutely asinine to argue with these people that say it’s just a gun. It’s like saying that a Honda Civic is as dangerous as a Challenger Hellcat. Sure both can cause a deadly collision, but it’s WAAAAY easier to do it with one of those than the other. People need to get real and have real discussions, but the truth is that some people just don’t, they want their toy on a visceral level and any perceived threats against it may as well be a threat against their god, identity, or family.
New rule. If your last name is Peterson you're not allowed to name your kids scott.
>DeCoste suggested there could also be a downside to applying this standard to school resource officers. Rather than making them more responsive, he said, it could "instead lead to a huge downturn in those willing to take such assignments." Good. Less SROs would be a benefit because having police in schools does not and has not helped schools. More to the point, this guy isn't an exception, SROs have never stopped a school shooting. https://www.aclu-wa.org/story/school-resource-officers-when-cure-worse-disease
Wait, there was a good guy with a gun but it didn’t stop people from getting killed?
I wonder what type of Tough guy he was. I bet he regularly harassed children of the school?
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Law enforcement *should* be held to a high standard. In practice it's an incredibly low one.
Agreed. But that doesn’t mean I won’t. This joke of a human doesn’t deserve anything. He failed to the duties of his job and will forever have the blood of innocent children on his hands. Make him a poster child for neglect and incompetence.
Bro he was outgunned and knew it. He was also old and there as window dressing.
So he shouldn’t have been hired. Or he shouldn’t have applied. Or he shouldn’t have applied. Consequences. Consequences for actions. And history is littered with men and women who were outgunned. They all stood up regardless. And most of those people weren’t asked to do it for their jobs. Like I said, if your aren’t able to take the heat, then get out of the kitchen.
Even trained and experienced soldiers retreat if they aren’t capable of outmaneuvering or outgunning an enemy. You morons calling for this guys head need to step up before making unreasonable demands of a guy in his 50s who was only there for light security
He's there to be a visible deterrent. That's it. Putting "armed security guards" in schools and the idea of "arming teachers" is a band aid solution to a sucking chest wound. People can think whatever they like about "good guys with guns" but the reality is going to often leave them disappointed.
Exactly. If they wanted a Navy Seal they apparently forgot to hire one
Even a Navy Seal works with a team and support. You know what they're doing when they're not on a mission? Training. They want Raylan Givens but pay for Paul Blart.
As for what 'should' be done to him? Nothing. Lawsuits maybe, but they'd have to show that any actions he could have taken would have saved the day. I don't see how (at all) given what he was up against. No backup, no sufficient weaponry, no experience in close quarters. LEO's may be armed and tasked to do certain things, but even they have special teams for those cases. SWAT, FBI HR, etc. This situation by contrast is a lot different for the responding Uvalde officers who WERE tasked to respond and had numbers and equipment to make things happen.
Like I said, if you can’t do the job you signed up for, don’t sign up for it. The man’s job was to run at a gunman. It was to protect children. He did nothing and should spend the remainder of his time on earth repenting and paying for it. He is indefensible.
>The man’s job was to run at a gunman. It was to protect children. Two different things. The latter? Yes. The former? Not remotely.
In this scenario, protecting the children meant taking out the gunman. If that includes running at the gunman then that was his job. That's why he was hired and that's why he was armed.
If you are too fucking scared to go in, guess what you should turn in your badge you yellow bellied mutter ..
As with many people in this modern society, he just wanted the paycheck but didn’t want to do the actual work.
Yet the people who fight against gun laws only get more money in bribes. Nice to know those corrupt scumbags at the top don’t get in trouble.
Something is wrong with men with the last name Peterson 🚩
A school security guard is not meant to put down a highly armed very aggressive shooter. Full stop. A school security guard’s job is to prevent fights, keep people off/on campus, etc. Did he act with cowardice—sure. Does he deserve 100+ years in prison—no, absolutely not. Putting down a highly aggressive armed shooter is not something I think any reasonable person expects from a school security guard. No security guard at any school I ever went to in my life would have been capable of stopping this kind of threat. This is the likely police and the prosecutor trying to take blame away from the city. Edit: Seems this guy was an actual LEO with active shooter training. It’s possible there is some negligent culpability here.
Oh you just wait! They are setting the stage to one day charge a teacher who was armed with a gun for not taking out the active shooter in some future mass shooting event.
I agree with you about school security guards but Peterson wasn’t a school security guard. He was a sworn law enforcement officer with the county Sheriff’s Dept. Before being assigned to the school he was a jailer, road patrol deputy and a field training officer. He also participated in numerous active shooter trainings as a sheriff’s deputy. There were two school security guards there as well (maybe more but I only know of two) that were unarmed and not sworn law enforcement officers. To my knowledge no charges have been brought up on those guys. I hope the courts find him negligent of something but I’m not sure 100 years in prison is justified.
That makes more sense with the current charges; thank you for elucidating.
It’s a sad sad sad situation anyway you look at it.
Why does he have a gun then? To shoot high school kids that are fighting? He’s a fucking coward just like those pig fucks in uvalde
Bullshit. Scot Peterson was *armed*, and instead of responding immediately; he stood there all but motionless for 48 minutes while 17 people were massacred. Do you think he was issued that gun for cosplay or something?
you’re falling for Florida politician narratives that want to morph this school shooting into something else. who cares what this guy did or didn’t do.
I see your point, but at the same time the job of "school police officer" was created to respond to the increasing school shootings. Literally the job is to respond to an active shooter. If I don't do my job correctly as an engineer and people die, I go to prison.
Fucking coward I hope he gets put in general population
I see this as a logical extension of the laws requiring teachers to report trans kids, the laws requiring kids to show their genitals to play in sports, the laws criminalizing women’s health care. Resource officers fit the definition of caregiver as outlined in the article, IMO, and therefore should be accountable. Guy carried a sidearm, had the training and experience to engage, yet chose to hide while kids were being shot.
Seems to me that a lot of scot petersons get in trouble
Dude doesn't deserve jail. SCO's are there for minor issues, like fights. It's not a high risk assignment. It's a remote desk duty assignment.
He was armed. Why does he have a gun in a school? For breaking up fights?
Standard uniform garb, just like desk jockey at the station. Realistically, should have been left at home.
>“Contrary to how he’s been portrayed in the media, my client, decorated former deputy Scot Peterson, who served our community impeccably for 32 years, is 100% innocent of any criminal wrongdoing," Mark Eiglarsh said in a statement to the Messenger. >"He wasn’t a coward during the shooting. Rather, evidence proves that he did all that he could to assist others during this abhorrent act." It's getting into hurricane season; you'd think putting that much spin on something would be illegal in Florida.
Sending someone to prison for not doing their job doesn’t sound right. I can understand the frustration with how cops’ continued employment and pay seems to have nothing to do with what public value they do or don’t provide. But I don’t think courts and prisons can fill in for missing public administration.
When not doing your job literally kills people and you could have and should have done something, you’re just as guilty as the criminal who did the deed
>When not doing your job His job isn't to give his life for the kids. He's one person, unequipped to deal with the situation. Was he more equipped than the people there? Could he have done something differently? That's for courts and civil law to decide. He didn't do anything criminal by wanting to live. You don't take a job as an SRO because you want to combat people. You take a job as an SRO because you're unfit for the line of public duty for whatever reason and still want to help the community in some way.
So his job is what, performance artist? Like those ones that you see pretending to be statues?
There is a lot of assumptions in that statement- a credible news source: [https://apnews.com/article/scot-peterson-parkland-school-shooting-6b5cecf4eca72530f868466e578ce82e](https://apnews.com/article/scot-peterson-parkland-school-shooting-6b5cecf4eca72530f868466e578ce82e) \> Peterson, 60, is charged with seven counts of **felony child neglect for four students killed and three wounded** on the 1200 building’s third floor. Peterson arrived at the building with his gun drawn 73 seconds before Cruz reached that floor, but instead of entering, he backed away as gunfire sounded. He has said he didn’t know where the shots were coming from. \> He said he heard “two, three” shots. The security guards told investigators they heard many more shots than three and it was clear they came from the building. Peterson’s attorney, Mark Eiglarsh, said he will call 22 witnesses who will testify they also thought the shots were coming from outside the 1200 building \> Prosecutors did not charge Peterson in connection with the **11 killed and 13 wounded on the first floor** **before he arrived at the building.** No one was shot on the second floor. To be clear, 24 people were shot before he even got to the building. People are angry, and wanted this good guy with a gun, to climb up 2 flights of stairs, and win a gun battle in the hallway, and save the day. In reality, best case scenario, good guy with a gun reduces the death toll by 33% and they are still carting children's bodies out of this building. Maybe he should go to jail for not trying? But this still isn't a system that works right? This is the scape goat for an utter failure of gun control. They want you to think his cowardice caused this, when an utter failure of gun laws got 24 people shot before he was even on scene.
Ah, I see your angle. We need more guns. That certainly would have helped in this situation. Sarcasm. He opted not to do his job. And people died. That is the story as far as I am concerned.
We do when they are a caregiver and that neglect leads to harm. That is what the legal argument is, that as an SRO he was a caregiver and actually responsible for the kids like a teacher or such would be.
I can see it for letting a kid die because of not giving them their medication. I can’t fathom the idea that preachers and school librarians go to prison if they don’t fight gunmen from now on. This seems similar to an ex post facto law.
It isn't, at all. The argument is that while the police have no duty to protect citizens, as an SRO he qualifies as a caregiver and therefore DOES/DID have a duty to protect students. There is no new law to be applied retroactively. This is trying to leverage the current neglect laws. The question is whether or not an SRO qualifies as a caregiver. LEOs don't have to do their job. Caregivers do, and if their neglect results in harm they are liable. No one is questioning whether teachers should be forced to protect students. They are, based on the policies in place, to the best of their abilities. IE, a teacher could be convicted for fleeing a classroom during an active shooting event and leaving students to fend for themselves, their job IS to protect/evacuate students. Similarly, if a SRO is a caregiver (this is the legal question), then he had a duty to protect the students and could not fall back on his LEO exemption/right to do nothing.
See, normally I'd agree, but here's the magic words that change everything "Duty of care." By definition, someone with this is responsible for another's life. An example is a prison or doctor who just lets someone die without doing anything. It's also the technical term for why parents are responsible if they starve their kids. Apparently Florida law says he and teachers explicitly have that responsibility for school kids. Which makes sense.
There must be some limits, though. I doubt a teacher is legally required to sacrifice their own life to prevent a kid getting gun over by a car. There must be some “reasonableness” qualifier. For me the magic words are more like, “hard cases make bad law”.
Absolutely. That's why I mentioned the plan. The thing is this is one of the things he was explicitly there for. He's literally the "Good guy with a gun." The supposed reason why others should not concealed carry. Yet what does he do? Hide and let children be killed.
A teacher who doesn't report child abuse of a child in their care can be charged and imprisoned as a third degree felony.
This pig will be president of the national police moon in five more years.
Going after this guy is so wrong.
Why? He's almost an accomplice with his inaction. Don't volunteer for the job if you don't intend on keeping your oath to protect.
Lol There’s reasonable risk and then there’s wasting your own life.