The Florida Department of Law Enforcement has arrested former Broward Sheriff’s Deputy Scot Peterson for his inaction during the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland last year, which left 17 dead and 17 others injured.The Volokh Conspiracy argues that the charges essentially boil down to "cowardice in battle". The analogy may not be perfect, but it works.
Charges include seven counts of neglect of a child, three counts of culpable negligence and one count of perjury.
“The FDLE investigation shows former Deputy Peterson did absolutely nothing to mitigate the MSD shooting,” FDLE Commissioner Rick Swearingen said in a statement. “There can be no excuse for his complete inaction and no question that his inaction cost lives.”
I'm kind of skeptical about school resource officers (SROs). That may be because I've known of a few who got jobs as SROs after bouncing around a few departments. They took their POST certification and got jobs where they're not likely to have to face a huge drunk guy wearing a wife-beater in the midsts of a domestic dispute at 0230. So they get a job where they can be Ossifer Friendly or, if they are so inclined, lord it around over kids.
Here's the thing: Mass shootings are rare, but they do happen. When they occur in a school, if there is a SRO on duty, he or she is the only one that is there with the best tool to stop the shooter. If they are not inclined to move toward the sound of the gun, then they should not be on the job. Kids are being told "run, hide fight". Kids in Parkland helped others escape rather than running for their lives and some died for that. Unarmed kids in other shootings have fought back.
Is it unreasonable to expect that an armed (and hopefully trained) SRO be at least as brave as unarmed kids?
(It could also be that a little bit of "pour encourager les autres" is also going on.)
7 comments:
Well, see, I ran to the sound of the guns, but there was this deceptive echo...
A typical Chicken-hawk. All bluster and no balls.
Dale
PS. Nice change to the letterhead. I predict it will become a badge of honor.
DTWND, I hope that the title change gets copied widely.
Deadstick, maybe he'll claim he couldn't run because of his bone spurs.
Perhaps the problem is that they are selecting SRO’s from rejects rather than from the cream of the crop. If the SRO is that critical, shouldn’t we pay and recruit like it is?
Is this likely a crime on his part?
Fire him, sure.
0_0, the prosecutors are so alleging. They may have their best hook with the perjury charge. If they get a conviction of anything for on-the-job misconduct, they may be able to strip him of his pension. (He was eligible to retie and did so.)
CP88, you're probably right. The job doesn't attract gunfighters, the kind of cop sometimes referred to as "meat-eaters". But if a SRO isn't down with the idea that they might have to engage an active shooter, then they need to quit being a cop and pick up a teaching certificate or get a job with the Post Office.
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