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PARKLAND, FL - FEBRUARY 15: Kristi Gilroy (R), hugs a young woman at a police check point near the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School where 17 people were killed by a gunman yesterday, on February 15, 2018 in Parkland, Florida. Police arrested the suspect after a short manhunt, and have identified him as 19-year-old former student Nikolas Cruz. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
- The Broward Sheriff's office on Thursday released internal radio dispatches that reveal how deputies responded to last month's high-school shooting in Florida.
- The timeline is especially damning for the armed school resource officer, who never confronted the gunman.
- Instead, the deputy remained outside the building and even directed other officers to stay 500 feet away from the scene.
- The dispatches show that 11 minutes passed after the gunfire broke out before officers from a neighboring police department entered the school.
The armed school resource officer who failed to confront the Florida high-school shooter last month also warned other first responders to stay away from the scene as the massacre was unfolding, internal radio dispatches show.
The deputy, Scot Peterson, resigned roughly a week after the shooting, after an investigation by the Broward Sheriff's Office revealed he did "nothing" to stop the gunman and stayed outside the building for several minutes instead.
Peterson's attorney has told media it's "untrue" that Peterson was failed to follow protocol. Instead, Peterson believed the gunfire was occurring outdoors and responded accordingly, his attorney said.
But the radio dispatches indicate that Peterson knew the shots were coming from inside the building.
"Be advised we have possible, could be firecrackers. I think we have shots fired, possible shots fired - 1200 building," Peterson radioed at 2:23 p.m., roughly two minutes after the gunfire broke out, according to the records.
"Stay at least 500 feet away at this point," Peterson radioed, just seconds after the gunman stopped firing and ditched his weapon.
"Stay away from 12 and 1300 building," a dispatcher repeated, warning other officers.
The first officers to enter the building were four Coral Springs police officers and two Broward deputies, 11 minutes after the shooting began.
'Why would he say that?'
Sheriff Scott Israel told media last month he was "devastated" and "sick to my stomach" over Peterson's actions, adding that Peterson should have "went in" and "addressed the killer - killed the killer."
The dispatch "certainly backs up that he never went into the school," Jeff Bell, the president of the police union representing Broward deputies, told The Miami Herald. "At one point he says to keep back 500 feet. Why would he say that?"
The sheriff's office's policy says deputies at the scene of an active shooting "may enter the area and/or structure to preserve life."
US policing protocols generally direct officers to confront active shooters immediately, rather than waiting for SWAT teams to arrive.
That practice took effect after a 1999 shooting at Columbine high school in Colorado, in which local deputies hung back and set up a perimeter around the school instead of entering and confronting the two shooters.
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 13 people and injured 21 in just 16 minutes before turning their guns on themselves. But it took police more than three hours before they found the dead shooters.