That popping sound you just heard is the explosive end of the media’s most recent failed trial balloon sent up to generate a groundswell of support for gun control. It has now been reported that the armed policeman whose job it was to guard Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, ran and hid rather than confront the accused gunman.
‘He never went in’: Parkland school’s designated armed campus cop resigns as it emerges he ‘HID’ outside the school as 17 were killed.
A police officer who was on duty at a Florida high school and did nothing to stop gunman Nikolas Cruz when he started his massacre has been suspended. Deputy Scot Peterson, who was armed with a handgun, did not follow police procedure and immediately confront Cruz when he started his rampage killing 17 people with an AR-15 assault rifle, according to the Broward County Sheriff’s department.
Instead he took cover at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School for upwards of four minutes and ‘never went in ‘, according to Sheriff Scott Israel who said Peterson’s actions left him ‘Sick to my stomach. There are no words.’ Israel added that the school resources officer should have have ‘gone in, addressed the killer and killed the killer.’
And in an interview with the New York Times, Coral Springs Officer Tim Burton revealed Peterson hid from Cruz when the teenager started shooting.
Burton said Peterson ‘was seeking cover behind a concrete column leading to a stairwell,’ because he was worried Cruz could be lurking in the lot. He said Peterson couldn’t hear gunshots or screams to lead him to the precise location of the shooting.
Even more shocking was the revelation that Peterson had been told in 2016 about Cruz’s Instagram posts about opening fire at a school. Call logs released by the Sheriff’s Office show that on February 6 of that year, a neighbor’s son called police and told them Cruz ‘planned to shoot up the school on Instagram’.
The deputy who responded determined Cruz had knives and a BB gun and the information was forwarded to Peterson.
And here I thought hiding and waiting for backup is police protocol. Anyhow, it will be interesting to see if the disgraced deputy is ever interviewed, as one reason he hid might have been that he saw more than one shooter, as was reported by some students at the school. And it will be even more informative if the Deputy Peterson, reportedly unable to face his disgrace, commits Arkansas suicide with six shots from a nail gun to the back of the head inside a gym bag.
As is increasingly often the case with these high-profile mass shootings, the whole thing is beginning to stink of a manufactured crisis. Sure, perhaps Peterson was just a coward. Or perhaps he was called off. I very much doubt the media is ever going to inquire as to what actually happened.
Regardless, let’s not hear any more talk about how brave the police are, ever again. Or even talk about how the police are being “militarized”. It’s an insult to the U.S. military.
Peterson was reportedly ‘distraught’ about the deadly shooting, but ‘believed he did a good job,’ president of the Broward Sheriff’s Office Deputies Association said. He believed he did a good job calling in the location, setting up the perimeter and calling in the description [of Cruz],’ Jim Bell told the New York Post.