Seven months after the gunman within the Parkland, Fla., college capturing was sentenced to life in jail for murdering 14 college students and three workers members, prosecutors on Wednesday started making an attempt to persuade a jury {that a} former sheriff’s deputy must also be held criminally answerable for not intervening to cease the bloodbath.

The deputy, Scot Peterson, served as the varsity useful resource officer at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School on the time of the shootings in 2018. For not confronting the gunman, he’s dealing with 10 prices, together with seven counts of kid neglect — a uncommon prosecution of a legislation enforcement officer concerned within the response to a mass capturing.

In opening statements, the prosecution repeatedly famous that after arriving on the scene on the afternoon of Feb. 14, Mr. Peterson stayed in a stairway of an adjoining college constructing whereas the shootings came about in Building 1200.

“The defendant will never leave that alcove while the shooter is in that building,” stated Steven Klinger, an assistant state legal professional in Broward County. “In fact, he doesn’t leave it for 30 or 40 minutes when everything is finished.”

The protection supplied a blunt response.

“We are here because my client was sacrificed,” stated Mark Eiglarsh, Mr. Peterson’s lawyer, arguing that Mr. Peterson was on trial solely as a result of extra highly effective legislation enforcement officers had sought to assuage the anger of grieving mother and father by scapegoating him. “He was thrown under the bus. He is not a criminal.”

The sound of gunfire was echoing off buildings on the 45-acre college campus because the shootings came about over roughly six minutes, Mr. Eiglarsh stated, and Mr. Peterson ”couldn’t discern exactly the place the pictures have been coming from.” The protection, he added, had 22 witnesses who have been equally confused that day.

“There was a pronounced echo and reverberation that the witnesses will talk about, that left them hearing the same shots and wondering, ‘Where is that coming from?’” Mr. Eiglarsh stated.

Only one particular person was responsible, Mr. Eiglarsh stated, posting a photograph of the convicted shooter, Nicholas Cruz, for the jury to see and calling him a “sick, twisted monster.”

Mr. Peterson, wearing a blue swimsuit and crimson tie, listened carefully and took notes all through the opening statements. The courtroom was packed to capability with spectators, together with his spouse and daughter.

A conviction of a member of legislation enforcement for inaction throughout a mass capturing might have sweeping repercussions for policing in Florida and past, authorized specialists say. Mr. Peterson faces a decades-long jail sentence on the accusation that he failed in his function as a caregiver for the scholars.

Mr. Peterson was the primary officer on the scene, and by his personal account he didn’t rush into Building 1200 at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School, the place the gunman killed 17 folks and wounded 17 others. He as an alternative took cowl within the stairway of the adjoining constructing, partially as a result of he stated he feared {that a} sniper was firing from outdoors.

Mr. Peterson additionally directed different officers away from the place the gunman was firing an AR-15-style weapon on the campus in Parkland, an prosperous group about 20 miles northwest of Fort Lauderdale.

The trial, which is predicted to final two months, is more likely to expose points that police departments throughout the United States have been grappling with because the Columbine college capturing in 1999, stated Robert Jarvis, a legislation professor at Nova Southeastern University in South Florida.

Before Columbine, officers have been instructed to attend for SWAT groups to confront mass shooters, however “since then, we’ve been expecting cops to run in,” Mr. Jarvis stated. “It’s a really interesting question as to what we expect cops to do.”

That expectation was underscored in May 2022 when the police in Uvalde, Texas, waited greater than an hour earlier than getting into a classroom at Robb Elementary School, the place an 18-year-old man had fatally shot 19 college students and two lecturers. The gunman was in the end killed by members of a U.S. Border Patrol tactical staff, and subsequent investigations faulted Texas police for failing to behave rapidly.

In the Parkland case, the fees towards Mr. Peterson relate to the deaths and accidents on the third flooring of the constructing, which prosecutors say he had an opportunity to cease. According to an investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the gunman was making his option to the third flooring 73 seconds after Mr. Peterson arrived in a golf cart at Building 1200. Mr. Peterson was armed with a service revolver and was not sporting physique armor.

After the morning’s opening statements, the prosecution started calling witnesses, together with a instructor and a pupil who every used their cellphones to shoot transient movies of the mayhem that took maintain because the assault unfolded. In the movies, which have been proven to jurors on Wednesday, gunshots could be heard over the regular buzz of the varsity’s hearth alarm as college students scream with concern and moan in ache.

Ivy Schamis, the instructor, who testified through Zoom from Washington, D.C., choked again tears as she described how two of her college students died and 4 have been injured when bullets shattered a window in her classroom. “It was deafening,” she stated of the gunfire.

Danielle Gilbert, who was a junior when the assault occurred, described ready 20 minutes for the police to reach after 4 of her classmates have been shot, one fatally. “It was the longest 20 minutes of my entire life,” she stated.

Mr. Eiglarsh argued that their testimony was irrelevant and unsuccessfully sought to maintain the jury from seeing the movies. The booming sound of gunfire that was captured on the movies didn’t bear any resemblance to what Mr. Peterson heard, the lawyer instructed the choose, and he contended that the photographs have been being proven merely to inflame the jury.

“They have zero relevance to how my client would have heard the sound, significantly farther away,” he stated.

Mr. Peterson is charged with seven felony counts of kid neglect within the deaths of 4 college students and the wounding of three others, aged 14 to 17. He additionally faces three misdemeanor counts of culpable negligence for the deaths of an 18-year-old pupil and a 35-year-old cross nation coach and the wounding of a instructor.

In news media interviews, Mr. Peterson has expressed deep regret for the deaths.

In the lead-up to the trial, Mr. Eiglarsh tried to steer Judge Martin Fein of Broward County Circuit Court to dismiss the kid neglect prices, arguing that they weren’t justified underneath Florida legislation.

To be convicted of kid neglect, state legislation says, the particular person should be a caregiver to the kid. Mr. Eiglarsh argued that the legislation doesn’t embrace the police within the definition of a caregiver.

Noting that the Florida Supreme Court and different state appellate courts had discovered {that a} instructor, a babysitter and even a kidnapper have been caregivers underneath the legislation, Judge Fein rejected the protection request, saying, “This determination will be made by the jury based on the evidence presented at trial.”

Mr. Jarvis, the legislation professor, stated discovering a college useful resource officer to be a caregiver to hundreds of scholars “would impose liability when no one thought it would apply.”

He added that prosecutors additionally face a frightening activity in making an attempt to persuade the six jurors and 4 alternates that Mr. Peterson is responsible of culpable negligence. To achieve this, they have to present Mr. Peterson knew or ought to have recognized that his actions — or inaction — put college students and workers in peril.

Mr. Peterson can be charged with a misdemeanor depend of perjury, with prosecutors accusing him of mendacity to investigators in telling them that he heard solely two or three pictures coming from the constructing and that he didn’t see any college students operating from it when he was within the stairwell together with his gun drawn.

While different witnesses described the confusion that surrounded the capturing, many instructed investigators that it sounded to them as if the gunfire was coming from Building 1200.

Mr. Peterson stated he was not sure.

“I didn’t even think it was even inside the building ’cause it was so clear and loud,” he stated, in keeping with a Florida Department of Law Enforcement report. “At that point I knew it was close to this building, but I wasn’t even sure if it was in the building.”

Mr. Peterson, who would lose his $104,000 annual pension if convicted of a felony, retired after the capturing and was fired retroactively. He was launched on bond and moved to North Carolina.