Parkland surveillance video shows officer standing outside school during shooting

NAPLES, Fla. — Surveillance footage released Thursday shows then-school resource deputy Scot Peterson standing outside of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School building where students and faculty inside were being shot, then running out of view, not to be seen again on other school cameras.

The 27-minute video was released after multiple media organizations, including the USA TODAY Network, petitioned for it to be made public. The footage shows Peterson’s movements during the Feb. 14 shooting from four camera angles.

In the days following the massacre, Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said Peterson should have gone into the building and “killed the killer.”

Peterson retired from the Broward County Sheriff’s Office following the criticism.

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Peterson's attorney, Joseph A. DiRuzzo III, previously said in a statement the deputy thought shots were coming from outside the school and followed protocol for such an incident. Peterson took a "tactical position" outside the building and initiated a Code Red lockdown, according to the attorney.

Accused shooter Nikolas Cruz, 19, arrived at the Parkland school in an Uber at 2:19 p.m., entered Building 12 from the west side, pulled a fire alarm and opened fire at 2:21 p.m., using an AR-15. He killed 14 students and three staff members.

The first minute of the video shows Peterson walking with a school staff member down a hallway in Building 1 at 2:22:21 p.m. The deputy is seen talking on the school radio on his right shoulder and running out of the camera’s view. School radio chatter is not recorded.

Seconds later, Peterson and the school staffer get picked up by someone driving a golf cart and ride toward the three-story freshman building.

While riding in the golf cart, the deputy uses the police radio on his left shoulder to notify that shots were fired in the freshman building.

Students, who are redacted from the video, are seen walking out of their classes because of the fire alarm at around 2:23:22 p.m. The students then run back toward their classrooms in Building 13, which is directly east of the freshman building.

At 2:23:48 p.m., Peterson and the school staffer are seen running toward a shaded area near Building 13 and pointing up. The deputy stops running, turns to face the freshman building and stands 25 to 30 yards from it. The shooting ended about six minutes after it started, and the deputy didn’t move from his spot.

Peterson stood by the building for about 26 minutes. He walks out of camera range at 2:50:39 p.m. and isn’t seen in school surveillance footage again.

By that time, Cruz had blended into the chaos of retreating students and walked off campus. He is next seen on surveillance cameras entering a Walmart Supercenter three-quarters of a mile from the high school at 2:50 p.m., where he bought a drink from a Subway restaurant inside the store.

During the near-half-hour Peterson stood facing the building, Coral Springs police officers can be seen running toward the building holding AR-15s.

The deputy’s actions during the shooting are being investigated by the Sheriff’s Office.

The released videos come from four of the more than 70 surveillance cameras installed at the high school.

After several media outlets petitioned for the video release, Broward County Circuit Court Judge Jeffrey R. Levenson sided with news outlets Monday but stayed his order until noon Thursday to allow for possible appeals.

Prosecutors had previously asked the judge to deny the petition and argued in court filings that the release “would be detrimental to the fair presentation of evidence to the grand jury, and jury hearing this matter at trial, and potentially the due process rights of Nikolas Cruz.”

The Broward Sheriff’s Office and county School Board resisted the video release, saying it was exempt from disclosure in part because the videos are evidence in an active investigation.

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