American Cowardice

Scot Peterson, condemned as the "Coward of Broward," stood by as a slaughter unfolded at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Does the blame lie with him, his training or a society in denial about what it would take to stop mass shootings?

- By Jamie Thompson

IT WAS THE EARLY AFTERNOON OF VALENTINE'S DAY 2018, and the campus of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School was full of kids exchanging stuffed animals and heart-shaped chocolates. Scot Peterson, a Broward County sheriff's deputy, was in his office at the school, waiting to talk with a parent about a student's fake ID. At 2:21 p.m., a report came over the school radio about a strange sound-firecrackers, possibly coming from Building 12. Peterson stepped outside, moving briskly, talking into the radio on his shoulder. Then the fire alarm rang. Peterson, wearing a sheriff's uniform with a Glock on his belt, started running.

He climbed into a golf cart with two school employees and headed across campus. At 2:23 p.m., he arrived at Building 12. He was about 10 feet from the door when he heard two or three gunshots. Peterson spoke into his sheriff's-department radio: "Possible shots fired. 1200 Building." Deputies in the area started speeding toward the school. Peterson says he then switched to his school radio and yelled: "Code red, code red!"

Inside Building 12, Nikolas Cruz, a former student, had already shot 24 people on the first floor, 11 of them fatally. Cruz climbed the stairs to the third floor, where he came upon a group of students, including several whose teacher had accidentally locked them out of the classroom after the fire alarm. As the students tried to run, Cruz fired his weapon, an AR-15-style rifle. Jaime Guttenberg, a freshman, was a few feet away from a stairwell when a bullet entered her back, severing her spinal cord and killing her. Another student, Anthony Borges, lay in a pool of his own blood, shot through the lungs, legs, and torso. Borges says that as he lay there, he wondered, Where are the cops?