Parkland School Deputy Has Been Receiving $8,702 in Pensions Since April

5/17/2018
Updated:
5/17/2018

Former Deputy Scot Peterson is receiving a pension of $8,702.35 every month, after being criticized for avoiding the Parkland school shooter.

On Feb. 14, the 54-year-old deputy stationed at the Parkland school was seen on camera rushing to the building after hearing shots being fired. After getting to the entrance, Peterson waited outside the door for unknown reasons, for four minutes while the massacre happened, Miami Herald reported.

Nikolas Cruz went to Stoneman Douglas High School and killed 17 teenagers with a weapon resembling an AR-15 rifle.

County Sheriff Scott Israel of the Broward Sheriff’s Office (BSO), suspended Peterson after seeing the video of him remaining stagnant. Peterson resigned and retired shortly after the suspension on Feb. 22.

Peterson’s lawyer, Joseph DiRuzzo III, defended him in a statement saying that although Peterson wished he could have acted differently to prevent the murder of 17 teenagers, it was unfair for Israel to have judged him too quickly, NBC reported.

Peterson stated he was confident that his performance, under those circumstances, was appropriate.

Peterson started receiving his monthly payments in April, CNN reported.

There is, however, another issue, namely that there were repeated early warnings about Cruz’s potential to be a mass shooter.

There were three warnings in 2016, four warnings in 2017, and one warning in January 2018, Miami Herald reported.

On February 2016, the BSO police department was told by an anonymous caller of Cruz’s threats to the school on Instagram, it included a photo of him with guns. Peterson was notified.

On September 2017, Cruz made a comment on Youtube stating that he was going to be a “professional school shooter,” the report was made to the FBI in Mississippi but never made it to the BSO or the FBI in Miami.

On November 2017, a tipper from Massachusetts told the BSO that Cruz was collecting guns and knives that could end up being a “school shooter in the making.”

It was found that the BSO didn’t even make a report on Cruz collecting weapons. Internal Affairs investigated the issue more deeply by re-interviewing the person who gave the tip, they found that the BSO didn’t make a report because the tipper asked them to convey the information to the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office. Cruz was living there at the time due to the death of his mother.

On January 2018, his desire to kill people was reported to the FBI tip line bit never made it to the FBI in Miami the month before the shooting.

This indicates that Cruz was on the radar of more than one law enforcement department.