WhatFinger


He's come out with his side of the story, and it's worth a look

Is Deputy Scot Peterson getting a bum rap?



Is Deputy Scot Peterson getting a bum rap? Rob did an excellent job yesterday of covering the CYA weaseling we're getting from Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel. Maybe someone needs to explain to Sheriff Israel that if you hire a deputy and the deputy fails to do his job, the deputy may be responsible for his failings, but you're the sheriff, which means so are you. You're the one who answers to the public, not your deputy.

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Sheriff Israel has been making quite a scapegoat of Deputy Scot Peterson in light of the reports that while Nikolas Cruz was shooting up Stoneman Douglas High School, Peterson sat outside and did nothing. But is that what actually happened? The popular media narrative has already been set in hard as "Peterson the coward," but up until yesterday afternoon we hadn't heard Peterson's side of the story. Now we have, and he's come out swinging with a whole other take that contradicts Sheriff Israel's story considerably. Here is the letter from his attorney in its entirety: Is Deputy Scot Peterson getting a bum rap? Is Deputy Scot Peterson getting a bum rap?


Some of this doesn't make sense to me, but I have never been a police officer and I don't have police training, so I'm asking these questions strictly from a lay perspective. Does the BSO really train deputies, in the event of what they think is outdoor gunfire, to "seek cover" rather than pursue and stop the shooter? I get that you can't pursue the shooter if you don't know where he is, and you'd be putting yourself in jeopardy if you're wandering around in the open and it turns out there's a sniper somewhere. But how do you stop the shooter when you've taken cover? I can understand how, with events developing quickly, you could initially think you're dealing with firecrackers and could eventually get to a point where you're not sure what's going on. What I don't understand is why he gave his keys to the Coral Springs SWAT team so they could go in the building while he stayed outside, once it was clear that there was an active shooter in the building. Maybe at that point it was decided that the people with SWAT training were better equipped to confront the shooter. But how and when was it determined that the shooter was inside after all? Was that determination not reached until lots of other cops were there so by that time it was fine for Peterson to just stay outside? When Peterson sent the school administrators to the video room to get a 20 on the shooter, wasn't that putting the administrators at risk? Why was it OK for them to move about the building when they weren't sure where the shooter was, but not OK for Deputy Peterson to enter? There might be good answers to all these questions, but they're the ones that come to my mind as I read this. It does sound like there was a lot more going on than just this cowardly deputy hiding behind his car. And there's no doubt that Sheriff Israel is scapegoating him in a very untoward manner. But it's not clear to me that Deputy Peterson's side of the story really clears anything up.

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Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain

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