Ex-Parkland deputy’s defense team says he had ‘no legal duty’ to stop ‘deranged criminal’ in Stoneman Douglas mass shooting

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Tensions flared Monday morning in a Broward courtroom as former Broward School resource officer Scot Peterson and Andrew Pollack, whose daughter was killed in the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, came face to face for the first time in years.

Pollack and a more than a dozen other survivors and family members of slain victims are suing Peterson for failing to stop the Parkland mass shooting that took place Feb. 14, 2018, claiming the lives of 17 victims and injuring 17 more, some critically.

Peterson has already been cleared of criminal charges connected to the incident. A Broward jury found him not guilty of six counts of child neglect with great harm, one count of child neglect without great harm, three counts of culpable negligence and one count of perjury in connection with his response to the mass shooting.

But civil counts have a lower threshold of proof than criminal charges, which have to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Victims in the civil case only need to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that Peterson could have saved lives by interrupting the mass shooting.

Nikolas Cruz is serving 34 consecutive life sentences for the 17 people he killed and the 17 he injured in the shooting. A jury last year declined to impose a death sentence.

Broward Circuit Judge Carol Lisa Phillips did not rule Monday on Peterson’s motion for a summary judgment that would clear him from civil liability.

Defense lawyer Michael Piper echoed part of the argument of Peterson’s criminal defense lawyer, Mark Eiglarsh, by saying Peterson had no “legal duty to protect and save people from a deranged criminal like Nikolas Cruz” on the day of the mass shooting.

During part of Monday’s hearing, Phillips cleared the courtroom so that attorneys and parties could review sensitive evidence that would be included if the case were to be presented to the jury. That evidence was withheld from the general public during the prior criminal trials, though some members of the news media were allowed to review what the jury was allowed to see. Family members of the victims and Peterson remained in the courtroom while others were kept outside on Monday.

It was during the review of video footage that showed gunman Cruz firing his AR-15-style weapon at a helpless Meadow Pollack, who was murdered, that her father allegedly said something that Peterson overheard, according to witnesses who were in the courtroom.

“Judge, he is yelling profanities,” Peterson said, referring to Pollack.

Pollack has never been shy about his contention that Peterson is uniquely responsible for the deaths that occurred on the third floor of Stoneman Douglas, including his daughter’s. On Twitter, Pollack called Peterson “the face of cowardice” when the jury found him not guilty in June.

Peterson asked deputies to escort him to his parking space after the court’s morning session and did not return when proceedings resumed in the afternoon.

After Monday’s court session, Pollack confessed only to asking Peterson to grab a cup of coffee with him.

During the hearing, Judge Phillips also heard from attorneys for campus monitors Andrew Medina and David Taylor, who are also named defendants in the lawsuit, arguing that their cases should also be dismissed.

Phillips said she would issue a ruling on the motions to dismiss the lawsuits, but did not say when. In addition to Peterson and the campus monitors, a lawsuit remains pending against the Broward Sheriff’s Office.

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