Andrew Pollack lost his 18-year-old daughter Meadow in the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February. Some have blamed the gun and not enough gun control legislation, but Pollack is blaming the school resource officer who failed to act.
Deputy Scot Peterson, we discovered, stood outside of the building for four minutes where Nikolas Cruz was firing at students and teachers. Peterson was armed and he should have acted, the lawsuit purports.
It alleges that during the shooting, which took place from 2:22 p.m. until 2:27 p.m., Peterson never attempted to go inside Building 12, “never once attempting to save a life, never once attempting to fire a single bullet at Cruz.”
“Rather, Peterson listened to the din of screams of teachers and students, many of whom were dead or dying, and the blasts of Nikolas Cruz’ repeated gunfire,” the lawsuit states. (Sun Sentinel)
Peterson has since resigned his post. Pollack, the grieving father, is seeking unspecified damages and a trial by jury.
I filed a wrongful death suit against Deputy Peterson today. I want to expose that coward so bad. Where ever he goes I want people to recognize him and say that's one of the cowards of Broward. The SRO that let those children and teachers die on the 3rd floor!
— Andrew Pollack (@AndrewPollackFL) April 30, 2018
“I’m not interested in any money,” Pollack said. “I just want to expose what a coward [Peterson] was and that he could’ve saved everybody on the third floor. I don’t want him to go anywhere in the country and not have people recognize what a coward he is.”
Pollack is not alone is channeling his frustration at the officers. Parkland student Anthony Borges, whose injuries have left him in a wheelchair, has also introduced a lawsuit against Broward County officials. Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel and school superintendent Robert Runcie are partly to blame for not taking preventative action against Cruz, he claims.
"You knew he was a problem years ago and you did nothing," Borges said in a statement. "He should have never been in school with us."
It turns out the deputies union has lost faith in him too. When they held a vote, 85 percent of the Broward Sheriff’s Office Deputies Union said they had no confidence in Israel after he failed to take responsibility for the tragedy.
"I can only take responsibility for what I knew about," he told CNN's Jake Tapper. "I exercised my due diligence. I have given amazing leadership to this agency."
Other defendants listed in Pollack's lawsuit include the estate of Lynda Cruz, the killer's deceased mother, James Snead and Kimberly Snead, who took Cruz into their home, and Henderson Behavioral Health, Jerome Golden Center for Behavioral Health INC, and South County Mental Health Center, INC, who the lawsuit claims should have known that Cruz was a threat to the community.
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