He returned his car and his badge to the Broward County Sheriff’s Office when he retired eight days after the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. (Courtesy of Scot Peterson) 
 
 Scot Peterson had spent much of the past three months in hiding, but now somebody was walking onto his porch and toward the front door. An attorney representing Peterson did not respond to an email Tuesday requesting comment. Asked for comment Tuesday, Pollack said: “This guy is a disgrace. Peterson noted in his report that the victim's parents were notified of the discipline and "did not request additional law enforcement action." President Donald Trump branded Peterson a coward, and Sheriff Scott Israel began an investigation into his actions. The 55-year-old Peterson, a Broward deputy for 32 years, was paid $101,879.03 last year — $75,673.72 in base salary plus overtime and other compensation, according to sheriff’s office records. For Andrew Pollack, whose daughter Meadow was also killed on the third floor at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the case appears to be another incident of undue leniency for students accused of crimes, much of it stemming from the controversial PROMISE program designed to keep minors out of jail. Neither the sheriff’s office nor the state attorney have indicated “any charges or other circumstances” that would justify withholding Peterson’s pension, Erin Rock, secretary for the Department of Management Services, concluded in a letter March 28. A state commission is reviewing the police response to the shooting. He was eligible to retire from the agency in July 2010 when he had 25 years of service, a sheriff’s office spokeswoman said Wednesday. “Because no charges have been filed, the state is required to provide his pension under Florida law but our agency will be closely monitoring the [Florida Department of Law Enforcement] investigation for any updates,” a spokesman for Gov. “I’m getting on the radio to call in the shooting. “It just happened, and I started reacting.” 
 
 He remembered being in his office on the afternoon of Feb. 14 when the first call came in to his school radio, as he was waiting to meet with a parent about a student’s fake driver’s license. One of those assailants, the boy who allegedly held down the victim, was Israel's son, Brett. After the shooting, Peterson said in a statement that he heard gunshots but believed that they were coming from outside of the school and not inside the building where the shooting took place. It doesn’t change when he looks in the mirror. "I think Peterson is the lowest form of life available," said Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter Jaime was gunned down on the third floor. “If FDLE finds that anyone has broken any laws, they will be held fully accountable.” 
 
 Peterson was sued last month by Andrew Pollack, whose daughter Meadow died in the shooting. My daughter would still be alive if this person did his job.” 
 
 Peterson, a native of Illinois, started with the sheriff’s office in July 1985, after studying at Miami-Dade Community College and Florida International University. ” the anchor began to say, but before he could finish, Peterson reached for the remote and turned it off. The deputy, who had yet to face any media, simply turned and hurried inside, saying only, "Don't come on my property." He had even suggested that counselors use Florida’s Baker Act to have Cruz involuntarily committed, but a health expert wrote that Cruz “did not meet criteria for further assessment.” So instead Cruz had left school, and Peterson had gone back to dealing with a dozen other troubled students until a year later, when Cruz suddenly returned. Israel said Peterson should have “went in. “Look, you were one guy, and you had communications failures, no information, just chaos,” Wear said.
– Eight security guards manned the grounds of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, but only one had a gun—and that one resource officer says he now grapples daily with the 17 lives lost and 17 injured on his watch on Feb. 14. The Washington Post talks with Scot Peterson, now blasted in the media and in his community as everything from a "disgrace" and "an awful human being" to the "Coward of Broward" for not running inside to take down the gunman. Peterson says he's tried to piece together what happened that "haunting" day, just like everyone else. "I've cut that day up a thousand ways with a million different what-if scenarios, but the bottom line is I was there to protect, and I lost 17," he says. Still, reliving what happened during what the Post calls those "seven chaotic minutes," Peterson insists he reacted to what he knew in the moment and did what he could to mitigate it all. He says the first call from another guard indicated firecrackers may have been going off, not gunshots. And Peterson says when he arrived on the scene, he couldn't tell where the sounds (which he then suspected were gunshots) were coming from, so he did what he says he was trained to do: "[take] cover in a tactical position so he could clear the area," which included calling in the shooting, putting the school on lockdown, and ushering kids out of the courtyard as he tried to figure out what was going on. "How can they keep saying I did nothing?" he says. "The evidence is sitting right there." Still, he's spent the last few months second-guessing himself and why he only heard "two or three" shots: "Why didn't I know to go in?" Meanwhile, Parkland parents are angry about an assault at the high school four years ago involving Peterson, as well as his $8,700-a-month pension. Peterson's side here.