Shooting victim’s dad sues deputy who didn’t enter Parkland high

FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. — The father of a student killed in a mass shooting at a Florida high school is suing the armed officer who stood outside the building as people were massacred within.

Meadow Pollack was among the 17 killed on Valentine’s Day in a freshman building at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. Her father, Andrew Pollack, said Scot Peterson, the former sheriff’s deputy and the school’s resource officer, is his main target in the wrongful death lawsuit filed Monday in Broward County.

“He let my daughter get shot nine times at point-blank range,” Pollack told the Miami Herald. “He had the opportunity to go in and instead, let all those people get murdered.”

The lawsuit also names 19year-old shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz; the estate of Cruz’s mother, who died in November; and James and Kimberly Snead, the couple who took Cruz in. It also names three behavioural and mental health facilities that evaluated Cruz.

Peterson, 54, was suspended with pay and then immediately resigned and retired on Feb. 23, when video surveillance footage from the school showed he never entered the building when the gunfire began. Broward Sheriff Scott Israel condemned Peterson’s actions, saying he should have gone inside. Peterson, a 33-year veteran law enforcement officer, pushed back against critics in a statement issued by his attorney shortly after the shooting. “Allegations that Mr. Peterson was a coward and that his performance, under the circumstances, failed to meet the standards of police officers are patently untrue,” the statement said.