Trump condemns cop over Florida shooting
Peterson’s actions were caught on video during the massacre
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump on Friday condemned a Florida sheriff’s deputy who stayed outside the school he was patrolling while a shooting rampage unfolded inside, even as he insisted that his proposal to arm well-trained teachers would prevent such massacres.
“When it came time to get in there and do something, he didn’t have the courage, or something happened, but he certainly did a poor job — there’s no question about that,” Trump said of Scot Peterson, who resigned on Thursday after surveillance video showed that he had failed to enter Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland to confront the gunman as he was in the process of killing 17 people.
“He was there for five minutes — for five minutes,” Trump added. “He heard it right from the beginning. So he certainly did a poor job, but that’s a case where somebody was outside, they’re trained, they didn’t act properly under pressure, or they were a coward.”
He spoke on his way to a conservative conference where he planned to promote his proposal — embraced by the National Rifle Association — to allow teachers and other educators to carry concealed firearms in schools. He said on Thursday that such gunwielding teachers should be paid a small bonus and that he would devote federal resources to training them to use weapons to protect students. “Schools have to have some form of protection; they can’t just be open-ended gun-free,” Trump said.