Yesterday the news broke that the sheriff's deputy assigned to protect Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School stayed outside the school while a gunman armed with an AR-15 rampaged through the halls, killing seventeen students and staff members and wounding fourteen others.
The deputy, 54-year-old Scot Peterson, was a thirty-two year veteran police officer. He'd been assigned to the school for eight years. He was trained. He was experienced. He was armed. He was present. He was in uniform. He knew that it was his job, what he'd signed on for, to to run into that school alone and, having no idea where in the 30-classroom building the shooter might be, find the shooter then charge him head-on on and, alone, using only his service pistol, bring down a crazed moving target, moving through the building while randomly spraying bullets from an AR-15 that could discharge 90 round a minute.
So why didn't Officer Peterson try to charge the moving, bullet-spraying shooter and bring him down with his pistol?
I don't know. Maybe because he knew that it was a suicide mission he'd be on, one he never expected to actually have to undertake when he signed up for school protection duty. He was a police officer well-trained in firearms use. He surely knew what my husband Tom,
The deputy, 54-year-old Scot Peterson, was a thirty-two year veteran police officer. He'd been assigned to the school for eight years. He was trained. He was experienced. He was armed. He was present. He was in uniform. He knew that it was his job, what he'd signed on for, to to run into that school alone and, having no idea where in the 30-classroom building the shooter might be, find the shooter then charge him head-on on and, alone, using only his service pistol, bring down a crazed moving target, moving through the building while randomly spraying bullets from an AR-15 that could discharge 90 round a minute.
So why didn't Officer Peterson try to charge the moving, bullet-spraying shooter and bring him down with his pistol?
I don't know. Maybe because he knew that it was a suicide mission he'd be on, one he never expected to actually have to undertake when he signed up for school protection duty. He was a police officer well-trained in firearms use. He surely knew what my husband Tom,
| ...a former U.S. Army marksman, knows, |
...that hitting a moving target is extremely hard, even when one isn't outmatched by a target using a semi-automatic assault-style rifle.
Officer Peterson probably already knew what was published this morning in the Chicago Tribune, that "Police Executive Research Forum, a think tank backed by major-cities chiefs, wrote in a 2014 report (that) 'a faster response is more dangerous to responding officers. Patrol officers who quickly move to confront an active shooter face a high likelihood of being shot themselves.'"
Maybe he knew that if he ran into that building and tried to rush the shooter there was less than a one-in-a-million chance that he would stop the killer and the same odds that he himself would come out alive.
Maybe 54-year-old Scot Peterson didn't do what his superior, Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel, said he should have done, "Went in and addressed the killer. Killed the killer" because he believed that neither addressing the killer nor killing the killer was available to him under the circumstances.
Maybe he was thinking about his family, his children, his wife, wondering what would happen to them if he came out of this dead, a hero, but a hero not because he stopped the shooter or saved any lives, but only because he lost his own.
Maybe as Scot Peterson stood outside the building inside of which children were being murdered he felt the cruel, sharp horns of the dilemma facing a good guy with a gun.
Officer Peterson probably already knew what was published this morning in the Chicago Tribune, that "Police Executive Research Forum, a think tank backed by major-cities chiefs, wrote in a 2014 report (that) 'a faster response is more dangerous to responding officers. Patrol officers who quickly move to confront an active shooter face a high likelihood of being shot themselves.'"
Maybe he knew that if he ran into that building and tried to rush the shooter there was less than a one-in-a-million chance that he would stop the killer and the same odds that he himself would come out alive.
Maybe 54-year-old Scot Peterson didn't do what his superior, Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel, said he should have done, "Went in and addressed the killer. Killed the killer" because he believed that neither addressing the killer nor killing the killer was available to him under the circumstances.
Maybe he was thinking about his family, his children, his wife, wondering what would happen to them if he came out of this dead, a hero, but a hero not because he stopped the shooter or saved any lives, but only because he lost his own.
Maybe as Scot Peterson stood outside the building inside of which children were being murdered he felt the cruel, sharp horns of the dilemma facing a good guy with a gun.
References
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-douglas-high-school-on-duty-deputy-17-20180222-story.html
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/parkland-shooting-florida-douglas-stoneman-active-shooter-training/
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/florida-shooter-lorenzo-prado_us_5a8dad13e4b03414379c9aa3
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoneman_Douglas_High_School_shooting
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/what-i-saw-treating-the-victims-from-parkland-should-change-the-debate-on-guns/553937/
https://www.quora.com/How-many-rounds-does-a-semi-automatic-rifle-fire-per-minute
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-douglas-high-school-on-duty-deputy-17-20180222-story.html
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/parkland-shooting-florida-douglas-stoneman-active-shooter-training/
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/florida-shooter-lorenzo-prado_us_5a8dad13e4b03414379c9aa3
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoneman_Douglas_High_School_shooting
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/what-i-saw-treating-the-victims-from-parkland-should-change-the-debate-on-guns/553937/
https://www.quora.com/How-many-rounds-does-a-semi-automatic-rifle-fire-per-minute
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