Parkland School Cop's Acquittal Reminds Us: Police Have No Actual Obligation To Protect You

Or your children!

On Thursday, former Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School armed school resource officer Scot Peterson, 60, was acquitted by a Florida jury of seven counts of felony child neglect and three of culpable negligence for his actions during the 2018 mass murder at the school. Peterson, who has the distinction of being the first US law enforcement officer tried in connection with a school shooting, remained 75 feet away from the school during the shooting and did nothing but share information over his radio while the massacre occurred. Despite being the only armed officer on the scene, he didn't go inside the building or do anything to try to keep Nikolas Cruz from killing any more people.

Cruz ended up killing 17 people and injuring 17 more.

Peterson did not testify at trial, but his lawyers mounted a defense with testimony from teachers who said that they could not personally tell where the bullets were coming from. And if they couldn't tell what was going on, how could anyone expect Peterson, who had run 75 feet away from the school as soon as the shooting started, to be able to figure that out?

But just to be clear, those kids had to go to school every day with an armed law enforcement officer on campus and then when the time finally came that a school shooting occurred, he didn't actually do anything. This, along with "arming teachers," has long been the Right's solution to dealing with school shootings, because of how they'd rather not ban the automatic weapons that these kids are using to shoot dozens of their classmates in a short period of time. So far, given the events of both Parkland and Uvalde, where the armed officers didn't do anything either, it doesn't seem like it's working so well.

"To those who have tried to make this political, I say: It is not political to expect someone to do their job. Especially when it’s the vital job of being a school resource officer – an armed law enforcement officer with special duties and responsibilities to the children and staff members they are contracted to protect," Broward State Attorney Harold F. Pryor said in a statement . “Scot Peterson’s inaction and the misinformation he provided to law enforcement officers had a dire impact on the children and adults who died or were injured on the third floor of the 1200 Building. He stood by, leaving an unrestricted killer to spend 4 minutes and 15 seconds wandering the halls at leisure – firing close to 70 rounds and killing or injuring ten of the 34 children and educators who bore the brunt of the massacre. The evidence showed he stood in one safe spot for more than 40 minutes while the victims on the third floor were killed and injured and while other law enforcement officers took action."

The fact that Peterson was even tried in a criminal court was actually quite surprising in the first place, as law enforcement officers are under no real obligation to protect any of us or prevent us from being murdered. While, yes, they do have to take an oath swearing to protect and serve, there are not really any consequences for not doing that. They can't, the US Supreme Court has determined, be sued in civil court for failing to protect people.

In. 1999, Jessica Gonzales of Castle Rock, Colorado, spent hours calling the police and trying to get them to do something about the fact that her estranged husband, Simon Gonzales, had taken their two children despite the fact that he was currently under a court order to stay away from them and stay 100 feet from the home. The cops didn't do anything. When she called them to tell them that her husband had called her from an amusement park to tell her that he took the kids there, they didn't do anything. Hours after she told police exactly where they were, Simon Gonzalez drove himself to the police station. With the dead bodies of his two children in the back of his car.

In 2005, the Supreme Court determined that the police had the right to use their "discretion" in enforcing the protection order against Simon Gonzalez and that police officers have no constitutional duty to protect anyone from getting murdered.

And this week, a jury found that Scot Peterson didn't have any obligation to protect anyone from getting murdered either.

 Do your Amazon shopping through this link, because reasons .

Wonkette is independent and fully funded by readers like you. Click below to tip us!