Global Courant
An off-duty police officer who was at Florida’s Parkland High School during a 2018 massacre has testified at the trial of the deputy charged with failing to stop the gunman responsible for one of the worst school shootings in the state. history of the United States.
Jeffrey Heinrich, who testified for the prosecution on Thursday for the second day, described how he mistook gunshots for fireworks before realizing what was happening and approaching unarmed.
Heinrich said he initially believed the shots came from inside or near the classroom at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School where the 17 murders took place. But it wasn’t until he spoke to a wounded student minutes after the shooting began that he was sure.
He admitted that he had never come within 600 feet of where former Broward deputy Scot Peterson had taken cover on the other side of the building and never seen the deputy.
What Peterson, 60, heard and saw on Feb. 14, 2018, is the crux of the trial. He is accused of failing to confront gunman Nikolas Cruz before the gunman reached the third floor of the 1200 building, where six of the victims died.
Peterson will not be charged in connection with the 11 deaths on the first floor before he reached the building. He never entered the building and took cover nearby. He insists he did not know where the shots came from.
If convicted, Peterson could face nearly a century in prison.
Heinrich testified that he was spraying the ballpark about 200 yards from the 1200 Building when the shooting began. His son played for the school team and Heinrich was a volunteer gardener at the school, where his wife teaches physical education.
He said he heard loud bangs, but because he had worked as a school police officer, he just thought a student had set off fireworks.
And though he then heard the fire alarm go off, he didn’t begin to suspect gunshots until he saw panicked students running out of the building. He dropped the garden hose and ran for the buildings, even though he was unarmed and dressed in shorts and a T-shirt.
“My training is that you run to the sound of gunfire,” he said. “It was just instinct.” He said officers are told to go to the shooter because any shot is potentially another death.
He said he ran past an unarmed security guard who told him there was an active shooter and an assistant football coach had been shot. But he said he couldn’t tell if the shots came from inside the 1200 building, a neighboring building or their rooftops.
He then entered a parking lot and found student Kyle Laman with part of his lower right leg blown off and feared he would bleed to death. He heard a voice he thought was a police officer yelling “They’re shooting at us” and telling them to get down.
Heinrich said he rushed Laman to a baseball locker room where he stopped the bleeding until the ambulance arrived. It was then that Laman told him he was shot on the third floor of the 1200 building. He called his coordinators.
Heinrich went back outside and saw one of his Coral Springs colleagues, who had an extra body armor and a gun. He put on the vest, grabbed the gun, and they returned to the building, which was now being searched by other officers who had already arrived. They stayed outside so they wouldn’t draw their own fire.
Peterson’s lawyer, Mark Eiglarsh, stressed during cross-examination that Heinrich also could not say where the shots came from. Heinrich said that was true, but that if he had been armed he would have gone to where he thought they were until he found the shooter.
Laman, now 20, also took the stand on Thursday, showing jurors his scarred, damaged leg. He broke down when prosecutors played security videos of him and the others being shot on the third floor, adding that his pain is sometimes so severe that he can no longer walk.
Under cross-examination by Eiglarsh, Laman said he did not hear the shots that Cruz fired on the first and second floors because of the fire alarm, but knew exactly what was happening when he saw Cruz firing on the third floor.
The most serious charges against Peterson are seven counts of child neglect for four students killed and three injured on the third floor.
To convict Peterson of child neglect, prosecutors must first demonstrate that he was legally a caretaker of the juvenile students — defined by Florida law as “a parent, adult member of the household, or other person responsible for the well-being of a child”.
If jurors find that Peterson was a caregiver, they must determine whether he made a “reasonable effort” to protect the children or failed to provide the necessary care.
Peterson is the first U.S. law enforcement officer ever charged with alleged failure to act during a school shooting. Similarly, Texas authorities are investigating officers in the town of Uvalde who failed to confront the gunman who killed 19 elementary school students and two teachers last year. However, no one has been charged.
The Parkland school shooting shocked the country and called again for gun reform, but more than five years later, the US continues to suffer from regular mass shootings and rampant gun violence.
The trial began on Wednesday and is expected to last two months. Cruz, 24, pleaded guilty and received a life sentence last year.
