MIAMI (Florida Record) – Broward County's embattled sheriff and a retired deputy are among the named defendants in a civil rights action filed earlier this month by 15 survivors of the mass shooting in February at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
The survivors are suing Broward County, Broward Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie, Sheriff Scott Israel, deputy and former school resource officer Scot Peterson and officers who responded to the scene, according to the 30-page lawsuit filed July 11 in U.S. District Court for Florida's Southern District. The survivors, identified only by their initials and most represented in the case by their mothers, allege defendants in the case failed to protect them Feb. 14 when the alleged shooter, Nikolas Cruz, opened fire in the school, killing 17 and wounding 17.
Plaintiffs claim that the defendants' actions that day violated their constitutional rights under the 4th and 14th Amendments.
"Defendant county's policies and procedures, and training or lack thereof, demonstrated deliberate indifference to the rights (of) plaintiffs, and that deliberate indifference caused the herein complained-of harm to take place," the lawsuit said. "Each of the defendants' complained of actions were done intentionally, knowingly, recklessly, wantonly, with deliberate indifference, arbitrarily and in a manner that shocks the conscience of the court in a constitutional sense."
Peterson, who has been vilified for his alleged failure to confront Cruz, resigned and retired less than a week after the shooting and reportedly now receives a $100,000 annual pension. Peterson told the "Today Show" in June that he is haunted by the school shooting.
In April, Israel lost a symbolic no confidence vote by deputies in his department.
The lawsuit describes Peterson's supposed job the day of the shooting as "protecting the plaintiffs," which the suit admitted "is a heroic job and one upon which people reply in the case of a life and death emergency," but that Peterson didn't do it. "His arbitrary and conscience-shocking actions and inactions directly and predictably caused children to die, get injured, and get traumatized."
The lawsuit made similarly worded accusation against Israel, who the lawsuit claimed was "the decision maker and/or policymaker for Broward County" with a job that required him to "properly train and supervise his subordinates to, among other things, ensure the safety of the public, including the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School."
The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom.