Charges Against Scott Peterson Yet Another Symptom of the Increasing Stakes of Partisan Politics
Former Broward County sheriff's deputy Scot Peterson has been widely vilified for failing to intervene in the February 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. But did Peterson's failure amount to a crime? Although that is what local prosecutors argue, it seems like a stretch.
The arrest warrant approved by Circuit Court Judge Andrew Siegel this week charges Peterson with seven counts of child neglect, a felony, and three misdemeanor counts of culpable negligence as well as one misdemeanor count of perjury for allegedly lying to investigators about how many shots he heard while taking cover 75 feet away from the building where a gunman was murdering students and teachers. Only the perjury charge seems like a straightforward application of the relevant statute, while the other charges are novel applications of laws that are generally invoked in very different contexts.
To my mind, this represents another example of the escalation of stakes in modern partisan politics. Conservatives invested a lot in the "it's all Scot Peterson's fault" narrative about Parkland, presumably as a foil to the gun control lobby. I think this is similar to some of the flimsy charges levelled at Trump associates in an attempt to show that some kinda-sorta-maybe Russian collusion was going on. If it were not Florida I would say that there can't be any way the charging authority thinks this can make it through trial, but it is Florida after all.
