SUNRISE, Fla. -- The then-sheriff's deputy who was on campus during February's Florida high school massacre but failed to confront the shooter didn't appear to answer an investigative panel's questions.
Former Broward County deputy Scot Peterson declined to appear Thursday before the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission.
His attorney Joseph DiRuzzo III appeared and told the panel he had filed a lawsuit earlier Thursday to quash the subpoena ordering his appearance.
DiRuzzo then left.
One victim's father said to DiRuzzo, "He didn't do his job. My daughter should be alive."
Peterson was assigned to the school and arrived outside the building where 17 died Feb. 14 shortly after the shooting began. He drew his handgun, but never went inside to confront the shooter even after other deputies and police officers did.
Commissioners believe he may have been able to save six people who were killed on the building's third floor if he had intervened.
Commission heard Thursday that Broward County sheriff's deputies and Coral Springs police officers couldn't communicate by radio throughout the initial response to the February shooting that left 17 dead. That put them in danger of accidentally firing on each other.
There was also confusion about whether the gunman was still inside the school because the video system in the office was unknowingly on a 15-minute delay.
The officers searching the building where the shootings happened were falsely told he was coming down from the third floor at their position on the second floor, when in fact he had fled the building. That delayed the response to reaching victims on the third floor, where six lay dead or dying and four wounded.
Panel members said Wednesday that he was "not a real cop" and "a coward."
Peterson previously told investigators he didn't know where the shots were coming from and that he heard only two or three.
