FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. _ The police officer assigned to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School resigned Thursday, under investigation for failing to enter the building as a gunman opened fire and killed 17 people.
Sheriff Scott Israel said Deputy Scot Peterson should have "went in. Addressed the killer. Killed the killer."
Video footage showed Peterson did none of that, Israel said.
"What I saw was a deputy arrive ... take up a position and he never went in," the sheriff said at a news conference.
Israel said Peterson resigned, and subsequently retired, after Israel suspended him without pay earlier in the day. An investigation into Peterson will continue, the sheriff said.
Peterson, 54, came under scrutiny after 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz entered the school with an AR-15 rifle and killed 14 students and three educators on Valentine's Day.
The sheriff said Peterson was outside the building for "upwards of four minutes" while the shooting was taking place. "There are no words. I mean these families lost their children. We lost coaches," Israel said.
Peterson has been a school resource officer at Stoneman Douglas since 2009. He began working for the sheriff's office in 1985 and his annual salary in 2016 was $75,673.72, according to sheriff's office records.
The agency also announced that it was placing two officers on a restricted assignment during a separate investigation into how they handled earlier calls involving Cruz or his family members.
Israel said the agency was involved in 23 calls involving Cruz or his brother Zachary since 2008.
Col. Jack Dale, head of the agency's internal investigations unit, said the deputies were under review for how they handled two incidents.
"It's unclear as to whether a policy violation occurred or not, so we feel at this point that they deserve extra scrutiny and to be reviewed and investigated," Dale said.
Peterson could not be reached for comment Thursday afternoon at his home in Boynton Beach. Neighbor Nelson Sandy said he saw Peterson leave his house around 3 p.m., driving his work vehicle and accompanied by at least two Palm Beach Sheriff's Office deputies driving their work vehicles.
"They were here today, three police officers and they all left together," Sandy said.
