To protect and serve

We weren't raised like this.

Of course, my generation (Baby Boomer 1.0) was not raised with school resource officers in the schools, or even DARE officers. None of that. 

Now, schools have police on duty, and from all I hear, they do more that just mosey around the halls all day. They integrate themselves into the school community, with the desired outcome of being trusted by students and faculty alike.

So that when a student sees another student whose behavior would indicate an explosion of violence is imminent, or one who is carrying a weapon of some sort, that observant student should be able to tell the SRO, and count on action.

And, heaven forfend, should an act of violence occur at the school, the SRO can be the first responder, doing what he or she can to neutralize the situation while awaiting the arrival of more police.

We count on those things like we count on the Fire Department to respond to our homes or offices or highways in case of fire, illness or accidental injury, or like we count on getting help from the Emergency Room at the hospital, or one of dozens of other things we depend on.

And so the people in Parkland, Florida, the community around the 
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, expected action from their SRO, both when he and his department received tips that the shooter, whose name disgusts me, was a ticking bomb, and on Valentine's Day, when literal hell broke loose in that school building. 

But the video from outside that school building shows the SRO, Scot Peterson, outside, seeking cover.

Compare him to the New York firefighters who ran into the towers on September 11, 2001. 

Confronted with his cravenness, Peterson parried the suspension slapped on him by retiring right away, and he's now presumed to be at home, ironically guarded by armed police.

It seems the school security fell tragically short in many ways. The video cameras that officers used that afternoon were showing them pictures twenty minutes old. Also, two other officers have been placed on a restricted assignment while an internal investigation looks into the fatal shootings.

Since the Columbine school massacre of 1999, policing experts have emphasized actively pursuing the attacker or attackers quickly, instead of taking up defensive positions outside the building.  Clearly, this did not take place at Stoneman Douglas High.

And the public has every right to expect both the local cops and the FBI NOT to drop the ball when they're given tips about some student about to flip his or her lid.

It's been my good fortune over the years to work with and know well a lot of police, and I really cannot envision any of them cowering outside during a situation like this. When they put on that badge and take up a gun, they swear to serve and protect, and this puts them in some damned harrowing situations.

How this Peterson will spend the rest of his life, hearing the gunshots and the certain keening of humanity from within that school building in his memory, I can't even imagine. I just hope that people will forget his treachery and reset their trust in the people who are sworn to do better than he did.