Judge rules to allow Parkland school shooting reenactment in civil lawsuit against former school resource officer

By Dianne Gallagher, Wesley Bruer and Dakin Andone, CNN

(CNN) — A Florida judge on Wednesday ruled to allow reenactments of the 2018 mass shooting inside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School’s 1200 building as part of a civil lawsuit against the former school resource officer who remained outside as the massacre unfolded.

Scot Peterson was found not guilty late last month of criminal charges after prosecutors accused him of ignoring his training and failing to confront the shooter, instead taking cover outside the building during the February 14, 2018, attack, in which 17 people, including 14 students, were killed and 17 others injured. Peterson argued he didn’t enter the building because he couldn’t tell where the gunshots were coming from due to echoes on the Parkland, Florida, campus.

Peterson still faces civil action from several of the victims’ families and a survivor, who want to reenact the shooting in an effort to prove the former Broward Sheriff’s Office deputy heard “upwards of 70 shots and knew where they were coming from,” David Brill, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said in court Wednesday, shortly before Judge Carol-Lisa Phillips indicated she would allow the reenactment.

The defense will also be allowed to conduct a reenactment, and the two sides must coordinate so they can be done on either the same day or consecutive days before the new academic year begins next month. Phillips said the reenactments need to happen within the next month, and the court set a status hearing on July 20 to ensure both sides are on track.

Whether the recordings of the reenactment would be admissible evidence at trial remains to be seen, but Phillips said that question would be taken up at a later date.

The plaintiffs’ motion sought permission to enter the building to conduct audio and video recordings during a “reenactment that would parallel the killer’s movements, and the gunfire inside” the three-story 1200 building, which was preserved pending Peterson’s trial and that of the shooter, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole last year.

“We are going to be using the same Smith & Wesson model M&P 15 semiautomatic rifle, we’re going to use the same caliber of cartridge – albeit with blanks, what they call Full Metal Jacket blanks. There will be no cartridge expelled,” explained Brill to the judge, saying he anticipated it would take roughly two hours. They will also turn the fire alarm on and off and use a golf cart to simulate Peterson’s arrival on scene, Brill said.

Peterson arrived a couple minutes after the gunfire began, and was not on scene when the victims on the first floor were killed.

The defense also wanted to do a reenactment, said Michael Piper, an attorney for Peterson, though he took issue with the use of blanks, arguing they sounded nothing like live rounds. There were many variables that could not be accounted for, Piper said, and the reenactments presented a “very unclear possibility that this will even result in anything that can be presented to a jury.”

Piper and an attorney for the city – who did not object to the reenactment – also raised concerns about the potential trauma the reenactments could inflict on the community, especially people who live around the school. The judge was clear that adequate notification throughout the community would be required.

Jeffrey Tew, an attorney for the parents of 16-year-old victim Carmen Schentrup, expressed support for the reenactment on Wednesday, saying that “the real people who suffered trauma in this matter are the families of the dead children and wounded children, all of whom have authorized Mr. Brill to bring this motion.

The custody of the building where the shooting occurred has returned to the Broward County School District after it had been with the Broward Sheriff’s Office. A judge on Wednesday determined that part of campus is no longer considered a crime scene.

According to Interim Superintendent Dr. Earlean Smiley’s weekly report, plans to demolish the building are set to begin within 30 days of receiving access to the building.

“Once we receive the building, we will move quickly to demolish it, remove the resultant debris, and restore the site to a landscaped condition for future use,” Smiley said in the report.

Demolition will not be completed before school begins August 21, Smiley said.

At their requests, some of the families of those killed have been allowed to privately tour the 1200 building following the Peterson verdict.

“It looked like a war zone where a mass murderer had hunted down and killed children and staff, and it was grotesque,” Max Schachter, father of victim Alex Schachter, told CNN after going inside. “There was blood everywhere. I was just not prepared for that.”

But Schachter went, he said, because he “wanted to go in Alex’s classroom.”

“I wanted to sit in the chair that Alex took his last breath in, and that he was murdered in, and it was just unbelievable.”

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CNN’s Carlos Suarez and Amy Simonson contributed to this report.