A group of students of the Parkland, Fla., high school where a gunman killed 17 people is suing Broward County law enforcement and local officials, arguing their failure to stop the shooter and safeguard the school violated their constitutional rights.
The lawsuit was filed in federal court Wednesday by 15 students on behalf of their parents and names as defendants Broward Sheriff Scott Israel, Broward County Public Schools superintendent Robert Runcie, and retired Broward Court deputy Scot Peterson, a school resource officer who was on campus the day of the shooting, among others.
[Safety commission: Disciplinary program at Parkland school not responsible for February shooting]
The students were all in attendance at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14 when the suspected shooter, Nikolas Cruz, opened fire. According to court filings, the students suffered “severe phycological injury and trauma.”
The lawsuit accuses Broward County officials of acting with “extreme deliberate indifference to” the students’ constitutional rights “by knowingly failing to engage with a recognized threat and intentionally evading his duties to protect the students and staff of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.”
[More: Parkland gunman hoped to become the ‘next school shooter’ in newly released cellphone footage]
According to the complaint, the defendants’ actions were “done intentionally, knowingly, recklessly, wantonly, with deliberate indifference, arbitrarily, and in a manner that shocks the conscience of the court in a constitutional sense.”
“Numerous failures by numerous government actors, including law enforcement, strongly [contributed] to shooter’s ability to carry-out this horrific attack, without which this attack could not have happened,” the complaint states.
One student, identified in court filings as “T.M.,” also accuses Peterson of violating his Fourth Amendment rights when he searched his bag the morning of the shooting and took $200 from his backpack, the complaint states.
Peterson allegedly accused the student of selling drugs, which the unnamed student denies.
Israel is also criticized in the lawsuit for attempting to “credit himself while placing blame on others.”
The sheriff came under scrutiny after it was discovered the Broward Sherriff’s Office received numerous calls about Cruz, the suspected shooter, and his family before the shooting.
“Defendant Israel and Defendant Broward County either have a policy that allows killers to walk through a school killing people without being stopped,” the lawsuit states. “Or they have such inadequate training that the individuals tasked with carrying out the policies … lack the basic fundamental understandings of what those policies are such that they are incapable of carrying them out.”
Cruz was indicted in March on 17 counts of premeditated murder. He faces the death penalty if convicted.
