By Dr. Joel F. Shults for Calibre Press

When someone shares some unfortunate occurrence in their life with me, sometimes—if the moment is one where a little levity will be a balm—I will say, “It could have been worse. It could have been me!”

Former Broward CO. Sheriff’s Deputy Scot Peterson, the School Resource Officer on duty when a mass shooting erupted at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL in 2018, was recently found not guilty of multiple criminal charges stemming from his decision to stay outside the school during the massacre. At the time of the incident, the world—including most police officers—branded him a pitiful coward who failed to save the lives of 17 occupants murdered in the attack. As that happened, I had to wonder: Could that have been me?

It is the same thought I’ve had since I raised my hand and got my first badge, pledging to protect and defend the Constitution and all those in my charge, so help me God. Every account of a police officer killed in the line of duty, every story of heroism that I read, and every horrific crime encountered by the police gave rise to the same thought. It could have been me. I reckon that every cop remembers those first tests of one’s mettle. The first fight, the first shots fired call, the first dead body. The first time that I discovered I had the courage to do what few have been called upon to do. We stop living vicariously and live our experience.

My career began at a time when video technology – not nearly as ubiquitous as it is today – started being a part of law enforcement training. Watching dash-cam videos of officer-involved shootings, seeing what it looks like to face gunfire, to look like a squirrel on the highway deciding where to find cover, hearing the high-pitched voices of police officers calling for help after being shot or shot at, listening to the death rattle of dying police officers tempts us to distance ourselves from their reality. I would hear officers in the classroom boldly declaring what they would have done, how they would have survived, doing the mental gymnastics to convince themselves that such a thing would not have happened if it had been them.

I remember a firearms instructor lamenting, after watching a video of an officer on a traffic stop being blitz-attacked, beaten, and killed, that the officer just didn’t have the will to live. I had already been knocked out and left bleeding on the pavement some years before. Was it because I didn’t have the will to live? Yes, I had made a tactical error and had gotten too close to a young man who made me discover that I apparently have a glass jaw. By Providence and a great backup officer, I was able to go back to work the next shift after a visit to the ER, but that could have ended differently. There but by the grace of God go I.

My career hasn’t been spectacularly different from the average police officer who learns from training and experience that they are ten feet tall and bulletproof most of the time. I’ve internally claimed a kinship with Audie Murphy, willing to stand atop a burning tank in the haze of battle mowing down Nazis with a borrowed .50 cal. I have been peppered by the sound of gunfire and ran toward it. I’ve waded into scenes where the odds were not in my favor and won the day. I’ve run into burning buildings. I’ve done my job sometimes fearlessly, but often with shaking knees and rapid prayer where courage and not mere fearlessness was needed. I don’t say these things from any sense of ego or pride, because that’s what thousands of cops do every hour of the day.

I entered the phase of my career where I served as a campus police chief in April of 2007 when the blood of the 32 victims still stained the ground at Virginia Tech. My mission was to prepare my officers and my campus for violent mass assault. I saw the evolution of tactics from contain for SWAT, to hasty diamond formations, to single-officer attack. It was the latter tactic for which Deputy Peterson was charged with failing to perform. For the record, I, too, wish Peterson had done that very thing but, for the record, I am glad for his not guilty verdict.

I’m not saying Peterson should not be judged for his choices. Maybe he is an embarrassment to the profession. Perhaps he was frozen in fear or was overwhelmed with the sensory assault, his amygdala not allowing his frontal cortex to take charge. Maybe his training template didn’t match what he was facing and failed to provide a clear choice of action. Maybe he couldn’t figure out where the shots were in order to formulate an attack strategy. Maybe his assignment was made to get him off the street to a safe place before retirement. Maybe he was just afraid and tried to hide. I don’t know. I am saying that if we are willing to put him in prison, then every police officer who faces an unimaginable event that happens to turn into unmitigated tragedy is faced with being branded, not as a failure, not just a coward, but as a criminal.

I invite you to ponder a few things:

The golden gospel of single officer response to mass harm in progress is not absolute.

Let’s move beyond this situation and generalize since we know that no school shootings are the same. Must we put the lives of others, particularly children, ahead of our own safety? Absolutely. Most officers will tell you they are willing to give their lives. It is our supreme moral imperative. That doesn’t mean we are suicidal. Survival is also a moral imperative. Why? Because having a dead or wounded police officer for the SWAT team to step over can create its own tactical liability. An officer who does not live to provide real-time intel to responding officers, and whose weapons systems and radio are now in the hands of the assailant, must be in the decision matrix of any tactical decision.

As much as I want to preserve my word count, I have to reiterate that I am not advocating against single officer response. It has to be repeated because I know I’m going to get beaten up for even suggesting that there may be a situation where an aspiring Audie Murphy might want to slow down and think about their tactical strategy. The question at hand is how do we stop the killing? (As an aside, can we stop saying “neutralize the threat” – it sounds Orwellian. We stop the threat, disable the attacker, disrupt the assault.) If it means charging in then charge in. If it means pausing for assessment and feeding information to the troops on their way, do that. Cowardice is not a tactical option, but neither is foolishness.

The idea that training or policy provides all the answers must yield to critical decision-making.

There’s no such thing as too much training. Many in our profession can say we’ve survived because of our training. However, no honest trainer will tell you that they can reproduce the conditions of a real firefight or assault. Those who have faced that reality will tell you that no role-player can reproduce the look in a killer’s eyes. No paintball or laser tag makes a person feel what it’s like to know that incoming bullets are real. No scenario can replicate the chaos of real chaos. No stress training can completely overcome the brain’s activity when the sights and smells and sounds of a real-deal life or death encounter.

Scapegoating by a nervous public must not destroy the profession.

Not only trainers but juries and prosecutors must understand the limits of the human corpus. Too many prosecutions of law enforcement officers have been conducted in an atmosphere of ignorance bordering on belief in fictional Marvel Comics superhero expectations. I’ve worked with consistently amazing and brave officers who have gone above and beyond, but all of them were encased in flesh and blood and decidedly human. The proximity to tragedy does not equate to cause. A death on the operating table doesn’t automatically indict the surgeon. A failed math test should not automatically indict the teacher. Cops on the scene do not have a magic wand in a leather holster. Blame in tragedy is a natural knee-jerk reaction that should not presume fault or cause, and the emotional relief of a scapegoat must not seep into the justice system.

Frankly, many might rather have watched a somber funeral for a dead hero deputy, with his posthumous medal passed to his family at the graveside, than watch the world scoff at a police officer for hiding. Many were happy to see Peterson’s career end and see him on trial. I wasn’t there. I’m neither advocate nor apologist. But we also must honestly wonder if it could have been worse – it could have been you.

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About the author

Dr. Joel Shults is a retired Chief of Police who served in Colorado. He earned a doctorate degree in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis from the University of Missouri and holds a graduate degree in Public Services Administration and a bachelors degree in criminal justice from the University of Central Missouri. Over the course of his 30-year law enforcement career he has served as an academy instructor, chaplain, community relations officer and investigator. Joel Shults operates Street Smart Training and is the founder of the National Center for Police Advocacy. His latest book The Badge and the Brain is available at www.joelshults.com.