Imagine that you are Scot Peterson, 54, at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, north of Miami and Fort Lauderdale, and you’ve been the School Resource Officer at that school for 9 years, you know the teachers and students, you care about them, and you know a great deal about law enforcement; you’ve been doing it for 33 years; you’ve been honored for your valor as an officer.

You have just called in, at about 2:20 pm, that you were outside the school on the west side of the building, and a boy, Nikolas Cruz, 19, you knew from the school, is inside the school with a weapon that is firing rapidly.

You can only imagine the possible pain and suffering.  You have four children yourself from your first marriage, and were re-married just last year.  You know what this massacre means to these families.

You likely know that at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012, 20 year old  Adam Lanza, took his mother’s Bushmaster XM-15 rifle and fired 300 rounds, drawing upon 10 thirty-round large capacity magazines, and in four minutes, 154 bullets struck and killed 20 children between 6 and 7, and six educators.

You are not armed with a semi-automatic weapon as you crouch outside the school.  You don’t know what armor the shooter has.  You can’t be sure if the shooter is at the other end of the school, or know that he went to 5 class rooms on two floors executing innocents, or how much ammunition he had or has, or how powerful a weapon he has.  You may have guessed he has an AR-15 from the sound, certainly he’s got at least a semi-automatic.

It didn’t feel like Valentine’s Day.

Not to Scot.

Nor to anyone else. Continue reading →