Father of Parkland victim sues school resource officer in wrongful death lawsuit

Andrew Pollack's daughter, Meadow, was murdered in the Parkland school shooting in February. On Monday, he filed a wrongful death lawsuit against a number of parties, including the school resource officer who was on duty at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on the day his daughter died.

The school resource officer, Broward County Sheriff Deputy Scot Peterson, remained outside the building while Nikolas Cruz killed seventeen people on Valentine's Day.

Other defendants include the estate of Lynda Cruz, James Snead, Kimberly Snead, Henderson Behavioral Health, Jerome Golden Center for Behavioral Health, Inc., and South County Mental Health Center, Inc.

In a Twitter post, Pollack announced: "I filed a wrongful death suit against Deputy Peterson today. I want to expose that coward so bad. Where ever (sic) he goes I want people to recognize him and say that's one of the cowards of Broward. The SRO that let those children and teachers die on the 3rd floor!"

He continued, "This suit has nothing to do with money. I want to be sure anywhere he goes in this country he will be recognized as the coward that could have gone in and saved the students and teachers on the third floor."

Pollack's son, Hunter, also weighed in via a tweet, saying of Peterson, "He's a WEASAL (sic)COWARD, and no matter where he goes should be recognized as a failure. He failed to act, and than (sic) lied about it after. We will not forget!"

After 33 years working in law enforcement, Peterson resigned within weeks of the shooting and retired "rather than face possible termination" according to the Broward County Sheriff's office. He had served as the resource officer at Marjory Stoneman Douglas since 2009.

Peterson's lawyer defended his client in a news conference shortly after the shooting, saying, "Let there be no mistake, Mr. Peterson wishes that he could have prevented the untimely passing of the 17 victims on that day, and his heart goes out to the families of the victims in their time of need. However, the allegations that Mr. Peterson was a coward and that his performance, under the circumstances, failed to meet the standards of police officers are patently untrue."