Day five of the Scot Peterson trial featured crime scene experts as the state tries to show that the former school resource officer at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School knew an active shooter was inside the 1200 building but did nothing to stop him.
A defense expert also testified, bolstering Peterson’s case that he did everything he could, including calling a code red as the gunman fired a barrage of bullets at students and teachers.
“These are 20 fired casings recovered from quadrant 1-A,” said BSO crime scene detective Danny Krystyan as he showed the jury bag after bag of bullet casings he recovered from the first floor, a total of 71.
He was one of two crime scene experts called to the stand by the state.
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“I collected 61 on the third floor,” said BSO Sergeant Gloria Crespo, who documented the horrors on the third floor.
With so many loud rounds fired from a high-powered rifle, the prosecution seems to be saying to the jury, how could Peterson not figure out where the shots were coming from? Peterson maintains he did not rush in to confront the shooter because he couldn’t tell where the gunman was.
“When I heard Deputy Peterson call, code red, code red, everybody go back, go back, this is the time I really decide it was serious,” said Ana Ramos, who was a security monitor at the school for 20 years.
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The defense called Ramos to the stand, and she told the jury there is an echo issue at the school.
“It’s very hard when we have some, especially when we have a fight or something, to locate it — where is that screaming coming from? Because, can be is the echo,” Ramos explained.
Under cross-examination, Ramos said coach Aaron Feis, who died in the massacre, radioed the location, which Peterson would’ve presumably heard on his radio.
“We have call before on the radio he say something happened in the 1200 building, sounds like a firecracker, and I heard like a minute after, that don’t sound firecracker, this is something else,” Ramos said in heavily accented English, recounting what Feis said.
The most dramatic moment occurred when Crespo said the names and the order of every victim she found as she proceeded down the third-floor hallway of horrors. She mentioned them by their first names: Scott Beigel, Cara Loughran, Meadow Pollack, Joaquin Oliver, Jaime Guttenberg and Peter Wang.
