A jury of six was sworn in Tuesday for the trial of the school resource deputy on duty at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High when a killer murdered 17 people and wounded 17 others in 2018.
Scot Peterson faces charges in six of those deaths and four of those injuries, crimes the state says he could’ve prevented had he confronted the killer before he made it to the third floor of the building he attacked.
A jury of four women and two men will decide if Peterson is guilty of child neglect, culpable negligence and perjury, for allegedly lying to investigators about how many gunshots he heard and the number of fleeing students he could see as he took cover 75 feet from the building, not moving for 48 minutes.
Among the six jurors: a Miami-Dade County Transit bus driver of 31 years; a cybersecurity researcher who has volunteered in schools to advance science and technology education; a financial crimes analyst who assists victims of consumer fraud; and a registered nurse.
Get South Florida local news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC South Florida newsletters.
Opening statements are set for Wednesday morning and the state expects to take about eight days to present its case, which hinges on jurors finding Peterson was a caregiver to the more than 3,000 students on the campus that day, with a duty to protect them from great bodily harm.
Peterson has been derided as cowardly for not confronting the shooter after he went to the doors of the building where people were being shot, instead retreating to the corner of a nearby building. While cowardice is not a crime, child neglect is a felony, one he is charged with seven times over.
Attorneys and Judge Martin Fein spent two days culling the list of potential jurors from 55 down to the six, plus four alternates.
Prospects who said they would have bias against Peterson if he chose not to testify were rejected, as were several who said they could not stomach reviewing the graphic video and photographic evidence of the crime scene and victims.
One potential juror struck from the panel by the state: a Broward school board office manager whose husband has for four years been a school resource officer in Miami-Dade County.
