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Sheriff Joe is someone I admire and what happened to him should not have happened.
I was an EMT and Fireman for 8 years, and have supported the military and all of its war fighters my entire working life, I have been involved in shootings, and had to take a life protecting my own. I was trained by the PAL and have remained proficient for 35 years.
As an EMT, I was on the back end of several shootings, waiting to go into hot fire situations. My observation was that there were no “Hotdogs”, for safety of the officers and the innocents, commanders need to know where everyone was to prevent unneeded casualties.
Likewise I have worked on extremely sensitive Military Bases and installations and was regularly drilled on shooter scenarios as part of my job, also unauthorized breeches of perimeter fencing on installations. This was throughout my career.
I worked with Police, military, and secret service during that time. I was there during the Vietnam war, as well as during Desert Storm, in a support capacity with Military and sub-contractors. Through all my experience, you don’t run into an unknown situation, you work with your C.O. or team leader, and you follow instructions.
We are talking about killing this guys career over 4 minutes, and that is what is deemed accurate by exactly who? How can you know what he was doing during that supposed 4 minutes?
Sheriff Scott Israel still does not know, internal affairs is still sifting thru the facts, but don’t you find it strange that when Coral Springs came onto the scene, Broward police had not entered the building? Why? Who told them ALL to stand down? Why did all the police from Broward not be suspended like Scot Peterson, or put on Administrative Leave (Unpaid) as well?
Something stinks up to high heaven, and everyone in the Police Dept at Broward have closed ranks and are only letting Scott Israel speak for the Department.
The fact that you were a LEO in MC for 8 years does not tell me what you did for that 8 years, what actual experience you had during that time, but I presume you must have had swat training, ran raids on illegal immigration, wait, in 1970 you would have probably already served in Vietnam, and came there after getting out of the service.
So your probably retired by now, Probably entered the service in the late 60’s. You know as well as I do, that unless you have experience with active shooter scenarios, personal experience, knowing military situations are much different than civilian, but I don’t have to tell you that.
And even with recent, relevant experience, every situation is different, many different parameters. You would not go into a kill zone, under armed, with no cover, perhaps unless you saw innocents in harms way. We do not know what Scot Peterson saw in his scenario. Just a gung-ho supervisor that was not there, making the only PC judgement he could make, taking Peterson out of the equation until they got a clearer picture of what happened, which is Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), I would not be surprised that Peterson took the bullet for the department to try to defuse the situation for the department. It has happened many times before.

That is MY Opinion...you don’t have to share it. But stating as fact, that which is not determined yet to be true, can only be your opinion, Demanding it is true, based on YOUR experience does not make it true.
I do not care one whit if you think I am an idiot, your entitled to your opinion. I know what I know, and will wait for the facts to emerge, and they are coming quickly. We have yet to hear from Scot Peterson, we may, or we may never. More than one person has been convicted in the court of public opinion, and I want no part of that conviction.

There is plenty of time, after the fact, when the more accurate facts will be forthcoming.

Right now, I want to see what they are going to do to protect the children going forward.

On that, I am sure, we all agree.

Here's where I believe that you are wrong: Peterson was assigned to be the armed guard for that school. He had the means to stop or at least interrupt the slaughter that was going on in there. If the police aren't/can't/won't be protecting children from mass murder, who will do the job?

As I have said earlier, I have been in combat - and no it's not all that different than fighting an armed aggressor in a school. We had good people to protect and we had to face automatic weapons (and grenades and mortars and rockets) directly to do what we had to do. As I noted earlier, were our lives less worthwhile than a cop's?

I don't believe for one second that he can be excused by doctrine or by "waiting for orders from superiors" when every second counts to try to stop mass murder.

You were an EMT and have police training - fine. But people like me have stood up and moved when we had to, when lives were at stake.

You're way too quick to exonerate the only man in the area with a pistol and capability to do something about it.