FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Broward Sheriff’s Office Homicide Detective John Curcio, who was the lead detective in the criminal case against the Parkland school shooter, was the first state witness to testify Wednesday for Day 8 in the trial of former school resource deputy Scot Peterson, who is accused of taking cover as the school shooter killed six people and injured four others on the third floor of the 1200 Building.
Peterson, 60, is not charged in connection with those killed or injured on the first floor of the building as he did not reach the building until the gunman reached the third floor. No injuries or deaths occurred on the second floor.
After the shooting, Curcio told investigators from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement who were working with a state commission looking into the law enforcement response to the school shooting, that Peterson’s story about what happened at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018, contained many inconsistencies when compared with video evidence.
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In the Aug. 28, 2018, interview with the FDLE, Curcio recalled his initial conversation with Peterson two days after the shooting, saying the longtime school resource deputy seemed confident in his abilities, “but he didn’t have a lot of recollection about his interaction with Nikolas Cruz.”
Once Curcio was able to review surveillance video from the school, he determined that many of Peterson’s statements weren’t consistent with what the video showed.
Curcio said Peterson claimed the golf cart wasn’t where it was usually parked by his office in the 100 building when the gunfire started, so Peterson decided to approach the 1200 building on foot.
File: Detective John Curio and other FDLE transcripts
“He literally is four or five feet from the golf cart when he comes out, like, in front of the 100 building,” Curcio said.
In the video, Peterson can be seen getting picked up by campus monitor Andrew Medina and security specialist Kelvin Greenleaf in the golf cart and dropped off at the 1200 Building.
“That’s a fact he never says to me in his statement,” Curcio said.
“Andrew Medina said he heard firecrackers in the 1200 Building,” Assistant State Attorney Kristen Gomes said Wednesday as Curcio took the stand. “Did he tell you how close he got to the building?”
“Yes,” Curcio responded. “He got very close -- within 10 feet.”
Curcio told FDLE agents that when he compared footage from the exterior surveillance video to the footage from inside, it became obvious there were more shots than what Peterson claimed to have heard.
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“And the two to three shots that he claims he heard were actually over 70 shots going off inside the building,” Curcio told them.
On Wednesday, he told the jury that he believes over 130 shots were actually fired in the 1200 Building.
In synching the timeline to the videos, Curcio told the FDLE that Medina, Greenleaf and Peterson “retreat very, very quickly.” He said “that movement, the retreating is almost exactly consistent with when we know the fatal shots are being fired into (wrestling) coach (Chris) Hixon, who’s already been hit, on the first floor, as he retreated for cover” before Cruz “puts some final shots into him.”
Curcio said that, at one point, as Cruz was firing rounds on the second floor, Peterson was positioned 69 feet away along the wall of the 700 building, when “some of the rounds actually come out of the building through the window on the same side of the building where Peterson is positioned.”
When asked by FDLE agents if there were any more people injured or killed while Peterson was standing outside, Curcio replied, “Yes. (Assistant football) coach (Aaron) Feis would’ve been shot and killed. Everybody on the third floor would’ve been shot and killed.”
Curcio became emotional at one point while discussing the goal of law enforcement and why they aren’t trained to retreat.
“Earlier you disagreed with the term ‘kill the killer’ – why?” Gomes asked.
“The goal is to stop him from killing people,” Curcio responded, choking up. “And that doesn’t mean killing him. It means slowing him down, it means distracting him, it means anything so those kids can find safety.”
VIDEO: Homicide Detective John Curcio gets emotional testifying Wednesday:
Peterson is charged with seven counts of felony child neglect for four underage students killed and three wounded on the third floor.
Peterson arrived at the building with his gun drawn 73 seconds before Cruz reached that floor, but instead of entering, he backed away as gunfire sounded. He has said he didn’t know where the shots were coming from.
Peterson is also charged with three counts of misdemeanor culpable negligence for the adults shot on the third floor, including a teacher and an adult student who died. He also faces a perjury charge for allegedly lying to investigators.
On Wednesday, the defense highlighted the swift timeline.
“The entire time my client had to react to this person creating this massacre would have been four minutes and 15 seconds, correct?” defense attorney Mark Eiglarsh asked.
“That is correct,” Curcio responded.
The state rested its case Wednesday.
Peterson could be sentenced to nearly a century in prison if convicted on the child neglect counts and lose his $104,000 annual pension.