The former cop scorned by President Donald Trump as a "coward" and fired for his role in the Valentine's Day massacre at a Parkland, Florida, high school apologized for not knowing where the shooter was, saying, "it haunts me that I didn't know."
Former school resource officer Scot Peterson said in an interview on NBC's "Today" show he wishes he could tell parents and loved ones of the 17 slaughtered at Stoneman Douglas, "I'm sorry that I didn't know where he was."
"I didn't get it right," Peterson said on "Today." "But it wasn't because of some, 'Oh, I don't want to go into that building.' … It wasn't like that at all. Those are my kids in there. I never would have sat there and let my kids get slaughtered. Never."
One Parkland father whose daughter was gunned down isn't buying it.
Peterson's interview with "Today" was the first of a two-part airing and the next stop in his publicity tour to get out his side of the story, 3 ½ months after the massacre and right at the end of the school year in South Florida.
Peterson's reclamation tour started with an interview published in The Washington Post on Monday.
"I've cut that day up a thousand ways with a million different what-if scenarios, but the bottom line is I was there to protect, and I lost 17," Peterson told the Post.
Peterson told "Today" that he blames his inaction on the lack of real-time intel, the chaos and the high-impact glass in Building 1200 that must have muffled the sound of an AR-15.
Timelines show that Nikolas Cruz had already killed 11 by the time Peterson reached the 1200 building and was still hunting kids inside while Peterson was taking cover outside.
"It haunts me that I didn't know," Peterson told NBC. "I was trying to do the best I could with no information or intel at the time. … And it was just something happening so fast."
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