By David Lyons and Anne Geggis

Sun Sentinel

Branded a coward by the president. Vilified by his ex-boss. Duty-bound to protect Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Scot R. Peterson, disgraced former Broward sheriff’s deputy, once characterized himself to be a strong, proactive law enforcement officer who would not shrink in the face of danger.

Yet the 33-year law enforcement veteran resigned after withering criticism from Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel, who said the deputy stationed at the Parkland school should have confronted and killed the gunman in the Feb. 14 attack in which 17 died.

But in a 2015 video, he is shown touting his performance and the work of his colleagues as he sought to persuade school officials to retain a program known as the Resident on Campus Security Program.

“These colleagues work hard,” he told an official who raised doubts about the program’s value. “We are crime prevention; an audit report will never show how much we prevent.”

In one example, Peterson outlined an incident at Atlantic Technical College in Coconut Creek and described what he did after receiving a call about an alarm in the school’s cafeteria.

“And right there I knew, because I’ve been at the school for many years, I knew right when I heard the cafeteria alarm, you know when you get the hairs on the back of your neck going up, I said, ‘That never goes off,’ ” he said. “I ran into my trailer, I grabbed my firearm and my ID and my shorts and my sneakers and I ran over to the cafeteria.

“As I got to the cafeteria, sure enough, there were four males inside the cafeteria. They saw me peeking through the glass, they obviously fled. I chased them, I’m getting older, but I started chasing them, I identified who I was and as ironic as it may seem, they ran right towards my trailer.

“So they ran past, jumped over the fence, I jumped into my car, I apprehended two of them … threw them in the back, kept going, grabbed the other two,” he said.

Despite President Donald Trump’s declarations Friday that Peterson “probably doesn’t know the children,” the state Department of Children and Families said the deputy knew of former Stoneman Douglas student Nikolas Cruz, 19, who was arrested and charged with being the gunman.

Peterson had at least two interactions with him in recent years, the agency said.

Peterson refused to share any information with a DCF investigator regarding an incident involving Cruz but confirmed that staff from Henderson Behavioral Health in Fort Lauderdale visited Douglas High School, assessed Cruz and did not hospitalize him, according to an agency investigation initiated in September 2016.

In February of that year, the Broward Sheriff’s Office received a tip that Cruz said he planned to shoot up a school, the DCF said Thursday. A deputy responded, and details were eventually forwarded to Peterson, the agency said.

After Peterson resigned Thursday, a Stoneman Douglas teacher came to his defense, arguing that the 6-foot-5-inch officer could not have stopped Cruz.

“There is no one that is going to tell you a negative thing about Deputy Peterson,” said ninth-grade English teacher Felicia Burgin. “I don’t know what he could have done other than literally died.”

Todd Fitz-Gerald, a science teacher and baseball coach at Marjory Stoneman Douglas, said he knew Peterson as a good man. The two met when Fitz-Gerald accidentally ran into Peterson’s service vehicle and caused some fender-bender damage. He said the latest news left him extremely disappointed.

“If I were armed, I would have gone into that building,” he said.

An Illinois native who resides in a suburb of Boynton Beach, Peterson attended Miami Beach Senior High School and earned an associate in arts degree from Miami Dade Community College. In 1988, he graduated with honors from Florida International University, with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice. While in college, he worked several security guard jobs in Miami-Dade County and as a “deli man” at a food shop in Bay Harbor Islands, according to documents provided by the sheriff’s office.

Peterson was divorced twice. He had four children during his first marriage, which lasted 14 years, court records show.

The divorce was final in 2001. Court records show the terms of the couple’s divorce were the subject of court filings until 2017. The terms of their split were renegotiated a number of times. Peterson remarried five months after his first divorce was finalized.

Serafino Ferrante, who lived in a house next door to where Peterson lived with his first wife and children, said he remembers the deputy as charming and good to his neighbors. The name rang a bell immediately, even though Ferrante now lives in St. Augustine.

“I was extremely surprised,” Ferrante said. “I would never think he would do that.”

Peterson started with the Broward Sheriff’s Office in July 1985 and has been the school resource officer at Stoneman Douglas since 2009. His personnel record is filled with commendations. Four years ago, he was named school resource officer of the year. A year ago, a supervisor nominated him for Parkland deputy of the year.

In 2016, his annual base salary was $75,673.72, according to Sheriff’s Office records. Overtime and other compensation pushed the figure to $101,013.

Peterson, though, encountered trouble internally in 2015 when, by email, he questioned the management of the chief of the Broward District Schools Police. Anthony Williams, who then was the chief, supervised the residency program that Peterson defended before the school board. The sheriff’s office questioned Peterson’s discretion in sending the email, which he also sent to school board members. After an internal investigation, the sheriff’s office recommended counseling, according to a records report.

Still, for a performance review period ranging from February 2016 to February 2017, an evaluator concluded that Peterson either met or exceeded the expectations of his superiors in a variety of categories, including initiative, work performance, customer service, interpersonal skills, critical thinking and decision-making, safety, planning and organizing, and policy and procedures.

“Deputy Peterson is trusted as the School Resource officer at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland,” the evaluator wrote. “He values his position and takes pride in protecting the students, faculty and staff at his school.

“Deputy Peterson is dependable and reliable and handles issues that arise with tact and solid judgment. He is a positive influence on the students and they respect and appreciate his position.”