FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A civil lawsuit related to the 2018 mass shooting at a Florida high school will feature a reenactment using live ammunition and a bullet safety device, according to a judge’s endorsement on Thursday.
Circuit Judge Carol-Lisa Phillips approved the agreement reached by the attorneys for the victims’ families and former Broward Deputy Scot Peterson. The reenactment will take place on August 4th in a three-story classroom building at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Ballistics expert Bruce Koenig, testifying for the families, stated that live rounds have a different sound compared to blanks. The main issue in the lawsuit is determining what Peterson could hear during the shooting, which resulted in the deaths of 17 people and injury to 17 others.
“You want to imitate the situation as closely as possible,” said Koenig. He noted that blanks are “almost as loud, but there is definitely a difference.”
Peterson, the school’s former on-campus deputy, was recently acquitted of criminal charges related to his alleged inaction during the shooting. However, the civil case against him, which makes similar accusations, is still ongoing.
According to family attorney David Brill, the live rounds will be fired into a ballistic bullet trap commonly used in gun ranges and by law enforcement labs for safe ammunition containment.
“It is indeed perfectly safe and controlled,” stated Brill.
Peterson’s attorney, Michael Piper, explained that the endorsement means there will only be one reenactment instead of two as initially proposed. An attorney for the Broward County school board also supported this plan.
“We believe this is the best approach,” said Piper. “We don’t want to subject the community to the reenactment twice.”
The building, which remains untouched since the shooting, will be demolished once the legal action is completed, according to school officials. The reenactment will be based on school surveillance videos that provide a second-by-second account of the movements of Peterson and shooter Nikolas Cruz during the six-minute attack, in which approximately 140 rounds were fired.
Officials stated that victims and family members have already toured the building following the conclusion of the criminal trials, with the final visit taking place on Thursday.
Peterson, age 60, maintains that echoes prevented him from determining the source of the shots and that he would have entered the building had he known Cruz’s location. He retired shortly after the shooting but was later fired retroactively.
Cruz, a 24-year-old former Stoneman Douglas student, received a life sentence last year after the jury could not unanimously agree on the death penalty.
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