Broward County releases 911 calls from Parkland shooting

The Broward County Sheriff’s Office on Thursday released audio from 10 of the 81 emergency calls it received in response to the mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., on Feb. 14. The callers ranged from neighbors, who calmly reported hearing what they thought sounded like gunshots coming from the direction of the campus, to frantic parents reporting eyewitness accounts texted to them by their children. One mother’s voice rose as she recounted her daughter’s message to the dispatcher: “Three shot in her room. Oh my God. Oh my God.” The released recordings also include police radio traffic between responding officers. Accused shooter Nikolas Cruz spent about six minutes in the school’s freshman building, shooting periodically with his AR-15 rifle. The first 911 call came in about 68 seconds after Cruz opened fire, and sheriff’s deputies arrived about two minutes after that. Police radio traffic shows it took Deputy Scot Peterson, the school’s resource officer, only about 90 seconds to head toward the scene after Cruz fired the first shots. But Peterson ordered the other deputies to set up a perimeter around the building, blocking streets and staying away from the scene. In the days after the shooting, Sheriff Scott Israel criticized Peterson for not engaging Cruz.