Newly released surveillance videos show the chaotic scene that unfolded outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in February as a gunman opened fire in the hallways within.
The footage, made public Wednesday by the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, displays blurred images of students hurrying out of the school in the moments after the deadly shooting and police officers, with their guns drawn, scanning the grounds in search of the shooter.
The recordings had been the subject of a monthslong court battle between a coalition of media outlets and county officials. The media outlets, which included CNN, the South Florida Sun Sentinel and the Miami Herald, had filed suit against the school board and Broward County Sheriff’s Office in late February after they were denied access to the videos.
The outlets said they hoped the recordings would shed more light on the immediate police response to the shooting. However, as CNN noted, the footage — taken from exterior cameras on campus and not inside the school building where the shooting took place — does not appear to reveal anything new about the massacre’s immediate aftermath.
Surveillance video released in March showed how Scot Peterson, the sheriff’s deputy working at the school, stood outside as the shooting unfolded, but didn’t provide much detail beyond that.
Yet it did prompt Parkland students and parents to sue the county, its sheriff and the school superintendent for “severe psychological injury and trauma.”