The Broward Sheriff’s Office (BSO) is headed to trial over its deputies’ response to the 2018 Parkland massacre, an appellate panel ruled this week.
The 4th District Court of Appeal rejected the agency’s argument that sovereign immunity shields it from a consolidated civil suit more than 50 victims and family members brought.
Judges in the case drew a line between the statutory protection afforded to an agency’s written policies and the absence of such protection for how officers behave in a crisis.
That decision clears the final significant hurdle before what is now the only unresolved litigation arising from the Feb. 14, 2018, mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
The consolidated case has never reached a jury; to date, the litigation has consisted only of motion practice and appeals.
Broward Chief Administrative Judge Carol-Lisa Phillips, who had penciled in an August start while awaiting the appellate ruling, has set jury selection for March 17.
The Broward County School District, FBI and the federal government all previously resolved claims. The Sheriff’s Office alone has not.
David Brill, who represents plaintiffs, told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel he believes the agency is running out the clock.
Florida’s sovereign immunity law — a centuries-old standard designed to shield governments and their agencies from costly lawsuits — caps government liability at $300,000 for an incident involving multiple victims. Anything beyond that requires lawmakers to approve a separate claims bill — a prospect Brill said diminishes each passing year.
Victims’ families remain frustrated. Max Schachter, whose 14-year-old son Alex died in the shooting, told NBC 6 the case reaches beyond the school resource officer who never entered the building, faulting eight additional BSO deputies who arrived and remained outside.
He noted that Sheriff Gregory Tony, who did not lead the agency in 2018, has publicly conceded fault, saying at a 2024 dedication of a training center honoring the victims that the BSO had “blood on our hands,” according to WPLG Local 10.
Scott Israel was Sheriff during the shooting. Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended him in January 2019, naming Tony as his replacement.
Tony defeated Israel in a contentious Democratic Primary the following year.
Nikolas Cruz, a former student, killed 17 students and staff members and wounded 17 others during the roughly six-minute 2018 rampage, carried out with a semiautomatic rifle as the school day wound down.
He pleaded guilty and received 34 consecutive life terms in 2022, prompting outrage among those who expected he’d receive the death penalty. The following year, state lawmakers passed legislation lowering the threshold to a two-thirds majority for jurors to impose capital punishment.
Then-Deputy Scot Peterson — the school resource officer who took position outside the school but never engaged, later telling investigators he could not pinpoint the gunfire’s origin — was tried individually on criminal charges. Jurors acquitted him in May 2023. He remains a defendant in the civil case.
In November, the BSO scored a court win after the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the shooting constituted a single insurable event, obligating the agency’s insurer, Evanston Insurance, to cover costs after one $500,000 retention rather than dozens.
