PARKLAND, Fla. – At least one Broward County sheriff's deputy knew gunman Nikolas Cruz was inside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, but the deputy did not engage Cruz and instead took cover behind a tree, according to newly released reports from the Coral Springs Police Department.
"As I was advancing on foot through the chained link fence, I was advised by an unknown B.S.O. Deputy taking cover behind a tree," Coral Springs officer Bryan Wilkins said in a report describing how his department responded to the Feb. 14 shooting, which killed 17 people and wounded more than a dozen others.
"He is on the third floor," the unnamed deputy told Wilkins, according to the report.
Coral Springs Sgt. Nicolas Mazzei wrote in another report that he passed several Broward deputies "who were taking positions along Holmberg Road" as he raced to the site of the shooting in his patrol car.
Multiple law enforcement agencies responded to the shooting at the Parkland high school including the Broward County Sheriff's Office and the Coral Spring and Coconut Creek police departments.
The Broward County Sheriff's Office has come under intense criticism for how its deputies responded to the shooting.
School resource officer Scot Peterson, a BSO employee, resigned after Sheriff Scott Israel said Peterson did not engage Cruz and remained outside the building during the shooting. Through his lawyer, Peterson said he was unsure where the gunfire was coming from.
However, Coral Springs police officials have told news outlets that other Broward County deputies in addition to Peterson failed to enter the building when they arrived -- something that Israel has disputed.
Records released by the sheriff's office said law enforcement officers entered the school 11 minutes after the shooting began.
Officers from the Coral Springs department were some of the first officers inside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School after the shooting.
"Even through we did not hear gunfire, I made the decision to begin clearing the building because we still believed that the gunman was in the building, and we knew that there were multiple victims that needed rescuing," Mazzei said.
The reports released Tuesday describe how officers found dead bodies, victims bleeding from gunshot wounds and other survivors hiding in classrooms and bathrooms.
"The first floor hallway was full of smoke and multiple spent rifle rounds were observed on the ground," Mazzei said. "As we continued to clear the first floor, we made contact with a male student hiding in the bathroom, he immediately evacuated."
Wilkins said he entered the through the west side of the building with a Broward sheriff's deputy and a Coral Springs police detective.
"While advancing towards the building I saw numerous bullet hole to multiple windows and doors to building 1200," Wilkins said. "I smelled a strong odor of gun powder and saw more bodies of juveniles further east down the hall."
