(Reuters) — Gunfire rang out again at Florida's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Friday, this time as part of a reenactment of the shooting five years ago that killed 14 students and three faculty members.
The re-staging of the school shooting, one of the deadliest in U.S. history, was part of a civil lawsuit against Scot Peterson, a police officer who was stationed outside the Parkland, Florida, high school when the gunfire began on Feb. 14, 2018.
Lawyers for the families of the victims and survivors who filed the lawsuit have said surveillance video and the re-enactment would prove that Peterson heard the 70-plus shots but avoided confronting the gunman.
"That reenactment will hopefully help us obtain justice in the court system, justice which has so far eluded our families," Tony Montalto, whose daughter Gina was killed in the shooting, said at a news conference on Friday.
In June, Peterson was acquitted by a Florida jury of criminal charges of child neglect, culpable negligence and perjury connected the shooting.
Peterson has maintained that he had remained outside because he could not determine the source of the gunfire.
His lawyer, Michael Piper, said in a statement that multiple witnesses had testified in the criminal case that they perceived shots coming from all over the campus.
Broward County Circuit Court Judge Carol-Lisa Phillips has not yet ruled on whether the audio and video recordings of the re-enactment will be admissible at trial. Plaintiffs are seeking unspecified damages in the case.
On Friday, gunfire was heard coming from the Parkland campus at about midday, the Sun Sentinel reported. Ballistic experts were expected to fire up to 139 live rounds to recreate the sounds that emanated from the building during the 2018 shooting, the newspaper reported.
The Parkland shooting triggered a movement among youth and parents of gun violence victims to push for stricter gun laws, but most of the reforms they advocated have withered in state legislatures and the U.S. Congress.
Mass shootings have become commonplace in the U.S. There have been 423 so far in 2023, the most at this point of the year since 2016, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The nonprofit group defines a mass shooting as four or more people shot or killed, not including the shooter.
Ahead of the re-enactment, nine members of Congress and family members of victims toured the school building.
The building is scheduled to be demolished after the re-enactment. It has remained largely unaltered since the 2018 shooting, with bloodstains and bullet holes still visible.
The shooter, Nikolas Cruz, a former student at the school who was 19 at the time of the massacre, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life without parole in 2022.
