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Judge: School officer who hid during shooting facing charges

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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A judge has ruled that the former school resource officer accused of hiding during a Florida mass school shooting will have to convince a jury that he wasn’t criminally negligent.

The Sun Sentinel reports that Broward Circuit Judge Martin Fein declined to dismiss the child negligence charges against former Broward County Deputy Scot Peterson.

Peterson had worked as a school resource officer at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.

Nikolas Cruz, who was 19 at the time of the February 2018 shooting, has been charged with 17 counts of first-degree murder and faces a possible death sentence if convicted.