FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - A Florida sheriff’s deputy was acquitted Thursday of felony child neglect and other charges for failing to act during the 2018 Parkland school massacre, concluding the first trial in U.S. history of a law enforcement officer for conduct during an on-campus shooting.

Former Broward County Deputy Scot Peterson wept as the verdicts were read, while the fathers of two students murdered at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb, 14, 2018, stared straight ahead and quickly left the courtroom. The jury had deliberated for 19 hours over four days.

“I got my life back. We’ve got our life back,” Peterson said as he exited the courtroom, his arm around his wife, Lydia Rodriguez, and his lawyer, Mark Eiglarsh. He has insisted that he would have confronted the shooter Nikolas Cruz, but because of echoes, he didn’t know where the shots were coming from.

“It’s been an emotional roller coaster for so long.”

He also said people should never forget the victims.

“Only one person was to blame and it was that monster (Cruz),” Peterson said. “It wasn’t any of the law enforcement who was on that scene. ... Everybody did the best they could with the information we had.”

Peterson said he hopes to one day sit down with the Parkland parents and spouses - some of whom have publicly called him “the coward of Broward.” He wants to tell them “the truth,” that he did everything he could.

The campus deputy at Stoneman Douglas, Peterson had been charged with failing to confront shooter Cruz during his six-minute attack inside the three-story 1200 classroom building that left 17 dead.

Pleasant Valley graduate Chris Hixon was killed in the shooting. A former wrestler at Pleasant Valley, he died trying to rescue students. Pleasant Valley has dedicated its high school fitness center in his honor.

His charges were in connection to the six killed and four wounded on the third floor, who were shot more than a minute after he approached the building. Prosecutors did not charge Peterson in connection with the 11 killed and 13 wounded on the first floor before he arrived. No one was shot on the second floor.

Prosecutors were using a novel legal theory against Peterson, that as the school’s assigned deputy he was legally a “caregiver” to its students - a requirement for him to be guilty of child neglect. Florida law defines a caregiver as “a parent, adult household member or other person responsible for a child’s welfare.” If jurors found Peterson was a caregiver, they also would have had to agree he failed to make a “reasonable effort” to protect the children or failed to provide necessary care.

He could have received nearly 100 years in prison, although a sentence even approaching that length would have been highly unlikely given the circumstances and his clean record. He also could have lost his $104,000 annual pension.

Security videos show that 36 seconds after Cruz’s attack began, Peterson exited his office about 100 yards (92 meters) from the 1200 building and jumped into a cart with two unarmed civilian security guards. They arrived at the building a minute later. Peterson got out of the cart near the east doorway to the first-floor hallway. Cruz was at the hallway’s opposite end, firing his AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle.

Peterson, who was not wearing a bullet-resistant vest, didn’t open the door. Instead, he took cover 75 feet away in the alcove of a neighboring building, his gun still drawn. He stayed there for 40 minutes, long after the shooting ended and other police officers had stormed the building.

Peterson spent nearly three decades working at schools, including nine years at Stoneman Douglas. He retired shortly after the shooting and was then fired retroactively.

Cruz’s jury could not unanimously agree he deserved the death penalty. The 24-year-old former Stoneman Douglas student was then sentenced to life in prison.