Scot Peterson (left).Photo:Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP

Former Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School School Resource Officer Scot Peterson, left, and defense attorney Mark Eiglarsh stand as the jury enters the courtroom to be dismissed for the day after no verdict was announced in his trial at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Wednesday, June 28, 2023.

Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP

A jury has found Scot Peterson, the officer who did not enter the Parkland, Fla., high school where a gunman shot and killed 17 people in 2018, not guilty of child neglect and other charges related to his response to the school shooting, according to multiple reports.

Peterson, 60, broke down in tears after the verdict was read, NBC Newsreports. The charges had carried a potential maximum sentence of more than 96 years in prison.

The longtime school resource officer was at the center of an unprecedented trial. Prosecutors say Peterson failed to protect the victims of the high school massacre because he didn’t enter the building throughout the killings and instead took cover outside during the last four minutes and 15 seconds of the shooting.Peterson and his defense attorneys have maintained he did not know where gunshots were coming from during the Valentine’s Day attack atMarjory Stoneman Douglas High School– the deadliest high school shooting in U.S. history. Because of that, the armed school officer said he didn’t enter the building.

“To sit in the calmness of a courtroom that is chill and mellow and try to go back and Monday morning quarterback is unfair and unjust,” Peterson’s attorney Mark Eiglarsh had told the jury, according toCNN.

Prosecutors, however, argued Peterson’s decision to not enter the building left the shooter to continue killing “at his leisure” and that the officer “left children trapped inside of the building with a predator unchecked,” Assistant State Attorney Kristen Gomes told the jury.

Scot Peterson.Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP

Former MSD School Resource Officer Scot Peterson sits at the defense table during closing arguments in his trial, Monday, June 26, 2023

Scot Peterson (left).Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP

Defense attorney Mark Eiglarsh, right, shows former Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School School Resource Officer Scot Peterson a written question from the jury on the first full day of jury deliberations in his trial, Tuesday, June 27, 2023

The seven felony child neglect charges were specifically related to the eight students and two school employees who were killed or wounded on the third floor. Peterson was not charged in connection with the 11 people killed on the first floor before he arrived at the scene, according toThe Associated Press.

Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up forPEOPLE’s free True Crime newsletterfor breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases.Families of the 14 students and three staff members killed in the shooting have denounced Peterson as a “coward” in the years afterwards.

“I’ve been living a nightmare that I wouldn’t wish on anyone,” Peterson toldThe Washington Postahead of the trial.

The shooterwas sentenced to life in prison without parolelast year. Peterson had retired and moved roughly 750 miles away to a town in North Carolina.

source: people.com