Is it reasonable to expect a police officer, armed with a handgun to take on a shooter armed with an assault rifle?

“Scot Peterson was an armed resource officer at Stoneman Douglas the time of the shooting. Apparently he didn’t enter the building during the shooting. According to Sheriff Scott Israel, Scot Peterson should have “went in. Addressed the killer. Killed the killer.”

Is that a reasonable expectation when the killer is armed with superior firepower? A shooter has so many advantages in this situation because he has a very powerful and accurate weapon. He knows where the threats are, and he doesn’t have to worry about accidentally shooting someone. The resource officer has no idea if there are 1 or more shooters, who that person is or where they are. If he does happen to get in a situation where its 1 v 1 and he has a clear line of sight to the target without risk of anyone else getting in the line of fire, he’s still at a huge firepower disadvantage. That said, he’s being paid to keep the peace.

What do you think? Also bear in mind that it’s one thing to say I would do x, and a very different thing to say someone else is obligated to do x. Should this guy be crucified as a coward? or is he being scapegoated by the right-wing to protect assault weapons? Do we need to arm our resource officers with even more powerful weapons? How about fully automatic weapons?