US SCHOOL SHOOTING Students rally as outrage grows over the latest deaths.
After a gunman kills 17, including students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, shattered survivors unite to demand stricter laws—and an end to gun violence
Melissa Falkowski heard the sound of the fire alarm as classes were ending on Valentine’s Day and thought to herself that it was strange to have a drill at the school day’s end. The Parkland, Florida, English teacher began shepherding her students into the second-floor hallway and towards the stairs of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. The group had taken only 15 or 20 steps, she says, when it became chillingly clear it was no drill. “No! Go back! Code red!” a school safety officer yelled. Falkowski and her students hurried into a darkened storage room, where the glow of their phones provided the only light as well as confirmation of the horror that was taking place outside. “There’s a shooter in my hallway,” one teacher texted Falkowski. Another said she’d lost two students and had been grazed by a bullet.
By the time the police arrived at the locked room an hour and 15 minutes later, 17 innocent victims had lost their lives. “You hear that a friend was shot, another person was shot,” says survivor Nicole Baltzer, 18, who was in trigonometry class when shots rang out. “And you just want to go through your skin. You never know that kind of
trauma until the shots ring out, the sounds that are killing people ... There is no feeling like it.”
Police say former Stoneman Douglas student Nikolas Cruz, 19, armed with multiple magazines of ammunition, walked through the school firing an AR-15 assault rifle. He has been charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder and has yet to enter a plea. As authorities try to piece together how the alleged shooter—who had been expelled from the school the year before for disciplinary reasons— had legally bought rifles and ammunition after multiple calls and tips to authorities about his disturbing behaviour, the Parkland community is struggling to cope with shock, loss and anger. “It shouldn’t have happened after Columbine. It shouldn’t have happened after Sandy Hook,” says Alex Wind, 17, of the sad legacy of mass shooting and murder at schools around America. “Now it is us, and it will never happen again. We are determined.” Inside the life-changing moments of horror and heroism at Marjory Stoneman Douglas:
LAUREN HOGG, 14, STUDENT
My dad is a former FBI agent, and he tells me to be aware of my surroundings, so I knew something was wrong even when everyone thought it was a fake alarm. We were hiding in a classroom behind a board, and everyone got different texts: “Oh my God, gunshots. They are shooting through my door.” I was holding hands with people I never even talked to before. Some kids who thought it was a joke were laughing. People were screaming at them, “Shut up!” It finally hit them when we heard someone come down the hall. It was dead silent then. I never knew silence could be so loud.
ANA ARROYO, 16, STUDENT JORDYN LAUDANNO, 17, STUDENT
We were all talking, thinking everything is fine, and I look up and people coming towards us had these terrified looks on their faces. Then I heard at least six gunshots, and I saw a couple of people go down. I didn’t know if they were ducking or got shot. We were running from the
“No-one is OK. We need gun control. I hope this is the last straw” —student Jordyn Laudanno
shooter, and I didn’t know if he was getting closer. I just kept hearing gunshots. She says she hid in a closet with about 50 people until a SWAT team came.
They had their guns pointed at us to make sure the shooter wasn’t with us, and they were screaming at us. That’s when I knew I was going to throw up. They told us, “Keep your eyes forward and straight ahead.” They didn’t want us to see any blood or dead bodies.
THE FIRST RESPONDER WITH THE CORAL SPRINGS/PARKLAND FIRE DEPARTMENT
It was 3,000 kids all running for their lives. There was one girl who had just sat on the sidewalk. I was telling her she had to come to safety, but she just looked at me, almost catatonic. So I grabbed her under her armpits and lifted her up. There were kids who wanted to go back and fight. I saw boys and girls walking away from the school just wailing.
LEANNE CROWELL, 40, MOTHER OF TWO
Her daughter Morgan, 16, texted that she was safe. But there was no word from son Aaron, 14. Crowell joined the desperate chaos at Broward North hospital.
It wasn’t just parents who showed up. Aunts and uncles and grandparents were everywhere because no-one knew where their kids were, so they’d call family to help look. I sat on the waiting-room floor and had already decided to check the morgue if I couldn’t find Aaron at the hospital. [After finding out her children were at a nearby
park] I actually ran there on foot. I held them so tight, and we just cried. That night I checked on the kids like 10 times while they slept. Even now I feel like I’m about to lose it.
JOAN COX, 51, AUNT OF VICTIM LUKE HOYER
We were hoping it wasn’t him. Parents who hadn’t made a connection were told to go to the Marriott. So [ his parents] Gena and Tom went there, and around 12.30 AM they came in and told them Luke was one of them [who died]. It doesn’t feel real. Gena said, “Joan, I took him to school and never thought I wouldn’t see him again.” He got out of the car, and it was like a regular day.
By Sandra Sobieraj Westfall, Elaine Aradillas and Jeff Truesdell. Reporting by K.C. Baker, Chris Harris, Steve Helling, Caitlin Keating, Christine Pelisek, Becky Randel and Harriet Sokmensuer.