‘WE’VE SEEN THE WORST OF HUMANITY’
More than 150,000 students in 170 schools across the US have experienced campus shootings since the 1999 Columbine school massacre in Colorado. Wednesday’s Florida carnage in which 17 people were killed was the 18th US school shooting this year.
Florida shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz was charged yesterday with 17 counts of premeditated murder as yet another community grappled with grief and horror in the aftermath of a school gun rampage, the deadliest in more than five years.
With new details emerging about the 19-year-old former student’s troubled background, President Donald Trump said that the nation should take unspecified action on mental health issues.
“Yesterday, a school filled with innocent children and caring teachers became the scene of terrible violence, hatred and evil,” Trump said in a statement from the White House. He ignored a question about gun control after his statement, and said nothing about guns or gun laws in his address. He said that the US must “tackle the difficult issue of mental health,” but offered no specifics.
Authorities combed the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, a suburb of Fort Lauderdale, for more clues, struggling to piece together the chaotic and lethal series of events that unfolded on Wednesday as the shooter stalked the halls and classrooms with an AR15 semiautomatic weapon.
Young survivors, community leaders and Florida’s governor all pleaded for action to prevent gun violence. “This has been a day we’ve seen the worst of humanity,” said Broward County Public Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie. He said: “Now, now is the time for this country to have a real conversation on sensible gun control laws in this country.” “Our students are asking for that conversation. I hope we can get it done in this generation, but if we don’t, they will.”
The FBI yesterday said it received information about a comment made on a YouTube channel that has been attributed to the gunman, but were unable to identify the person.
Again? Jim Gard wondered as the fire alarm blared through the classrooms and hallways of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
It was around 2.20pm, the school day crawling toward final dismissal. Gard was leading his advanced math class through logarithms — exponential growth and decay — in preparation for a test. The South Florida campus had already had one fire drill that morning. Two drills on the same day? Weird, he thought, figuring it was an accident. “We have a cooking department,” the veteran teacher told The Washington
Post on Wednesday. “They burn things sometimes.”
But then the school’s public address system squawked: evacuate. Gard’s kids were heading out of his second-floor classroom when they heard a string of pops — sharp and staccato.
“Everyone back in the classroom,” he yelled from the doorway. Only six of his students hustled back inside. The system then barked again: code red. That meant active shooter, Gard knew from his training. He snapped the classroom’s locks, cut the lights, and huddled his students into a closet at the back of the room.
Even then Gard wondered if this was not some kind of elaborate test. He didn’t own a firearm, didn’t know how real gunshots sounded. The school had also talked about inviting law enforcement to the campus for an active shooter exercise, an unannounced staging to see if after all the training and assemblies and talks about awareness Stoneman Douglas was ready for the worstcase scenario.
Gard and his students waited. When the teacher heard helicopters thump overhead and the growing scream of police sirens, he knew what was happening outside his classroom was no drill. On Wednesday an armed shooter attacked the campus, a massive high school serving about 3,000 students in Parkland. The Broward County Sheriff’s Office identified the attacker as Nikolas Cruz, a 19-yearold who had previously attended the school but was kicked out for “disciplinary reasons.”
According to law enforcement, Cruz, armed with an AR-15 rifle, marched through the hallways shooting students and staff, firing his weapon into classroom windows. Seventeen people were killed in the attack.
Mixed with the shock of the attack is a familiar frustration.
Since the 1999 Columbine shooting in Colorado, more than 150,000 students attending at least 170 schools have experienced campus shootings. The Parkland shooting is
now among the top 10 deadliest mass shootings in US history. Three of the incidents on the list have happened in the last five months. Like many high schools today, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School trained for an attack.
“We did everything that we were supposed to do,” Melissa Falkowski, a teacher at the school, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper. “Broward County has prepared us for this situation and still to have so many casualties, at least for me, it’s very emotional.”
Students echoed the same sad resignation.
“I’m kind of surprised it happened here, but I’m not really shocked,” 17-year-old Ryan Kadel told the Post. “School shootings happen all the time, and then the news just forgets about them.”
Nathaneal Clark was in a classroom on the first floor when the gunshots sounded. The teacher locked the door. Clark did not realise the shots were real until debris started falling from the room’s walls as bullets slammed in from outside. “I heard a girl screaming for help,” Clark told reporters. “And he can’t open the door because if we open the door the shooter would come inside and kill all of us. I heard gunshots after the screams.”
I’m kind of surprised it happened here, but I’m not really shocked. School shootings happen all the time, and then the news just forgets about them.” Ryan Kadel | Student