Pupils make an emotional return to Florida school after fatal shootings
▶ Classroom was left intact, with notebooks still on desks and the calendar set to the day of the carnage
Pupils and teachers consoled each other and called for swift action to be taken on gun control, as they returned to a Florida school for the first time since 17 people were shot dead there.
“Imagine being in a plane crash and then having to get on the same plane every day and fly somewhere else – it’s never going to be the same,” David Hogg, a survivor of the February 14 shooting at the Parkland high school, told ABC television’s This Week.
The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School held a voluntary orientation day on Sunday, with teachers and staff due back yesterday and classes to resume tomorrow – a prospect described as daunting and scary, but also a step for survivors to move on after the attack.
One teacher who had already been back told National Public Radio the shock of returning to a classroom that was left exactly as it was during the carnage – notebooks still on desks, the calendar still set to February 14 – made her so physically ill she had to leave.
But Cameron Kasky, a pupil who survived the slaughter, tweeted a picture of people on campus, saying: “It is good to be home.”
“I have all my friends here with me and it just makes me feel like I’m not alone in this situation,” said pupil Michelle Dittmeier, who attended the orientation.
The school also received support from former pupils who made banners to decorate the buildings, WSVN TV news reported.
In Fort Lauderdale on Sunday night, religious leaders gathered for an interfaith vigil at which 17 chairs were left empty in memory of the victims, after protesters gathered outside the Kalashnikov US gun factory in nearby Pompano Beach.
“Gun reform now,” read one of the protesters’ signs, while another called for the “death factory” to be shut.
With ardent demands by pupils for action, President Donald Trump said he was open to raising the minimum age for buying guns and to banning “bump stocks”, which can convert semi-automatic weapons to automatic. They were not used in the Parkland killings.
Speaking at the Governors’ Ball before meetings with the top officials from all 50 states yesterday, Mr Trump said school safety was a top priority: “I think we’ll make that first on our list.”
A CNN poll conducted a week after the Florida shooting shows surging public support for stricter gun laws – surpassing levels reached after other horrific shootings in recent years – and for a ban on powerful semi-automatic weapons such as the AR-15, which was used in Parkland.
Seventy per cent of those surveyed said they supported stricter gun laws, up from 52 per cent in October, and 57 per cent favoured a ban on semi-automatic guns, arise from 49 per cent.
The US has more than 30,000 gun-related deaths a year. Florida Governor Rick Scott has laid out a plan to put a police officer at every public school in the state, raise the legal age for buying guns to 21 from 18, and pass a “red flag” law for authorities to more easily remove guns from the mentally ill or people with violent histories.
The age change and “red flag” law are staunchly opposed by the influential National Rifle Association, of which Mr Scott is a member.
Mr Scott, who holds the NRA’s highest rating of A+, said on
Fox News Sunday: “There will be some that disagree. But I want my state to be safe.”
Dana Loesch, an NRA spokeswoman, said that her organisation opposed most of the proposed gun measures.
Ms Loesch put the blame on politicians for their inaction and on law enforcement, specifically the Broward County Sheriff’s office, which she said had warnings about Nikolas Cruz, 19, who is charged in the killings.
She accused the sheriff’s office of “abdication of duty” for not arresting Cruz sooner. In an often contentious interview on CNN, Sheriff Scott Israel strongly defended his officers’ work.
Of the 23 calls to his department about Cruz’s erratic or threatening behaviour, nearly all were minor and had been handled appropriately and a few others were being investigated, Mr Israel said.
Mr Trump has also proposed arming some teachers, a step many teachers oppose.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, told C-Span that “it’s a terrible idea, period, full stop”.
Ms Weingarten said that children, parents and teachers, “want schools to be safe sanctuaries for teaching and learning, not armed fortresses”.
Delaney Tarr, another survivor of the shooting, said she was preparing herself as best as she could to return to school.
“It’s daunting and scary, because I don’t know if I’m going to be safe there,” Ms Tarr told Fox. “But I know that I have to.”