‘I threw my phone. It hit him. He stumbled ... and then I ran for my life’
When he came face to face with a gunman in mid-rampage at his school, 14-year-old Isaah Jean was terrified.
The youngster had heard the first gunshots ring out and was fleeing for the exit when he encountered Nikolas Cruz, 19, armed with an assault rifle, in a second floor hallway.
Isaah had last seen Cruz in a nearby Dollar Store, where Cruz worked as a cashier. He had known then there was something “wrong” about him.
“When I came down the stairs from the third floor to the hallway I saw him. He turned and looked at me I didn’t know what to do,” said Isaah. But before Cruz could open fire, the younger boy reacted first, hurling the only weapon he had – his mobile phone – at the shooter.
“So I threw my phone at him,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “I saw it hit him somewhere around the face, and I saw him stumble backwards. Then I ran for the stairs.”
After escaping the building, and having heard no shots for a while, Isaah went back to the second floor, where he had thrown his phone.
He saw at least four bodies including that of Scott Beigel, his geography teacher. “I saw Mr Beigel ... I just didn’t know how to feel,” said the distraught teenager, who was on crutches after fracturing his ankle during the melee.
Cruz had worked at the Dollar Store after being expelled from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last year.
“He seemed confused,” Isaah said, recalling his encounter with Cruz at the store. “I remember he asked me if I liked strawberries. But I hadn’t bought any strawberries. One of my friends said he did drugs.” The teenager was
‘I should not have had to witness what I saw, and my sister should not have two dead best friends. She’s 14’
speaking hours before the arrival of Donald Trump in Florida, where he has said he will visit the scene where 17 people died.
Asked what he wanted to say to Mr Trump, Isaah said: “I want to tell him we need to get rid of the guns. Just because people have a clean record doesn’t mean they should be able to just go and buy a gun.”
Marlene, his mother, added: “It’s time for him (Mr Trump) to do something. It’s time for gun control. Think about the grieving families. It could be the next community, and the next school.” The tragedy happened in Parkdale, an affluent suburb north of Miami dotted with palm trees and million dollar homes.
In its wake there was an outpouring of calls from children themselves asking why adults had not done more to stop mass shootings in schools.
That was partly fuelled by the fact that, on this occasion, pupils shared videos taken during the attack on social media, allowing their friends to see the full horror.
One teenager, Aidan Minoff sent out a series of updates on Twitter as he hid under a desk during the shooting. And
Lewis Mizen, 17, originally from Coventry in the UK, described how he and other pupils locked in a cupboard were sharing information on their phones.
David Hogg, 17, a student journalist at the school, interviewed friends about their views on gun control while trapped in a classroom.
Later, he told The Daily Telegraph: “I should not have had to witness what I saw, and my sister should not have two dead best friends. She’s 14. How do you unsee that? The politicians are supposed to be the adults, and the fact we have to stand up as students is a testament to the broken and decrepit state America is in.
“People just seem to go tone deaf to his stuff and let it happen again and again, and children die.”
David said his message to Mr Trump would be: “Get back to DC. Honestly, start drafting legislation. I don’t want to see him at Mar-a-lago on vacation,” referring to Mr Trump’s Florida base.
He said young people should aim to create a situation where politicians fear they will not be re-elected if they continue to take donations from pro-gun groups like the National Rifle Association. He urged teenagers to contact their political representatives.
Meanwhile, Lori Alhadeff, a mother whose 14-year-old daughter Alyssa was among the dead, screamed into a CNN camera as she tried to change the minds of politicians.
“President Trump, you say what can you do? You can do a lot! Do something,” she shouted. “This is not fair to our families and our children to go to school and have to get killed!”
On a street corner near the school Robert Lopez, 32, had taken the day off work from a bank to stand with a sign reading “Time for a change!! More gun control!” Drivers honked their horns and gave him thumbs up signs. Before long several had spontaneously parked their cars, bought poster boards from a shop and joined him.
Mr Lopez said: “I’m just tired of things like this happening. There’s a debate about gun control but nothing happens. 17 people are dead and we have to do something about it.”
‘President Trump, you say what can you do? You can do a lot! This is not fair to our families and our children!’