No closure two years after Santa Fe shooting
Family of student who would have turned 19 this month is doing everything it can to stop carnage in American schools
On Friday, May 18, 2018, a gunman entered Santa Fe High School. In less than five minutes, 10 innocent people were brutally murdered, 13 wounded and an entire community shaken to its very core. One of the 10 people who lost their lives that day was my nephew, Jared Conard Black. Two years later, that day still plays out like a reoccurring nightmare.
We must have the difficult conversations and debates on topics that at times make people uncomfortable. The public reaction to school shootings falls into a predictable pattern, and nothing changes. While we must not forget to listen to opposing views, we are not pushing for gun control. As painful as it is, I’m compelled to share the story of what happened to our family and how we are working for change.
I was at work that morning and happened to open up Facebook on my phone. The first post that I saw was from my sister’s husband. The post read, “Oh my God, there has been a shooting at the High School, and it started in Jared’s classroom.” Instantly my heart began to race and my hands began to shake. I repeated the word “no” several times and immediately called my sister. She answered the phone and was crying so hard that I could barely understand her.
I asked her, “Is Jared OK?”
She replied, “I don’t know yet.” She told me she was on her way to the school to find him, and she would call me back.
I paced around with tears in my eyes. Jared must be so scared. What if he got hurt? I imagined being in a hospital room and holding him,
attempting to comfort him from the terror that he had witnessed.
I do not recall 100 percent if the communications were phone calls or text messages. I do remember calling one of my brothers. He lives on the West Coast, and there is a two-hour time difference. He answered the phone and quietly told me that he was in a meeting at work. I told him about the shooting. His voice cracked a bit, and he stammered with his words. By now I had heard back from my sister, that all of the parents had been sent to a different school facility to be reunited with their children, and Jared wasn’t there. There was a brief moment of silence. He asked if our mother knew yet, and I told him no. He said that he was on his way home and that he would call our mother.
After I hung up with my brother, I called my wife. She could immediately tell from the sound of my voice that something was terribly wrong. I told her what had happened at Jared’s school and told her to meet me at home. I was already on my way to the house and told her we had to get to Santa Fe, nearly a 600mile drive from where we live in Odessa. Once I got home I turned on the television. The headline scrolled across the bottom of the screen, “Ten dead at Santa Fe High school in Texas.” I fell to my knees and started crying uncontrollably.
I regained my composure and was hastily shoving items into a backpack when my wife came home. I grabbed her and hugged her tighter than I ever have before. Her head on my shoulder, her tears staining my shirt. We ran to the car and hit the road. I was driving through San Antonio at about 90 mph when my phone rang. It was my sister. I answered the phone with a shaky hello. She said I needed to pull over. I was driving on the interstate, and that wasn’t an option. My voice quivered as I said, “Just say it sister.” Her voice trembled as she spoke the words that we had feared for hours were coming. “Jared didn’t make it.”
When I arrived at my sister’s house, I thought I was going to see my sister and hug her tight. Tell her how sorry I was. What I didn’t realize is the person that I had known my entire life didn’t exist anymore. I was merely holding the shell of the person she once was. Her eyes were not the same; you could see the sadness of her soul.
Even though completely shaken, the Santa Fe community rallied in support. The amount of love and compassion shown to our family over the next several days still makes me tear up to this day.
A few days after the shooting, I found myself sitting in a hotel room with a tablet of paper and a pen. I sat down to write a eulogy for Jared. In the first 10 minutes, no words flowed. As I began writing, tear drops stained my paper. It wasn’t until I was standing at the church, reading those words out loud, that the realness set in. Looking out and seeing my family in tears is an image that I cannot remove from my mind. As I looked across the crowd I noticed a blue wall formed at the back of the church. Police from every local agency were standing in service, tears in their eyes making sure that our funeral services were not interrupted.
As time began to pass following that day, I began writing.
Putting ink to paper seemed to be therapeutic. I also started to become involved in conversations about school safety. I was consumed with it. I started communicating with the Workplace Violence Prevention Institute out of Orlando, Fla.
Participation was key to making change.
Our family’s biggest wish is that no other family will have to endure the tragedy and heartbreak that we face on a daily basis. We are focused on prevention and prosecution. Too often, ideas to end school shootings do not make it beyond debates around the Second Amendment. There are other avenues for progress. It is our goal to have school shootings classified as an act of domestic terrorism and to hold parents accountable. By declaring these horrific events as acts of domestic terrorism, it would allow our nation’s intelligence agencies to use their resources for preventing these tragedies from taking place.
In March 2019, Santa Fe families met with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and members of the FBI to discuss pursuing federal charges against the shooter so he would face a harsher penalty in the federal system. At this meeting, the families were informed that the Department of Justice had made the decision not to do so.
We were all quite angered by the news and swore that we would not be quiet about it.
Within a few days of reaching out to Sen. John Cornyn’s office, I received a phone call from his chief counsel, a man named Carter Burwell. We also spoke about our wish to amend the Patriot Act to classify school shootings as acts of domestic terrorism. Burwell mentioned that doing so would most likely face legal challenges as the Patriot Act was a controversial piece of legislation.
We pleaded our case to have the Patriot Act amended and discussed our support for H.R. 838, the TAPS (Threat Assessment Prevention and Safety) Act with Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. We had a real heart-toheart conversation with Cornyn, and we left the meeting with a sense of accomplishment. Less than 24 hours later, before my plane landed in Texas, we received word that Cornyn was co-sponsoring the TAPS Act in the Senate. Our hearts were full of appreciation and respect for him.
While we support this legislation wholeheartedly, the speed at which legislation moves through Congress is frustrating, and we have sought an executive order. If swift actions are not taken, the carnage of this national epidemic of violence will continue to devastate communities and families across the country.
While having these acts classified as domestic terrorism, we also seek parental accountability. This part of our petition seems to be the most controversial. We feel that holding the parents of juveniles who commit murder and mass murder accountable is key to prevention. The U.S. Secret Service report finds that 70 percent of school shooters obtained the guns used from their homes or the homes of family members. Knowing what your children are doing and monitoring their social media and cellphone use may seem as an invasion of privacy to some. But we see it as good parenting. Some people are infuriated at the prospect of putting parents in jail for the crimes of their children. If your 10-year-old child gets a handgun from your desk drawer and accidentally shoots their sibling, as parents you are considered criminally negligent. But when your teenage child obtains your weapon, takes it to school and kills innocent people, there are no consequences. Where would you draw that line?
On May 16, we celebrated what would have been Jared’s 19th birthday. Two years have now passed without any sort of justice. With the shooter being deemed incompetent to stand trial, there appears to be no justice in sight. Without a trial, we are left with no answers to the questions that haunt us. Our family cannot even get a copy of the medical examiners report or any kind of details of Jared’s last moments. The pain of his loss is still as fresh as the day he died. We have lost faith in the criminal justice system. The victims have fewer rights than the perpetrator who took their lives. The grief of his loss fuels our drive to make changes on a national level.
For the last 20-plus years, shootings have become more frequent, and sadly there is now a sense of normalcy attached to these events. Almost an acceptance that stains our country. Until we as a nation finally stand up and say that we will not tolerate this anymore, and take action, the carnage will continue.
Conard lives in Odessa.