ONE YEAR LATER
Schools across Florida observe moment of silence at 10:17 for the 17 who lost their lives
People pause for a moment of silence near Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Thursday in Parkland, Fla., as they remember the lives lost during a mass shooting. Story on
PARKLAND, Fla. — Students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High and other schools across the U.S. bowed their heads in a moment of silence and took part in volunteer projects Thursday to mark the first anniversary of the shooting rampage that claimed 17 lives. But for many Parkland students, the tragedy was still so raw they couldn’t bring themselves to set foot in the building.
Fewer than 300 of the 3,200 students at the high school showed up for the half-day of classes, cut short so that the teens would not be there around 2:20 p.m., the traumatic moment last year when gunfire erupted.
Senior Spencer Bloom skipped school to spend the day with students from the history class he was in during the shooting. He said he struggles with panic attacks and feared he might have one if he went in to school.
“There’s all this emotion and it’s all being concentrated back on one day,” Spencer said.
The massacre on Feb. 14, 2018 — Valentine’s Day — inflamed the nation’s debate over guns, turned some Parkland students into political activists and gave rise to some of the biggest youth demonstrations since the Vietnam era.
Many Stoneman Douglas students arrived wearing the #MSDStrong T-shirts that have become an emblem of the tragedy. Outside, clear plastic figurines of angels were erected for each of the 14 students and three staff members killed.
A moment of silence was observed at the school and elsewhere in the nation at 10:17 a.m., a time selected to denote the 17 slain.
Reporters were not allowed inside the school, but students packed lunches for poor children in Haiti as part of a number of volunteer projects undertaken to try to create something good out of the tragedy.
Grief counselors and therapy dogs were available along with massages and pedicures. An interfaith service was held later in the day at a nearby park.
Freshman Jayden Jaus, 14, said the moment of silence was “a bit emotional and a little intense” as the principal read the victims’ names over the public address system.
Sophomore Julia Brighton, who suffered nightmares for months after the gunman killed three people in her classroom, placed flowers at the memorial outdoors instead of going inside and “putting myself through that.”
Victims’ families said they would spend the day quietly, visiting their loved ones’ graves or participating in low-key events like a community walk.
Lori Alhadeff posted an open letter to her 14-yearold daughter Alyssa, who died in the shooting. Ms. Alhadeff remembered how Alyssa didn’t want to go to school because she didn’t have a valentine. When she dropped her daughter off, she put a pair of diamond earrings in Alyssa’s ears and gave her a chocolate bar to make her smile.
They told each other, “I love you,” and Ms. Alhadeff watched Alyssa walk away. Ms. Alhadeff was elected to the Broward County school board after the shooting on a platform pushing campus safety.
Victim Joaquin Oliver’s girlfriend, senior Tori Gonzalez, organized students and alumni to read poems to a crowd outside the school in the late afternoon. “My mind runs each and every route that could have saved your life,” she read tearfully. “It wasn’t Cupid shooting arrows of love — it was an AR-15.”
More than a thousand people gathered in the evening at nearby Pine Trails Park for an interfaith service that opened with a video highlighting service projects launched in honor of the victims, including plantings at a beach to halt erosion and a campaign to help abandoned animals.
At Boardman High School near Youngstown, Ohio, the school rang a chime 17 times. But in a sign of the times, an active shooter drill also was held.
Jack Pendleton, a senior at Boardman, helped plan the day’s anniversary activities, which included recognition of first responders. “We turn away from the dread and have to look more toward who’s helping us,” he said.
The student accused of the Parkland attack, Nikolas Cruz, now 20, is awaiting trial.