Parkland father fights on for slain daughter
CORAL SPRINGS, Fla. – Ask Andrew Pollack what his life was like before Valentine’s Day, and he’ll say he used to be blessed.
He was a successful real estate agent. He went to the gym every day. He went out with friends and family. He went camping.
Pollack had plans to move to Northern California with his wife and buy a ranch in the mountains. His three kids were grown and on their way to making their own lives, after all.
His youngest daughter, Meadow Pollack, was a high school senior planning to attend Lynn University, a private school in Boca Raton.
The 18-year-old was looking forward to celebrating her final high school milestones — prom and graduation. But she never made it.
Meadow was one of 17 students and teachers gunned down at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland on Feb. 14.
“Part of me died with my kid,” Pollack said recently.
Since Feb. 14, Pollack has become a man on a mission. He has a new purpose: holding accountable every person and system that failed his child and the loved ones of 16 other families.
“It’s my way of honoring my daughter,” he said. “It’s what she would have wanted.” He said he wants to be the last person to bury a child because of such a tragedy.
Most recently, Pollack filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Scot Peterson, the former school resource deputy who stood about 30 yards from the building where students and teachers were hunted. Pollack seeks unspecified damages and a jury trial.
Also named in the lawsuit are Nikolas Cruz, the suspect in the shooting; several behavioral and mental health facilities that had treated Cruz; the estate of Cruz’s mother; and the Parkland couple with whom Cruz lived at the time of the shooting.
Pollack said Peterson was a coward. He says that if Peterson had engaged the gunman, he wouldn’t have made it to where Meadow and others were killed.
Pollack supports hardening schools with increased safety measures. He lobbied for Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act, which raised the age to buy firearms and requires a three-day waiting period, gives law enforcement authority to seize weapons and ammunition from people who pose a threat to themselves or others, provides funding for school resource officers and mental health services, and allows some staffers to carry guns in schools.