‘I don’t feel safe anymore’
– Michele Roseman was convinced that she had found a safe place to raise her children when she came to Parkland, Florida in 2000.
She was stunned when one of the worst school shootings in US history unfolded in her adopted town.
“I moved so my kids could go to one of the best schools in the area,” said the 62-year-old swimming instructor.
Her daughter Hannah, 19, knew eight of the students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School who were killed on Wednesday.
“I always felt safe here, but after this, I’m not sure I can live here anymore,” she said. “I just told my son today I’m looking to sell my house.”
On Thursday, people in this city of about 23 000 struggled to reconcile their views of Parkland as a tropical paradise with the shooting that instantly made its name synonymous with gun violence.
Just this week, Parkland was named in a national survey as one of the safest cities in the country and, last year, another study ranked it as the safest city in Florida. The school system has received the highest grading of an A for seven years running from the state department of education.
“People come here because it’s safe,” said David Steiman, 61. “They send their kids to school here because it’s the safest place in South Florida – and then this happens.”
A former pupil has been accused of murdering 17 people outside and inside the school.
The massacre was the deadliest school shooting since the 2012 attack that killed 20 students and six teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, a leafy suburb that, like Parkland, attracted residents for its lack of crime and its high-ranking school system.
The affluent suburb in western South Florida borders the vast Everglades wetlands, about 38km from Fort Lauderdale and twice as far from Miami.
The high school is named after environmentalist and writer Marjory Stoneman Douglas, who earned fame for her defence of the Everglades.
Zoning laws require preserving the town’s “parklike setting”.
Wide sidewalks snake alongside manicured hedges and towering palm trees. – Reuters