Parkland victim’s father: My daughter ‘will be the last kid murdered in a school’
CORAL SPRINGS — Meadow Pollack’s family couldn’t find her. They hoped, but they felt it in their gut — she didn’t escape the mass murderer.
They wouldn’t get official word until 3 a.m. the next day. The 18-year-old was shot nine times, one of 14 students and three adults killed by a mass shooter at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Valentine’s Day.
Pollack was in the hallway on the third floor. She tried to protect a freshman girl and put her arms around her.
In the days since the massacre, the country has mourned, honored and celebrated the victims’ lives in a call for change, whether it be through words of sympathy, school walkouts or pressure on lawmakers.
And Meadow’s father Andrew Pollack has become one of the faces of that tragedy — all the pain, loss and determination to make those changes. From his pleas to find his daughter when the shooting first occurred, showing a Palm Beach Post reporter a picture of Meadow on a cell phone, to his emotional pleas to the president at the White House.
The support he has received has helped him feel strong enough to forge ahead and spread what he
calls “Meadow’s Movement.”
My daughter ‘will be the last kid murdered in a school’
On Wednesday, Pollack traveled to Washington and spoke with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office. On Thursday, Pollack drank morning coffee at his Coral Springs home with Gov. Rick Scott. Later that evening, Pollack invited the Douglas High community into his back yard to release candle-lit lanterns into the sky and discuss how to make the schools — everywhere — safe.
That’s his message: School safety. It’s not about gun control, he said. Not right now.
“Meadow’s going to be the last kid murdered in a school,” Pollack said in an interview with The Post at his home Thursday. “That’s the only thing keeping me from collapsing.”
Pollack doesn’t know what the answer is, and he doesn’t hide that. He says officials should hire consultants who specialize in safety rather than trying to come up with changes themselves.
He doesn’t understand why his daughter was in the hallway. He shared that with a group of teens circled around him Thursday evening, but they didn’t know either.
Students gather in his back yard, discuss change
Students gathered in Pollack’s back yard have already come up with ideas of where to start change. Justin Irwin, a junior, said armed security guards should be at schools and teachers should have the option to carry a gun. He stressed the importance of training to go along with that. Patrick Petty, also a junior, agreed with Irwin with the addition that those who are armed need to be “courageous” enough and willing to act in moments of chaos.
An armed deputy posi- tioned at the school at the time of the shooting didn’t go inside the building when the shooting began, Broward Sheriff Scott Israel said Thursday.
“It might not have saved everybody but it could have prevented it, it could have saved more than one person,” Petty said.
Said Pollack: “That’s part of the problem. There’s a lot of flaws in the whole system.”
One student said all doors should have dead-bolt locks. Another said a couple of police officers or armed guards should be on campus every day. Someone else said schools should have metal detectors.
“We’re going to fix it,” repeated Pollack, a former lacrosse coach at the school.
The Trump shirt that attracted trolls
Despite Pollack’s desire for the country to come together while trying to fix the safety problem, the father was attacked on social media for a “Trump 2020” shirt he wore the day the shooting happened. The photo a Palm Beach Post photographer took of Pollack holding a photo of Meadow was spread online and people who didn’t even know the family attacked Pollack and his choice of shirt for the day. He couldn’t believe it. “It’s not about a shirt. My kid was murdered. Seventeen were murdered, and they’re talking about a shirt,” Pollack said Thursday.
Pollack, 52, and his two sons met with Trump in a listening session Wednesday with other loved ones of school shooting victims. Pollack stressed that the immediate focus should be on school safety and not gun control. He mentioned hiring consultants there, too.
“Nine-eleven happened once and they fixed everything. How many schools, how many children have to get shot? It stops here with this administration and me. Mr. President, we’re going to fix it because I’m going to fix it. I’m not going to rest,” he said in a passionate demand for change. “It should have been one school shooting and we should have fixed it and I’m pissed because my daughter, I’m not going to see again. She’s not here. She’s in North Lauderdale at whatever it is, King David cemetery. That’s where I go to see my kid now.”
Gov. Scott is ‘concerned. He wants to make it right’
Pollack, who manages real estate, appeared hopeful Thursday after his meetings with Trump and Scott. “He’s concerned. He wants to make it right,” he said of his meeting with the governor earlier that day.
By Friday morning there had been movement. Scott announced from Tallahassee a school safety plan, which includes adding school resource officers in every Florida school, a requirement that all people buying firearms are 21 or older and a complete ban on the buying or selling of bump stocks, among other proposals.
“It’s really about prevention at the school,” Pollack said. “We’re going to do it.”