In the Middle of a Nightmare, Parkland Students Texted Their Parents: 'If I Don't Make It I Love You'
On Wednesday 17 children were murdered and dozens more injured in what would ultimately become one of the deadliest mass shootings in American history.
Around 2:30 P.M. local time a shooter entered Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. He brought with him an AR-15, a semiautomatic rifle that frequently reappears at mass shootings including those in Orlando, Las Vegas, and Sandy Hook. According to reports, the shooter pulled the school's fire alarm to incite chaos, then randomly began shooting.
"Everyone was kind of just standing there calm, and then we saw a bunch of teachers running down the stairway, and then everybody shifted and broke into a sprint," Noah Parness, a 17-year-old junior at the school, told CBS. "I hopped a fence."
While the shooter was inside the school students and teachers barricaded themselves in classrooms and closest, remaining as silent as possible. Caesar Figueroa, whose daughter was among the students hiding inside a closet, told CBS that his daughter was too afraid to talk on the phone so began texting instead.
"It's the worst nightmare not hearing from my daughter for 20 minutes. It was the longest 20 minutes of my life," he added.
And that's become a familiar and frightening site in the aftermath of this school shooting. Student after student and parent after parent shared the horrifying exchanges sent over cell phones as they waited to see if they'd survive the eighteenth school shooting of 2018.
"If I don't make it I love you and I appreciate everything you did for me," one text from a student, Sarah, to her parents read. According to reporter Chabeli Herrera, Sarah hid in the bathroom for two hours while texting her family. She was ultimately reunited with her parents unharmed.
"All ok? Ben said they heard a couple of gunshots coming from Stoneman Douglas," another parent wrote to their son. "Yeah there was a couple I heard too," the child replied. "Ok. Is it all over? Mom wants to come get you now. Is that even possible?," the parent then asked. "It's not over we are on lockdown. Not it's not possible. You could get hurt," the son said in an attempt to keep his parents out of harm's way as he hid inside his classroom. "Ok. Stay safe buddy. Love you."
"This is a conversation someone should never have with their family," one student wrote on Twitter, sharing the conversation they had with their family as they hid inside. "We go to school to learn, not to get shot. For some this was their last conversation with their loved ones."
While details of this tragedy continue to unfold, it will be a hard pill to swallow when politicians simply offer more thoughts and prayers. As they did when 20 children and six adults were killed by a legally purchased assault rifle in 2012 at Sandy Hook, and as they did when a shooter killed 32 people at Virginia Tech, again with his legally purchased weapons.
"Since 13 people were killed at Columbine High School in 1999, Congress has passed one major law strengthening gun control in the aftermath of a mass shooting," The Washington Post reported in 2014. It added, "The only policy changes came from the executive branch, with President Obama's 23 executive actions to reduce gun violence." Now seems like a good a time as any to disrupt this terrifying status quo.
As David Hogg, a student who survived the shooting, told CNN, "My message to lawmakers and Congress is: Please, take action." He added, "What we really need is action. We can say, ‘We’re gonna do all these things. Thoughts and prayers.’ What we need more than that is action. Please. This is the eighteenth [school shooting] this year. We’re children. You guys are the adults.”
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