Is this now every American parent's silent prayer as the school bus pulls away?
Please let my child come home safely. Please let there not be another school shooting today.
Seventeen Florida teens came to school to learn Wednesday. They were doing what they were supposed to be doing.
We failed to do what we were supposed to do. We did not keep them safe.
This is on the adults. We are to blame. We now accept school shootings as part of American life, so much so there has to be a field of body bags before national news coverage goes deeper and longer than a few days.
The death toll at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High school remains at 17, but 15 people are in the hospital, some fighting for their lives.
This is the deadliest high school shooting in U.S. history, outstripping Columbine, which stunned America in its scope and violence.
The alleged shooter in Florida, Nikolas Cruz, understood he had to go big to get our attention, to go beyond the head-shaking and short news cycle that follow a school shooting in which one or two students die.
A troubled teen who had been expelled last year from Stoneman Douglas High school, Cruz arrived at the campus prepared to commit mass murder. He brought an AR-15 rifle, a gas mask, and smoke grenades. The FBI said today Crux legally purchased the firearm.
Cruz had been getting mental health counseling. As the Washington Post reported:
He had been getting treatment at a mental health clinic, but he had stopped. He had been expelled from school for disciplinary problems. Many of his acquaintances had cut ties in part because of his unnerving Instagram posts and reports that he liked shooting animals. His father died a few years ago, and his mother, among the only people with whom he was close, died around Thanksgiving. He was living at a friend’s house. He was showing signs of depression. And Nikolas Cruz, 19, had a fascination with guns. He owned an AR-15 assault-style rifle.
Many people are trying to wring some rationale response out of an irrational act. Children’s author Morgan Young of Decatur, who wrote “Lana & The Water Carrier,” offered these thoughtful comments:
As I read about Nikolas Cruz, all I could think was: How could we have better helped him and prevented this tragedy?
His former classmates have repeatedly stated: "Everyone knew he'd be the one [to carry out a mass shooting]." His social media accounts promoted guns and violence, backing up those former classmates' viewpoints.
How are we letting our children have these casual conversations about the threat of danger from a classmate and doing nothing? Are we satisfied by merely notifying the school and breathing a sigh of relief when the troubled classmate is expelled?
In this case, the school was "tracking" him. Ultimately, he posed a danger to other students and he was expelled. I'm sure parents, teachers, and students were relieved. Yet perhaps that action only *increased* the danger. But then again what else could the school have done?
Also, he was taken in by his friend's family, who allowed him to keep his AR-15 at their house. Why would they think that's a safe thing to do? But if they wanted to help him what else could they have done?
Perhaps making it illegal for people like him to buy guns would have helped. Perhaps we could focus on what it would have taken to discourage him from doing what he did.
In today's press conference, the FBI said it responded to a report from a Mississippi man alarmed over a comment in September left on his YouTube channel, now ascribed to Cruz, in which the poster declared, "I want to be a professional school shooter."
The comment -- posted under the name Nikolas Cruz -- so alarmed Ben Bennight that he contacted the FBI; agents immediately came out to interview him.
In a video released last night, Bennight said he felt the FBI did take the comment seriously, and agents had already been back to interview him hours after the Florida shooting.
The fame factor in these high school shootings cannot be ignored. A teen in Washington state was arrested Tuesday after his grandmother unearthed his journal plans to attack his former high school and found a rifle hidden in his guitar case. Among the teen's writings in his journal:
I’m preparing myself for the school shooting. I can’t wait. My aim has gotten much more accurate ... “I’ve been thinking a lot … I need to make this shooting/bombing at Kamiak [High School] infamous. I need to get the biggest fatality number I possibly can. I need to make this count. I’ve been reviewing many mass shootings/bombings (and attempted bombings. I’m learning from past shooters/bombers mistakes, so I don’t make the same ones.
Students themselves are seeking solutions, including Stoneman Douglas shooting survivors who told the superintendent gun laws must change.
When a student asked Georgia teacher Eric Jaromin how to combat school violence, he said, “My reply was simple. Stop bullying. Stop calling each other names. Stop disrespecting each other and adults. Stop making fun of each other for how you dress or saying your clothes are nicer than another person. Learn how to respect each other. Start being nice instead of hateful to each other. It starts with them, the students. They need to make the change, change the attitudes and culture of disrespect and contempt.”
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