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(eerie music)

- Good afternoon.

Pine Island Road?

It’s cool.

(tense music)

We’re here, sir.

(eerie music)

- Everything was normal all up until

the last period of the day.

- Early in the morning, we had a fire drill.

Seemed like any other day

other than it was Valentine’s Day.

- I was on the first floor of the freshman building

in my Math class and that day we were taking a test.

- I was standing in front of the class

doing a lecture on Sigmund Freud

and theories of personality.

- I was taking my Snapchat videos and just having fun

with my friend Maddy and Morgan who were next to me.

Ooh, it’s cute!

It’s cute.

(students chattering)

- Kickin’ the boots. - Oh, are they talking?

- [Student] Yup.

- No, sideways.

- [Student] Maddy, are you trying to flirt with me?

- [Maddy] Yeah.

- [Student] Really, which one?

- [Maddy] DMV.

- [Student] Really?

- I was in my fourth period class,

Ms. Reoven’s AP Psychology.

Excited about, it was Valentine’s Day,

so we were all just kinda chit-chatting

and then we went inside.

- [Student] Definitely not talking to you.

- [Maddy] Yeah, you know like.

- [Ivanna] Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

(tense music)

- I was teaching history of the Holocaust class,

it was the last class of the day.

- I remember I had my headphones in

and just waiting for the next assignment to be announced.

- I was on the third floor of the freshman building

and we were just writing Valentine’s Day cards.

- Writing a letter to somebody

we either really hate or love.

Some people doing their significant other,

mom, dad, dog, stuff like that.

- To have about 38 kids in there,

it’s very noisy and animated.

Everybody’s anxious to get out.

It was about 2:20 and I know this

because I’m always looking at the clock.

Teachers always gauge their class by the time

and we had about 20 minutes left in class.

School ends at 2:40.

(doors clacking)

- There was a kid who saw him and saw him with a gun.

- [Charlie] In the very beginning, right?

- In the very beginning before he started firing.

The shooter told him to get out ’cause it’s gonna get ugly.

He was probably scared out of his mind.

I can’t blame him for that,

but he did go and make somebody aware of what he saw.

It was just unfortunate that it was too late.

- We were listening to music and just talking

’cause we didn’t have anymore work to do.

Usually whoever sits at the back of the room

usually answers the door.

I went to answer the door, so I paused my music,

I stood up and as I was standing up, I heard the gunshots.

(eerie music)

- We heard the first gunshots,

and I don’t even remember, it was so quick,

I was sitting in my desk one minute,

and I was under my teacher’s desk the next.

- [Charlie] That must’ve terrorized your class.

- Yes.

At that point we were all screaming, yelling, no, lay down, |||||||||||

this isn’t a drill, this is real.

- My classroom was the first classroom that was shot into.

When the first shots were heard,

I honestly, I thought it was a drill

because something like this, it can’t be real.

- I remember everyone throwing themselves on the floor,

crawling to wherever we felt the safest,

behind the teacher’s desk to across the door, wherever.

- When I saw my injured students,

I realized that this was real.

- He didn’t get the chance to stand up from his seat.

He just, just laid there, blood going everywhere

and no one really knew what to do.

- One student got shrapnel in his head,

another student had shrapnel all up and down his arms

and he was sitting next to two of the students

that were shot, so he was covered in blood.

Students were in all areas of the classroom

trying to just hide and protect themselves

because we had no warning.

We were given no warning.

- The gunshots kept on going

and then I heard the glass on my door shatter.

And since I was under the desk,

I could only see the people in front of me.

So, I couldn’t see my teacher at the time,

but I later found out

that she was actually standing right by the door

’cause at the time, she thought it was a drill.

Everybody in the room kind of thought it was drill,

and then I heard the glass on my door shatter.

- [Operator] 911, what is your emergency?

- [Caller] Please help, please help.

Stoneman Douglas High School.

- [Operator] What school is it?

- [Caller] A shooter, a shooter.

- [Operator] Okay, is anybody injured?

- [Caller] Yes, yes, a lot of blood.

Please help, please!

- [Caller] Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School

is being shot up.

- [Operator] lt’s being shot up?

Are you at the school?

(staticky buzzing)

I can’t hear you, are you at the school?

(dial tone buzzing)

- I never heard real life gunshots,

so I was sitting there processing, like what is this?

Is this really what I think it is?

And at that moment, my friend Helena,

behind me, she pushed my shoulders, and she said, Sam,

and that’s the moment when I knew I had to move.

I knew this was real.

- The class split in half.

Half of us went to what I call the safe corner.

It was out of the view of the window

and then the other half of us went to, I call the bad corner

because we were in complete view

of the window that was in the door.

For me, it was what I saw first.

I saw that corner first and I just ran there.

- I went straight to the corner right in front of me,

which ended up being straight across from the door,

and it took two seconds to realize,

guys, we need to move, this is stupid.

So then, I ended up being next to Helena and Nick

and then some other people huddled in the corner.

- I remember my friend, Helena, again,

she was behind me and she whispered in my ear,

she was saying grab a book, grab a book, maybe it’ll help.

And I just reached and grabbed a book and I held it up.

It was literally like so tiny,

it probably didn’t any make a difference, but I held it up.

(eerie music)

- Within seconds of that first shot,

the gunman was ambushing my door and shot through the glass.

They all went scrambling

and we just heard the shots very loud

and it came in through the classroom

and he was just aiming anywhere,

anywhere that he found movement.

(students chattering)

- [Student] Holy sh.

(gun firing) Oh, holy shit!

Oh my God!

Oh my God!

(students screaming)

(tense music)

- I was just waiting for him to open the door

because all you had to do was reach your hand

and I could see the door from where I was crouched

with the kids and he could just easily

have opened the door and I was thinking to myself,

what am I gonna do?

What am I gonna do?

I’m gonna say something.

I was gonna stand up, I didn’t know if I’d get the chance,

but my first reaction was I’m gonna stand up

and I’m gonna say, we love you,

because I thought how can you shoot people that love you?

- But I was still sitting there, I didn’t understand.

I was telling myself, okay, it’s a senior prank.

It’s Valentine’s Day ’cause I saw red on the floor

and I was telling myself, oh, it’s a paintball gun.

And then when I look up, I saw Helena slumped over dead.

And that’s when I went into survival mode

and as soon as I saw her,

Nicholas Dworet fell over to the ground

and when he fell over, I just followed his every move

and I fell over with him,

and then I put myself underneath his body and I laid there.

I was just praying and at one point,

I told God that if it was gonna be anywhere,

just make sure it’s somewhere that I die quickly

and I can’t feel it.

And after laying there for about what felt to be an eternity

but it was more like 20 seconds,

he moved on to the next class.

Nicholas’ body got heavy on me, the weight,

so I rolled him off of me and I placed his head on his arm,

so his head wouldn’t be on the cold floor

and I just sat there, I was in shock.

But I was still in complete view of the window

and we all thought he was coming back.

- [Operator] Can you hear where the shots are coming from?

- [Caller] It was in the hallway.

They were shooting into my classroom.

- [Operator] They’re shooting into your classroom?

- [Caller] They were.

- [Operator] Okay, do you hear the shots now?

- Someone was shot. - We’re in class 1214.

- [Operator] What is it?

- [Caller] 1214.

- [Operator] 1214?

Is there any way that the doors can lock?

Is the teacher in there with you?

- [Caller] Yes, the door is locked.

My teacher’s on the phone too, I think,

but he shot our window in,

so he could open the door if he wanted to

and come inside now.

- We waited and we waited

until the gunshots started getting closer again.

And closer and closer and then you could see

the bullets flying through the walls,

smoke everywhere, the smell was just overwhelming.

- He shot into my classroom twice

and in that the classroom the students stepped up

and they were heroes.

The students communicated and talked with each other

to help each other.

They told me that they could hear

the shooter out in the hallway.

So that’s how we knew he was still there in the hallway.

So we did our best to stay quiet.

(dramatic music)

- I remember standing there for a moment, frozen.

I remember they started to scatter

and run towards the windows of the classroom,

which is on the opposite side of the classroom door.

And when I saw them shuffling around

trying to get to that direction of the classroom,

I said, no, no, not there, go that way, go that way!

- I was dozing off when the shots started.

I woke up with a start and everyone,

I saw everyone rushing to the wrong side of the room.

She quickly hurried the kids to the correct side of the room

closest to the wall where we couldn’t be seen.

- I actually called my mom in that period of time

before he had shot into our room

but while he was shooting in the hallway

and I don’t really remember the whole conversation

because my body was in shock,

but all I remember saying is, shooter, shooter,

and my mom was telling me to breathe

and trying to calm me down.

(alarm blaring)

(gun banging)

- I was right behind the filing cabinet

right next to the podium.

Just stood there in silence staring at each other

for about a few seconds until we saw the glass

break through the doors.

(tense music)

- All of a sudden I felt the bullet hit me,

and all I could think of was,

I’m not ready to die yet.

Why me?

I don’t know what happened, I’m.

I was just so shocked that I got shot.

- No one really made any initial scream

or gasp for help right when it happened,

so no one really knew that anyone got shot

until a few seconds followed

and we heard Maddy start to moan

and this kid Ben in our class

who got shot in the arm and the stomach,

he started asking for water, for somebody to help him,

and Carmen, I looked over and she was face down.

And I looked over to my friend Moses,

who was directly behind her and he just shook his head,

like she’s not there anymore.

- I was standing on the other side of my desk

to assess the situation and I saw one of my students

was laying there lifeless, she was unresponsive.

That was Carmen.

I went up closer to see,

but there was no movement, no nothing.

She was just laying there in a pool of her blood,

her hair was covering her face.

- Unfortunately in that moment,

you kind of knew that she, she wasn’t breathing

and that she wasn’t gonna make it out

just because of how lifeless she looked.

You just want to be able to have that hope

and have that.

You just wanna be able to do something for her,

but at that moment, you just,

there was nothing you could really do.

I remembered turning around

and looking to my right and I see my classmates,

Ben and Carmen, and all I can see is blood and,

so I turn back around ’cause obviously no one’s,

no one can help me from where I am,

and then I remember hearing the fire alarm

and just kinda blacking out.

- Okay.

- [Charlie] Did you see Maddy get shot?

- I didn’t see ’cause my head was ducked down

but I knew someone got shot next to me and it was Maddy.

- [Charlie] About how far was she from you?

- Like less than two feet.

- I definitely heard, when the bullets shot Maddy,

I heard her slump against the podium,

and to have her be like one foot away from me

and just have a small gap between possibly me and the bullet

and Maddy and the bullet

is just insane and I still carry a guilt with me to this day

’cause I feel like in a way she kinda took a bullet for me.

- [Charlie] How far was Carmen from you?

- I wanna say, like, two to three feet.

- [Charlie] Oh, and Ben and Sam were right there too?

- Yeah, they were, I wanna say five feet away.

It was just like in a line.

- [Charlie] So, do you feel really lucky

that you weren’t shot?

- I feel extremely lucky,

but it’s also survivor’s guilt at the same time.

(gun bangs)

- So you’re trying to figure out,

like what could this noise possibly be?

(gun bangs)

Nobody was killed on the second floor

’cause there was simply, there weren’t any targets.

We had enough warning to clear out the hallway

and hide before he was on the second floor.

And so, there was nobody in the hallway,

we were very quiet,

and even when he shot into a couple classrooms,

there was no reaction, there was no noise,

and it just so happened that the two classrooms he shot in

did not have students or a teacher in it.

And I also heard from a teacher that he said

something along the lines like, no one’s here.

So I think he, out loud.

- [Charlie] Just to himself?

- Yes, she said she clearly heard him

make a comment like, nobody’s here

or something along those lines.

I believe he just concluded

that there was nobody on that floor.

You know, on the second floor, it was very clear

that there was a loud sound that sounded very scary.

Now on the third floor, they didn’t have the same volume.

- It sounded rapid and it sounded like someone

was kinda like sliding a table across the floor.

- When we first heard it going off,

we were just like, oh, it’s computer carts.

Computer cart is like a giant metal cart

that all the computers would be in.

They would go up and down floors,

so you would hear, like, sometimes like du-du-du-du-duh.

So, we heard that and all of us just looked and went,

oh, it’s a computer cart.

That was the only explanation.

- [Student] Bro, what the?

I know you, (laughs).

I know you guys hear that.

(students chattering)

It sound like somebody in the bathroom.

- Very muffled, whatever noise,

if anybody heard a noise, it was quite muffled

and it didn’t sound dangerous.

And then we just sort of moved on.

- We were practicing some math problems.

A young lady needed to go use the restroom,

I let her out on a pass.

I mentioned to her

that the third floor restrooms are locked,

first floor restrooms are locked,

so she has to go down to the second floor

in order to use the restroom.

I give her the pass, she leaves.

As she leaves, maybe a little bit afterwards,

but I’m still at the door,

I hear three loud, I’ll call them pops,

three loud pops, but I’ve been in a simulation before,

I know what that gunfire sounds like,

and so I had honestly thought

that it was a beginning of a drill.

- I was gonna go down to the bathroom,

I was on the third floor and I’m going down the stairs,

I didn’t know that they were shots that I was hearing.

(gun banging)

I look over the railing, nothing was there,

but I knew that I had to go

’cause I knew that that wasn’t safe in there.

So I went back up the stairs,

I was just like, what’s going on?

There’s a loud noise, I don’t know where I should be,

and so I’m knocking on the door,

nobody’s answering and I’m like, guys, it’s me, it’s Lea.

Can you guys open the door?

That loud noise wasn’t me and they opened it.

- [Charlie] So, you missed death by probably...

- A minute, maybe.

It’s just seconds at that point.

- Lea came back to the door,

she knocked on the door and I kinda made a joke,

I said if I get an F in conduct

because I let a kid in during a drill,

right, I said, I’m gonna be unhappy,

but I’m not leaving you in the hall

and then that’s when I heard

what would have been glass shattering

and bullets hitting a metal door.

It didn’t sound, it sounded like silverware falling

or glass breaking.

- I was at my desk grading papers and fire alarm goes off.

All right, fire alarm goes off,

we’ve been told, you hear the fire alarm, you evacuate.

So, everyone starts leaving the room.

- It was weird because it was the second

fire alarm of the day.

At the end of the day right before the bell let out.

(alarm blaring)

- And the fire alarm goes off, we are trained to just exit.

It’s like a rote response.

So, I grab my emergency folder and my phone,

like I always do, told everyone where we would meet outside,

and everyone started filing out of the class.

The hallway was filled with kids.

- The hallway, when we went out, it was super crowded,

you were like this with people

because every class was out there.

- When I get to the stairwell

is when I first start hearing shots.

We had a meeting earlier,

a staff meeting earlier that morning,

we’d been warned that we were gonna have a Code Red drill.

I thought, this is a weird time for a Code Red drill

’cause it’s at the tail end of the day

but I was like okay, so I had just assumed

that they were using blanks.

So, all the kids started coming up en masse, and I decided,

you know, I was gonna stay at the end of the hallway

and try and herd them back to their room.

- And I remember going one floor down

and leaning over the edge of the railing

and I saw a long black case, either a guitar case

or what I thought was a gun case at the time,

and that’s when I kinda knew what was going on.

- We walked down the hallway towards the staircase

when the entire hallway stopped,

and it just went silent for a second

and then everyone just started screaming

and running back up the stairs.

- I got everybody out of my class

and I had just shut the door behind me

and it was locked, it’s always in a locked position.

I just shut it behind me,

and I walked about two feet from my door,

and then all of a sudden I heard screaming

and kids coming back towards me.

And that’s where I feel like time stood still,

but then it went by so fast at the same time.

- And then everybody started to, you know,

run and scram, everybody went in separate directions.

Me and my friend Joaquin Oliver went downstairs.

Before I walked into the second floor,

I heard gunshots but really, really close to me,

so my first instinct was to walk back up

to the third floor wherever I could find safety.

When I walked into the third floor,

from the corner of my eye, I could still see downstairs

and that’s when I saw the shooter

walk into the second floor.

- [Charlie] So, you saw the shooter?

What did he look like?

- I know he was wearing Douglas attire.

Which is a JROTC shirt with khaki pants to blend in

and something black on his face.

- [Charlie] And why do you think he was dressed like that?

- To blend in.

If it was a Wednesday, that’s the day where everybody

dresses in JROTC attire.

(tense music)

- So we all ran back upstairs,

people flooded into classrooms, just crowding, pushing.

- Kids are running and screaming towards me

and I was still confused.

Why are they screaming?

Then I heard the gunshots very clear in the stairwell.

It was very loud and it was echoing.

And then I just turned on my heel,

just walked the two paces to my door and unlocked my door.

I can’t tell you how many times I fumbled with that key

just on a regular day and the fact that I got that key,

that key that’s on a chain of maybe six or seven keys,

and I got it directly into that lock.

Kids started pouring into my room

and I’m just ushering them in.

- I heard just a teacher from across the hall screaming,

everybody, slow down, slow down!

And just screaming and so I went to the door,

I had a student beg me don’t open the door,

don’t open the door, but I went to the door,

and I just started pulling kids in.

And for every one kid that I would pull in,

they would pull in friends.

- We went out into the hallway,

and I started going down the stairs

until everybody started shoving me back towards Mr. Beigel,

and I got pushed all the way back

to my classroom and I stood there with Mr. Beigel

and told him, I’m scared, I don’t know what’s going on.

Then I saw students walk past me say,

this can’t be happening, I don’t wanna die,

this can’t be happening.

- And all of a sudden,

I see the shooter emerge from the stairwell.

And I just remember looking at him

and just looking at this figure that is just so menacing.

His face was covered.

I describe him as wearing a gas mask

because that’s what it looked like to me at the time,

but his face was definitely covered,

his head was definitely covered.

I didn’t see any skin.

He was black from head to toe.

Black vest, black pants.

I remember screaming to Scott Beigel

who was right next door to me

doing the same exact thing I was doing at the same time,

and I remember yelling at him to shut his door

because he didn’t have

a good visual of the shooter like I did.

And I closed my door.

I just knew I gotta get this door shut

and when I did that,

that’s when I felt a little ping on my arm

and I didn’t really know what it was at the time.

I had a jacket on and so I just felt a little, like,

something you know hit my arm

and I got my door shut and I just held it.

- I stood there for a couple of seconds

looking at all the other students

run into the classrooms and then I turned around,

Beigel’s door was open again, and I ran in.

Mr. Beigel held the door open for students to run in.

He didn’t make it out,

but I was the last person to run inside the classroom.

So if it wasn’t for him having the door open,

I probably wouldn’t be here right now.

(tense music)

- As I get about even with my door,

which is the second door down in the hallway,

there’s a guy at the end of the hallway shooting.

What I thought I saw was a kid with tactical vest,

pants with lots of pockets,

and I thought I saw a gas mask and a hat.

Apparently, the gas mask, I’ve been told, was mistaken,

he had just shooting glasses on.

But one of the things I want you to understand

is I’m not surprised I was off on that

because he was far, 20 feet away, 25 feet away

when he was the closest to me

and it was smoky in the hallway.

When I say it was smoky,

I want you to think concert stage smoky.

So again, I still think it’s a drill.

I start walking towards my door,

and that’s when Joaquin got hit.

And he went down and I said that in my head,

I knew that he was one of my former students,

I know him pretty well, the kid’s not an actor.

I saw the shooter train on me and that’s when I pushed

and reached my arms out wide

and pushed as many kids as I could

in the little alcove outside my door.

When in the process of pushing them in the alcove,

I got grazed twice.

I got a bullet graze right under my eye and one on my hip.

- I ran across the hall to Ms. Mickow’s room

and I was just standing next to the door

letting people in and I ran inside,

and I, like, laid down and started calling 911.

- The kids were crying,

the girls had mascara running down their faces.

I just kind of pictured like this bubble around us,

I kept visioning this bubble just around,

going around and around to keep us safe.

They told me that they thanked me for being calm,

but I really wasn’t.

They don’t know that, but they said I looked very calm,

but inside, I was just a wreck.

I was texting my husband and my daughter

and saying please call 911, he’s here on the third floor.

Tell them he’s right outside of 1253, my classroom,

tell them to come!

- The bullets were just, it was so loud.

So much shooting next door into Scott’s room

and then straight into my classroom through the glass panel.

- [Charlie] Did you think you were gonna die that day?

- Yeah.

To the point where I was actually crouching down,

and after a while, I kinda gave up hope,

and I thought in my head maybe if I fell asleep,

it wouldn’t be painful.

- This is a tough question.

In your interview with the Associated Press,

you talked about you had locked yourself out of your room?

- Mm-hmm.

- [Charlie] The fact that you

locked yourself out of your room,

how did that affect things moving forward?

- Honestly, I made a mistake,

and it’s something that I’ve been dealing with,

but I’ve been avoiding the could’ves and should’ves

and what could have happened,

I’ve been dealing with what did happen.

- It was just locked and he was searching

and he didn’t have ’em on him.

Usually they’re around his neck,

but it wasn’t there and we just couldn’t get it open.

- The shooting stopped.

So I stuck my head out, saw where he was,

he was about 25, 30 feet away,

but the gun was up and he was fiddling with it.

I don’t know if he was reloading,

I later found out, I think, it jammed or something.

I looked at the kids who were with me, I said, run.

(tense music)

- He started going on a rampage on everyone.

Just started pow, pow, just rounds was going by.

Just shots going off everywhere.

I just dove out of the way and then as I was diving,

one hit me out of several of them.

Obviously, if he had more rounds in,

I probably would’ve died.

So, I just, I don’t know how I got out but I did.

Ran down the stairs, three flights and I was out.

- [Charlie] How were you able to do that

when he shot your foot off almost?

- Adrenaline and high hopes.

- He had been shot on the third floor

and was running down the stairs

and ran out into the parking lot when I saw him.

He was obviously upset and screaming and crying

and saying he had been shot.

I came across him, he had a massive gunshot wound to his,

I believe it’s his right leg.

So I grabbed him, told him he’d be okay,

we proceeded then back out towards the baseball field.

Which was out and around the football field

to a clubhouse area where we were.

- And then we ran across the football field

to the baseball locker room and we went in there

and I got bandaged up.

- [Charlie] What exactly did you tell the officer?

- He asked me, do you know where he is?

What he’s using?

I’m like, yeah, he’s, what is wearing?

I’m like, he’s wearing black jacket,

a tactical vest on and then he’s on the third floor.

And they’re like all right, that’s good, thank you.

- We spoke with doctors afterwards

and the doctors don’t know how he ran

because basically when they, the rounds severed,

severed the tendon or ligament,

whatever it was that allows the foot to go up and down,

for all intents and purposes,

he shouldn’t have been able to lift his foot up and down.

But obviously on pure adrenaline

and fight to survive and wanting to survive,

he went down all three flights of stairs

and ran out into the parking lot.

- Had that bathroom door been unlocked,

Joaquin could’ve gotten in there.

And when the shooter came down the hallway,

he fatally wounded Joaquin.

- [Charlie] Wasn’t there a time when you asked Joaquin,

hey, we gotta go, we gotta go?

- Yeah, he was covered in blood

and I even looked at myself and I’m like, am I ready to run?

And I said, let’s do it.

Joaquin said, I can’t really remember,

but all I remember is no, he didn’t go.

- [Charlie] Because he couldn’t put any weight on the knee?

- That’s what I’m thinking, yeah.

- [Charlie] The fact that the first floor bathroom

and the third floor bathrooms were locked,

why are they locked?

- That was a decision by the security to,

we’ve had issue before that

with kids smoking in the bathrooms,

so they were trying to make it so that the kids

had to go to one bathroom to limit that.

- Kids would come from all over campus

to go to those bathrooms, they were air conditioned.

They were nice bathrooms

and there were drug deals going on

and they felt that this was a way to control it.

(student panting)

- One of my classmates had got a phone call

from her sister and she was saying,

it’s real, it’s real, this isn’t fake.

This is, like, some people are getting hurt,

and I was like, she must be misinformed,

she must be scared or something.

Another classmate looked on the news

and it was real and I was, I didn’t know how to react.

I was like, what?

This can’t be real, it’s Parkland.

You know, this doesn’t happen.

- [Charlie] Were people talking?

- A couple of us were.

We were just trying to figure out what was happening.

You know, was he gonna come back?

What’s happening to us?

And then we were also thinking stupid things too,

like, oh is the bell gonna ring at 2:40?

And are we all gonna get to leave, you know?

- [Charlie] And there was no bell at 2:40.

- There was no bell at 2:40.

- We were all, you know, sitting down quietly

and that’s when we started to hear

this kid start screaming help,

but we didn’t know whether or not he was doing that,

you know, to get more kids out the class

or that was actually a kid asking for help.

- [Charlie] What was Anthony Borges exactly yelling out?

- He was screaming help me, help me, please help me.

- [Charlie] Was he really?

- He was.

- [Charlie] Does that haunt you?

Do you hear those, that voice?

Do you?

- Yeah.

Like the first few nights I just remember,

like, thinking like oh my God, I couldn’t help him.

Which is horrible since the door was right there

and we could’ve easily gone out,

it’s just horrible to think that you couldn’t help someone.

- [Anthony] Help, help!

Help, please, help me!

Please!

(somber music)

- We heard someone calling for help.

And I would look at them and I would just shake my head,

and I would tell them, no, no, no.

- Well, my students and I,

we’re all looking at each other, like,

you know, what do we do?

But it could’ve been the shooter trying to lure us out.

You open up your door and you open up the possibility

of getting all your students and yourself killed.

- [Anthony] Help, help!

Help, please, help me!

Please!

(tense music)

- Ben was screaming for help.

And Ms. Reoven was able to rush over to him

and help bandage some of his wounds

and we were able to quiet him down

because we didn’t know where the shooter was.

- He asked for water.

I gave him the bottle of water that I had on my desk.

And he drank that water.

I saw Samantha, she was shot in the knee.

I saw she was stable.

- I was kneeling down on the ground and stood up

and saw Maddy slumped against the front side of the desk.

(students yelling and crying)

- [Student] Maddy?

- Then I went back to Maddy

and Maddy, I could see she was shot multiple times,

but I didn’t know exactly where.

She was in and out of consciousness

and she turned pale white, her lips were white.

She was moaning and groaning

and then there was some silence.

I saw it was multiple wounds,

but I didn’t know exactly where they were,

so I was afraid to move her

and because I left her the way she was, that saved her life.

Otherwise if I laid her flat,

from what I understand, her lungs would’ve collapsed.

- I was asked by a classmate to bandage Maddy

because she wasn’t moving

and was no longer making any noise.

(students screaming and crying)

And so I walked over to Maddy

and wrapped the jean jacket I was given around her arm

and then used the other side of the jean jacket

to kinda hold against her torso area where she was also hit.

And that’s where I stayed

until the officers came and got us.

- [Man] Three down!

- [Student] Three injured.

- [Man] Three injured.

Is anybody injured?

- Yes! - Anybody shot?

- Yes. - Where?

Come here. - Right here.

Right here.

- [Officer] Come on, can you walk?

- We’ve got three. - Where were you shot?

- [Student] Oh my God.

(students yelling and crying)

- Please, let us go, can we, can we go?

(officer groans)

- I need help, I need help.

(groans) Somebody help me.

- [Student] Oh my God.

- [Officer] Look out, look out, look out, look out.

- [Student] Oh my God.

(students crying)

- [Officer] We have two more.

- We’re gonna get you out okay.

We’re gonna get you out of here.

We’re gonna get you outta here.

I need your help.

- [Officer] You need my help, boss?

(students crying)

- Logan, my desk, see my water bottle,

could you get my phone?

- [Logan] Let me see.

- With the bag, with the water bottle next to the balloon.

(students crying)

Yes.

- [Officer] Let’s go, come on, let’s go, get out, let’s go.

Come on, follow me, follow me, follow me.

Come on, let’s go. - Coral Springs Police.

- [Student] Where, where?

(students screaming)

- [Officer] Hug the wall, hug the wall.

- [Officer] Everybody, go, go, go, go.

- [Student] Oh my God.

- Onto the street. - Oh my God.

(student sobbing)

- [Officer] All right, come on, come on.

(officers yelling)

- Helena was sitting upright with her head leaned over

and Nick was down on his side.

And then I grabbed Helena’s hand

and I didn’t let go until SWAT came in.

- And so when the SWAT team came in,

they said who’s injured?

And that’s when Sam Fuentes stood up

and it looked like from the movie Carrie at the end when,

I couldn’t see any of her.

She was just standing and, but she was standing,

but she was standing completely covered in blood,

and I was in shock and then they took her out

and they told us don’t look down.

You know, they didn’t want us to look anywhere,

just look straight ahead and walk out.

- I didn’t really know how badly injured I was,

only after the girl next to Helena, she told me.

She said Sam, you’re grazed.

And I didn’t know what that meant,

I was still very kind of disoriented and confused.

But I knew I was injured of some sort,

so I raised my hand and then I said, I’m injured.

And I actually was escorted out of the classroom.

- [Officer] Come on.

- Keep going. - Drop the backpack.

Drop the bag, just go.

Go, go, go, go.

- [Officer] Keep heading towards the street, go.

- [Dispatcher] Headquarters to PD2.

(tense music)

- There was like this thought that it just wasn’t real.

That it was actors.

Which doesn’t make sense now, and then we got outside.

At this time, I was just in total shock,

like, I was crying, I was having a panic attack,

and I remember just my legs and my arms

going completely numb and I just fell to the ground

and I just sat there and I cried.

- It took me a few moments to,

to leave the room because when I started to walk,

that’s when the reality of the students

that were still in the classroom

kinda washed over me because I knew we had injured,

I knew there was blood, I knew,

but I didn’t want it to be

that they were not gonna be able to get out of there.

- [Charlie] What did you see exactly

when you left your room?

- I mean.

It was pretty bad.

The first thing that I recognized was a,

a path of blood like someone had been dragged

in front of my doorway.

And when I looked up, Scott Beigel

was in his little alcove, his door was open.

(sullen music)

- I remember standing up,

and the first thing I saw was Mr. Beigel on the floor

because he was next door to Ms. Lippel’s class.

And I remember just breaking down,

like I just couldn’t breathe,

but they made me stand up and leave anyway.

- After they let us out,

we had to walk behind each other in a line,

hold each other’s shoulders like this.

And when I was walking, I looked down,

and I saw two bodies of two girls on top of each other

and I looked down and I immediately looked away

because I knew if I looked at it any more

I would get super traumatized or if it was somebody I knew.

I just, I couldn’t take it.

- Police were telling us not to look

and to look away, but I mean,

how could you not look at something so terrible?

Like how could you divert your eyes from your friends

who are laying on the floor next to you?

Like, as you’re slipping in their own blood?

Like, I don’t, I could never forget that.

- I saw someone in white pants

and I remember a kid in my class, Joaquin,

was wearing white pants that day and a pink shirt.

And everyone just knew it was him.

And that’s when everyone that was in the line

when we had our hands up walking down the hallway,

we all started crying even more than we already were.

(camera clicks)

- What I saw was people holding each other outside,

teachers sitting down on the grass

just stunned with tears coming down their eyes

and then some of us, like me,

I was just walking around like a zombie.

And I just remember us looking at each other,

like what just happened?

(tense music)

(shooter panting)

(bell ringing)

- We found out about it over the radio.

I was here in my office at the time of the call.

Found out over the police radio

that there had been a shooting,

active shooter at Marjory Stoneman Douglas.

That is not in our city, we’re in the city of Coconut Creek,

but it is a neighboring city, Parkland.

I was listening to the radio on the way there,

hearing some updates, what they were discovering,

and it sounded as if he had fled the school.

There’s a lot of work to be done inside the school still

because we don’t know if that information’s accurate,

but we also have to address the fact

that he may be away from school at the time too.

(shooter panting)

(police sirens blaring)

It was overwhelming, there was a lot of police force there

by the time I had arrived.

My mind started wondering, you know,

if he has left the school, me running towards the school

was that the best thing?

A call came across the radio,

which kinda helped me make the decision.

Dispatch advised that he may be at the McDonald’s,

which is close to the area.

All these other agencies are here

and they may not know where that McDonald’s is,

and I wanted to make sure that someone

went to that direction and covered that possibility.

That’s what led me to leave.

- [Charlie] And how did someone know

that he might’ve been there?

- That I don’t know.

It could’ve been some type of phone call,

something, I don’t know that part, it was,

that was all through dispatch.

(shooter panting)

- [Charlie] Now you got the description

of the shooter, correct?

- That’s the only thing I had.

They had given that over the radio as well,

they gave us a description of what he was wearing

and they gave us his name.

- [Charlie] When you saw the killer,

did you know right away it was him?

- No.

All’s I knew at that point is I had

a high school-looking individual, a teenager,

wearing the clothing description that was given.

- [Charlie] Did you have a gut feeling it was him?

- I kinda did.

- [Charlie] What was he doing exactly, when you saw him?

- He was walking.

His back was to me, he was walking

in an eastbound direction on the sidewalk.

- [Charlie] You would think a guy on the run like that.

I mean, would you really be walking alone like that

out in the clear?

I mean, what did you sense from him?

That he wanted to get away

or he knew he was gonna get caught and he just surrendered?

- He seemed like he was focused.

He had a focus forward.

I’m not really sure what he was thinking.

I don’t know if he was planning an escape.

I don’t know what was on his mind,

but he appeared to be focused, his head was straight ahead

and just walking with, it seemed, with a purpose.

The area where I found him is a quiet residential roadway.

I immediately stopped my vehicle.

He continued to walk, he did not see me or hear me

’cause I was behind him,

and I drew my weapon as I stepped out of the vehicle

and when I slammed the door,

he looked over his shoulder ’cause he heard the door close.

And at that point, I was already drawn down on him.

Had my weapon pointed at him

and started giving him verbal commands.

- [Charlie] And he complied with everything right away?

- Yes, he did.

(police sirens blaring)

(camera clicks)

- I get a call from my editor.

I think I had seen the push alert

come in through the phone.

You know, there’s a shooting at a high school,

but I mean, we get so many of these kind of alerts

and it turns out to be unfounded.

There’s nothing actually happened.

At first it didn’t alarm me,

until I got the call and my editor said,

you’re the closest person to Marjory Stoneman Douglas.

You need to leave right now, you need to go there.

I was on the highway heading there

that I started seeing the cops pass me by

and it was car after car after car after car

with the sirens blaring

and that’s when it started to sink in.

(woman sobbing)

- [Man] Sherry.

- As soon as I got there, I parked right off the highway.

There was no parking, I mean,

everything was completely full of cars,

full of people in the streets,

parents running around screaming,

and I just threw my car to the side,

I parked really quickly next to a tree

and started running in the direction of the school.

The parents were screaming,

they were trying to reason with the police officers

and the officers,

they were just trying to keep everything calm.

The kids were kind of hysterical,

they were talking to each other, some were crying,

some were just sitting like staring blankly.

It was a very eerie scene.

The next thing I remember or I kinda heard what is,

the guys coming into our rooms and checking everybody.

And I remember them putting me on a stretcher,

I couldn’t see ’cause I was kinda out of it,

but I remember hearing some faint voices.

- Actually when the officers

took the injured out of the classroom,

they only took Sam and Ben and left Carmen and Maddy

because they thought that they were both deceased.

And they returned to the classroom two or three more times

to find that Maddy was actually breathing

and that’s when they took her out of the classroom

and started bringing her to the ambulance

and started working on her.

- Blacked out again until the paramedics

woke me up in the ambulance.

- This BSO SWAT officer had already put a chest seal

on Maddy’s entrance wound,

which looked like a size of a dollar bill.

It was a big size and her elbow was also shattered.

That’s when I told the guys,

I need a baseline set of vital signs.

Usually when a person is in a deep state of shock,

the blood is shunted away from the periphery

and into your core organs.

So that’s why you get pale, that’s why you get no pulses,

and it’s very difficult to start an IV,

so an intravenous line.

So at that point it was like by experience,

I go, start an IO.

And that’s an intraosseous needle

that’s drilled into the head of your humerus.

And that is so easy

because all you have to do is find the landmark.

- [Charlie] Tell us how you found out.

- I was at work in Nashville,

in a meeting with about 15 other colleagues

and Maddy’s mom called and left a message with me

and I looked down at my phone

and there was like a voice to text thing

and saw part of her message

about there’s been a shooting at the school

and I was, I was like what?

I didn’t even, like, register in my mind

like what is, what is this?

So I got up and listened to her voicemail

and she was like screaming,

there’s been a shooting at the school

and I haven’t heard from Madeleine.

(tense music)

I booked a ticket on Southwest

that they had three hours later,

I got to the airport,

and it’s all over the CNN and the screens everywhere

and people are like, oh my goodness.

I’m, like, staring at this CNN screen trying to, like,

see if I could see her, you know,

is she in the crowd somewhere and haven’t heard?

And when I got to the gate

and I was about to get on the plane, Missy called me

and said that she was at the hospital with her

and that she had been shot.

- Then I remember being wheeled into the hospital,

into a trauma room.

And then I blacked out and then I remember

getting a CT scan.

- And I just walked in and saw her

and she looked like she’d been run over by a truck.

And there was cops everywhere and my son was there,

I actually remember walking in and thinking,

thank God she’s alive.

- Maddy Wilford played basketball for me

at Stoneman Douglas and she came out

as a ninth grader, played JV and was a phenomenal person.

That night obviously I wasn’t sleeping

and many people weren’t, so I texted Maddy’s mom,

and I asked, you know, please,

I haven’t heard from Maddy, is she okay?

And her mom told me she was having her second surgery

at 3:30 in the morning.

And that’s when I found out that she had been injured.

I instinctively took a picture

that I had on my phone and I posted it

asking for prayers on my Facebook page

and on South Florida Girls Basketball website

and the outreach was completely unexpected

and something that I still am in awe of

and the fact that it was shared

a quarter of a million times around the world.

(students chattering)

(students cheering)

- [Charlie] People have called your daughter a miracle.

How does that make you feel?

- Yeah, she is a miracle.

- [Charlie] Do you consider yourself a miracle?

That you’re living?

- Yeah.

Yeah.

Because just the way the bullets went in me

and the way the doctors operated on me

and the fact that I stayed in the hospital for a week.

Definitely a miracle.

- [Charlie] And when you, you were slumped over,

and you were in a position where you wouldn’t bleed out,

now did you make a conscious decision to do that?

Was that instinctive or that was just luck?

- I think that was just luck.

- [Charlie] Wow!

- Dr. Mergle worked on my arm and my ribs.

Stitched together my arm because it had,

the bullet went through my arm and around

and came out here and kinda exploded it.

And so he patched that together,

and he also put titanium plates in my ribs.

I also had a hole in my lung,

but thankfully because I was healthy,

they didn’t have to replace it.

Dr. Nichiporenko sewed together my stomach or my abdomen.

I’m Madeleine Wilford.

(Maddy laughs nervously)

And I’d just like to say that

I’m so grateful to be here

and it wouldn’t be possible without those officers

and first responders and these amazing doctors

and especially all the love that everyone has sent,

and I was sitting on my couch today

just thinking about all the letters and gifts

that everyone has given and just like all the love

that’s been passed around.

I definitely wouldn’t be here without it

and I just wanna send my appreciation,

love out to all of you and,

that, like my mom said, it’s times like these when I know

that we need to stick together

and I’ve seen a lot of positive posts

about what’s been going on at the school

and I just love the fact

that we’re sticking together at this and

I’m just glad that I’m making a full recovery

and everything’s been going so smoothly, so.

That’s all I have to say.

(bell ringing solemnly)

I was nervous and I guess I just kinda broke down

because how grateful I was to everyone out there,

I just wanted to let them know that I was okay

and I was thankful for all that they were doing.

- [Charlie] What has this whole experience

with Maddy meant to you?

- Well as a result of how God saved Maddy,

the whole result has been that it’s made me a better person

and it’s made me want to help others even more.

For the glory of God.

- [Charlie] So that bullet that hit her,

you really think woulda hit you?

- Yeah.

She was basically like my shield.

- [Charlie] Wow, so Maddy Wilford literally

took a bullet for you?

- Yeah.

- [Charlie] How do you live with that every day?

- Honestly, I don’t know.

I’m just grateful that she’s alive.

And that she’s like, she’s like a miracle

and she’s like brand new.

You don’t even notice that she was shot

or even like in that kinda condition.

- She said that I took the bullets for her

and if I wasn’t in front of her

that she would’ve gotten them and...

I just, I didn’t really know what to think,

but I was like I’m just glad that you didn’t get hit.

And that I’m okay.

I’d take a bullet for her any day and so, I mean, I’m okay.

So she didn’t have to feel guilty about,

that I was in front of her.

- Maddy wrote on my yearbook, girl, I love you so much.

I’m so blessed that I got to know you this year

and we became close.

You’re amazing and strong

and I know you’ll get through this.

I loved walking into class

and be lifted up when I heard your laugh.

It’s not your fault and never think or feel guilty

that I got shot instead of you.

I love you so much and I would rather get hit

than see you struggle more.

I cherish all the memories we created

and I’m happy I’m here today to create more.

Keeping strong and you know we’re here to support you.

I love you, Ivanna.

Maddy Wilford.

- I heard on the news that there was a shooting

at a Florida high school

and of course I thought, first thing was,

could this be at Scott’s high school?

- And the first thing I did when I realized

what school it was and that it was Scott’s school,

is I texted Scott.

There’s no reason to worry unless there’s a reason to worry.

My philosophy, I’m not gonna worry

unless there’s a reason to worry.

And in my mind, I guess denial took over

’cause it couldn’t be my son.

- The first thing I did was I texted him.

I got my phone, I said, are you okay?

Didn’t get an answer.

Then I said, I heard there’s a shooting, are you okay?

Didn’t get an answer.

Called, went to voicemail.

- I got into the car and I did put on the news

and I did hear in the car

that a geography teacher and cross country coach was shot.

- We knew that Scott was a geography teacher

and we still didn’t know if it was Scott.

And we still kind of thought, okay, it’s coincidental,

but it’s kinda narrowing things down and we were worried.

My daughter called me and said,

Dad, I just heard Scott’s name on the news.

And I believe that was Kelsey Friend

that had mentioned that her teacher,

the geography teacher, was shot,

and she didn’t know if he made it.

I then looked at Michael and I said,

we have to get down to Florida tonight.

- We got on the plane.

It was a really long plane flight.

We were all, I was trying to convince everybody

that it’s really okay.

We’re gonna get there, we’re gonna find out

where Scott is and we’re just gonna go.

We’re gonna to find out and it’s okay

that nobody knows and nobody’s telling us anything

because maybe he’s just one of the people

that they can’t identify.

- In my mind I knew it was really bad

because if Scott was okay,

he would’ve found some way of getting in touch.

Even if he didn’t have his phone,

some way he would’ve said, I’m okay.

- We believed that, you know what,

we were gonna end up going to a hospital

and maybe he was critically injured,

but he was gonna be okay, some way, some how.

We ended up going to the command center

and there were a lot of people in that command center.

Some people were very upset, some people were very quiet,

everybody was kinda to themselves.

- Time went by,

and I think it was almost like 10 to three in the morning,

they called us in and I had my brother

and I had my husband and I had a good friend of Scott’s,

and there were law enforcement.

There were probably six or seven law enforcement,

so we were sitting like in a circle.

So it was us and then them,

and one of the lady law officers said,

she leaned forward and she said,

I have to tell you, your son is definitely a hero.

And then two people over from her,

one, a gentleman law enforcement person said,

he definitely died a hero because he didn’t make it.

So she told me my son was a hero,

which I could’ve told her my son was a hero

before he saved people’s lives

and then two people over said, but he didn’t make it.

Okay.

(somber music)

What do you do?

I mean, what do you do?

I recall not wanting to throw up in front of everybody.

So there were a lot of,

I mean there was like, oh my God, there were tears.

I just walked to the back of the room,

I remember there’s a garbage pail there

and I threw up and I came back.

- And it was the worst nightmare or thought

that we could ever have heard.

My sister asked some questions,

I was kind of shocked that she had

the ability to actually ask some questions but she did.

- And I gathered myself,

and I just had some questions to ask,

I needed to answer some questions.

I wanted to know when can I see my son?

Okay, you just confirmed to me that he’s dead, okay.

You waited a long time to let me know this.

When can I see my son?

And I didn’t get an answer.

The answer was not acceptable.

The answer was basically, you know,

as soon as we’re allowed to let you see him.

Not acceptable.

- Pretty much after that was a blur.

Okay.

Couldn’t believe it.

I say it’s like a bad dream wrapped up in a nightmare

while living in hell.

We stayed there, I don’t know, it was 10 minutes, an hour.

We got escorted out and Mark had made arrangements,

we went to a hotel.

I don’t know if we slept much,

I know I didn’t, I just sat on the sofa watching TV.

I didn’t know what else to do.

(solemn music)

- Carmen’s such a beautiful, brilliant...

- Brilliant. - Introspective

lovely young lady.

- Insightful.

- And she received the...

- National Merit.

- [Both] National Merit Scholarship.

- [Charlie] The day after?

- [Ronit] A day after.

- [Charlie] Her murder?

- [Ivy] Yeah.

(somber music)

- We loved Sherlock.

That was like our, Sherlock and Doctor Who

and Supernatural were like our in-common shows.

She always had the perfect winged eyeliner,

like my friend on graduation did winged eyeliner

and red lips in honor of Carmen

’cause that was like her look every day.

- She would always, at the end of class,

when the kids were dismissed,

kids were, you know, shuffling out of the classroom

and bye, Ms. Reoven, have a good day, Ms. Reoven.

She’d always stop at my desk and you know,

say something about the lesson we just learned

or, you know, what she’s gonna be doing the next day.

- Carmen was that girl in the class

who everyone knew was super bright

but we don’t really talk that much.

And, like,

I feel a sense of guilt

that we didn’t all get to know her very well

when she was still here.

(sullen music)

- She was the first one to make friends

with anyone that she encountered in her life.

If you were new and came in her path, hi, how are you?

I’m Gina, welcome.

And that was evident from first grade.

She was starting to do that again in high school.

- One of her favorite quotes

from that Percy Jackson series of books was,

I’m not choosing your path.

- I’m making my own.

- I’m making my own.

- [Charlie] Do you remember the last time you were with her

and what you guys talked about?

- It was Valentine’s Day morning, we,

she was getting ready to go

and we gave her a box of chocolate roses.

Her middle name was Rose, and.

- Had to eat them before they melt.

- Told her to eat them before they melted

and gave her her card and sent her on her way to school.

Said, we’ll see her this afternoon.

- She helped me do this art project

because she was such an amazing artist.

I had no idea what I was doing

and she came over to me and she’s like, can I help you?

I was like, yes, thank you so much.

And she just sat there when she had work to do

and she decided to help me instead.

- Loved talking to her.

Sometimes I’d be upset and she’d look at me

and be, why are you upset?

And I’d tell her why and she’d go,

well, do you see how many other things

you can be happy about?

That’s just one little problem.

- [Charlie] She was killed when she was

doing an assignment outside of room 1215.

Why was she out in the hallway?

- We don’t really know why she wasn’t in the classroom.

We don’t pretend to understand the policies and procedures.

Personally, I haven’t delved that deeply into the situation,

the outcome is disturbing enough for me.

- We have different opinions about that.

I, as her mother, feel some compelling interest

in knowing exactly how it happened.

And when that time comes and is revealed,

whether in court or other means,

I’ll be ready to deal with that hopefully.

- [Charlie] If you had one last moment with Gina,

what would you tell her?

- Well, tell her the same thing we told her when she left.

- [Both] We love you.

- Have a great day.

And we’ll see you soon.

- Alyssa was beautiful.

She had such zest for life,

she took every opportunity to be active with her friends.

She loved riding the waves in the ocean,

she loved walking on the beach, she was really smart.

She already had 12 high school credit classes as a freshman.

- We had been friends since seventh grade,

so that’s the reason that we were science partners.

When I found out she was in the class,

I was really excited.

She would just make the labs so fun.

I mean, she took something

that was supposed to be just a boring written lab

into something that was exciting almost.

- She just could make anybody laugh.

She did this voice that was so funny

and she would put on little skits for us.

She was so good at soccer.

(sullen music)

- She started playing soccer since she was three years old

and she was phenomenal technically,

she was an amazing player.

She was the number eight, she played the eight position,

and when you turn the eight sideways,

it’s the infinity symbol which means forever.

- They used to call her princess

because she was perfect, like, as a person.

Like there was no flaws about her.

She has a lot of excitement and spirit in her.

- And she wrote really well in creative writing.

Like, I always loved to read her articles

and things that she would write in class.

(peaceful music)

- We’re here because my daughter has no voice.

She was murdered last week and she was taken from us.

Shot nine times on the third floor.

We as a country failed our children.

This shouldn’t happen.

We go to the airport,

I can’t get on a plane with a bottled water but we leave it,

some animal could walk into a school and shoot our children.

I’m very angry that this happened ’cause it keeps happening.

9/11 happened once, and they fixed everything.

How many schools, how many children have to get shot?

Should’ve been one school shooting

and we should’ve fixed it!

And I’m pissed.

Because my daughter, I’m not gonna see again.

She’s not here, she’s not here.

Never gonna see my kid again, I want you all to know that.

Never, ever will I see my kid.

That’s how, I want it to sink in, it’s eternity.

- It’s been 19 years since Columbine

and nothing’s been done.

After 9/11, we hardened the cockpits

and we hardened the airports, we created the TSA.

After the Oklahoma City bombing,

we created another agency to develop standards

so we could harden federal buildings.

We need to harden our schools,

just like we hardened our airports

and our federal buildings.

That is the way we can make our schools safe

so that teachers can teach and children can learn

without the fear of dying in their classrooms.

- [Charlie] The killer, when he got to the third floor,

before he left the building was trying to fire

through the windows to shoot at students fleeing.

But those windows...

- Were hurricane proof.

- [Charlie] Exactly.

How come the windows in the classroom doors are not that?

- Good question.

It’s not, it’s not a requirement.

It’s not a building code.

We have fire codes.

Children haven’t died in a fire since 1958.

We need national school safety best practices

to give guidance to all schools to make them safe.

I mean Alex was just a wonderful little boy.

He loved to play basketball and he was in the marching band

and he was the little boy that wrote

the poem Life Is Like A Rollercoaster

several weeks before he passed away.

- We did band together for three years.

He loved what he did.

He loved playing the trombone.

He was always happy and he always tried to do his best.

- He was someone that I knew I could count on

to be a great team player

when we did team assignments and group assignments.

Just a very sweet gentle soul.

- One of the highlights of his high school career

is when they won the national championship

for Stoneman Douglas Marching Band, The Eagle Regiment

and that was amazing.

You know, Alex has been through a lot of heartache.

And when he was four years old,

his mom passed away suddenly,

and it was then just Ryan, Alex, and I.

Several years later, I met a wonderful woman

whose husband had passed away,

we fell in love and you know,

we decided to move to Parkland

because, you know, we thought they had the safest schools

and the best neighborhood

and we thought we would have a good life.

- [Charlie] Do you remember your last moment with Alex?

What that was?

- Yeah, it was kissing him goodnight

and telling him that I loved him.

- [Charlie] The night before?

- Yeah.

- [Charlie] If you had one last moment with him,

what would you tell him?

- That he was the best boy.

(bells ringing solemnly)

- When he heard something was going down

that he was, go check it out,

try and see what he could do to help.

- [Charlie] Yeah, what does that say about him?

That he goes in there without a gun?

- It says that’s the type of man he was.

He, if he saw a problem, he tried to fix it

and did the best he could.

That’s what he was and that’s what ended up happening.

He was a guy that, for somebody to work for

and work with, was fantastic.

- Dedicated isn’t the word for it.

You would need a better word than dedicated.

He was there from seven o’clock in the morning

to 10 o’clock at night every night.

- I just remember him being so passionate about kids

and just loved what he’s doing.

So to think that he just willingly

ran into the building and sacrificed his life

is just unbelievable.

- But what I saw was a deputy arrive

at the west side of building 12,

take up a position and he never went in.

Devastated, sick to my stomach.

There are no words.

I mean, these families lost their children.

We lost coaches.

- [Charlie] The school resource officer

who did not go inside,

a lot has been made about that.

What’s your take on him?

- Although, I said like you don’t know how you’ll react,

I believe he had an oath.

He was trained, he should’ve been trained

to react in a better way.

- [Charlie] Do you believe his story?

That he thought the shots were coming from outside?

- No.

I don’t see how that could even be a possibility.

It just.

There was no one outside.

No one running outside at that moment.

For as long as he was out there,

he should’ve known by now that the shooter

was in the building.

- [Scot] We also heard he’s over

by inside the 1200 building.

We’re locking down the school right now.

No, do not approach the 12 or 1300 building.

Stay at least 500 feet away at this point.

- [Dispatcher] Stay away from 12 and 1300 building.

- I do think if he would’ve came in,

a lot of lives would’ve been saved

because he was the only person on campus

with another firearm.

- Complete failure, complete coward.

Your sole job is to engage the threat

and you froze.

- He said he thought the shots were coming from outside.

You can clearly his voice on the tape that says inside 1200.

And then he goes as far as telling people to stay away.

- Right. - What do you think

about all that?

- It’s heartbreaking.

It’s heartbreaking.

Don’t you carry the emblem to serve and protect?

Isn’t that part of their mantra?

- [Charlie] The school resource officer,

how often do you think about, had he ran inside,

perhaps the third floor coulda been spared?

- I couldn’t have lived with my son,

okay, being such a coward.

I would’ve liked him to be alive,

but he couldn’t have lived with himself being a coward.

Peterson has to live with himself.

(tense music)

- [Charlie] How do you explain him saying,

I thought the shots were coming from outside,

and then on the recorded tape, he says inside 1200?

And then, why did he tell people

to stay away from that building?

- He seems to identify the 1200 building

as a building where shots are being fired.

So, you know, I can’t explain his statements after the fact,

but ordering deputies to stay away

from the site of an active shooting,

that just goes against all the training

that’s been offered to law enforcement officers

since the Columbine shooting.

- So after Columbine, the policy changed?

Law enforcement’s policy was you gotta go in there

and get the active shooter.

The term is the immediate action rapid deployment.

How come that’s not being followed?

- That’s a great question,

but certainly the best practice now

is, you know, an officer who shows up

and encounters an active shooter,

you know, with a rifle or a handgun

does not have time to wait for specialized personnel

like SWAT to show up.

They have to go in, confront the shooter,

and try and start providing first aid as soon as possible.

- Well, the response certainly seems

to have been troubled all the way

from the individual school resource officer,

Scot Peterson, who first responded

all the way up to the command level

of radios failing and communications breaking down.

So it was not, I think, how any police agency

would want to respond.

I mean, it’s important to know

these are extremely chaotic situations

and, you know, everything that can go wrong

does tend to go wrong but, you know,

I don’t think anyone was satisfied

with the way that BSO in particular,

the Broward Sheriff’s Office responded.

A lot of questions have been raised

about how well prepared the police were.

- [Charlie] When did police first go into the building?

- [Nicholas] They went in 11 minutes

after the shooting began.

- [Charlie] So roughly four to five minutes

after the shooter had left?

- After the shooter had stopped shooting

and left, that’s correct.

- [Charlie] When did SWAT arrive?

- That’s a great question.

And that’s not something

we’ve been able to establish exactly.

The timeline on when SWAT arrived is hazy

and it’s really important

because the specially trained teams of medics,

the rescue task force that partners with police officers,

was not allowed to go into the building

and start providing first aid.

The Coral Springs fire chief in charge

of the rescue task forces was outraged by that decision

and wrote in his report that he begged the captain

to let him send in the rescue task force teams.

She said no because the SWAT medics were already in there.

So it’s important, really important for us to establish

when the SWAT medics got in there

because if they got there after the Coral Springs medics

were available to go in,

that, again, seems like time that could’ve been used

to provide treatment.

- [Charlie] Now we all know every second counts,

you can bleed out in two minutes.

Do you think had they gotten in there right away,

more lives could’ve been saved?

- Without seeing the autopsy reports,

that’s, you know, impossible to say definitively

and certainly, lives were saved,

but I do know that the parents certainly feel

that first aid could’ve been performed sooner

and that if the officers

had made it into the building sooner,

especially Deputy Peterson,

that the killer would not have been able

to make it to the third floor.

(tense music)

- The red flags, the FBI apologized for their carelessness.

Broward County Sheriff’s Office, once again,

a big target on that.

How in the world did they miss it?

- That’s a great question

and that’s something that the parents,

I think, and the children and the victims

are asking themselves every day.

I mean, not only was it reported to the FBI,

not only was his behavior reported to BSO,

it was also brought to the attention of the school

that he was abusive to a woman,

that he hurt animals, got into fights,

that he used racial slurs and Nazi propaganda.

- [Charlie] ’Cause he pretty much put himself

on a milk carton saying, I’m gonna do this.

- He did, I mean, he commented on YouTube videos.

I mean, now it is difficult,

you know, how do you know when someone

is gonna move from threat to action?

But clearly, I mean, there should’ve been

some kind of risk assessment done with him.

Someone should’ve sat down and said, we’re watching you.

You know, we’re concerned about you.

Of course, they couldn’t have

taken away his guns at the time

because there was no fire arm restraining order,

that was passed after the fact.

- [Charlie] Tell us about Scott.

- Scott.

He was a very unique person.

He was very humble.

He was not somebody that wanted the limelight ever

and had, I would say, one of the most amazing

but dry senses of humor that I’ve ever met in my life.

After absorbing what was going on,

he would always have some comment

or something kinda witty that only Scott could say.

He always said some shocking statement

that you would say, I can’t believe the guy just said that.

- When people comment and say to me,

oh, he’s such a hero that day.

He was, no question about it.

But he was a hero on the 13th and the 12th and the 11th

because his whole being was to have an impact on kids.

- If he saw a little kid in a grocery store,

you know, really walking down the aisle with his mom,

really upset, Scott would bend down and go,

is it really that bad today?

You wanna talk about it?

You know, or if he saw someone in camp

maybe not part of the fold,

the popular group who’d been in camp,

he’d take that camper aside,

you know, and he’d say, you wanna tell me about it?

What is it that you like best?

Let’s see what we can do.

He would do his lesson plans,

he’d share with me and he’d say,

so what do you think about this, Mom?

What do you think about that?

What do you think I could do to enhance this lesson plan

or to make it better?

- An elderly woman came over to us

and said, I never met your son but I love him.

Okay, you got my curiosity.

Her grand-daughter was in Scott’s class.

Scott taught geography.

So the assignment he gave was not to look at a book

and pick out the different countries and their capitals

and all that nonsense,

he said to this girl, he said,

find someone who wasn’t born in this country

and talk to them.

Find out what it was like where they grew up.

It turns out that was the grandmother

and the grandmother said

that they had a three-hour conversation

where they had hardly spoken at all for years before that

and they talk to each other almost every day.

That’s the impact.

(solemn music)

- It’s funny.

I remember, I remember the rabbi saying to me.

You know, when we went down that awful day

and when you go down and talk to the rabbi.

I remember the rabbi saying to me,

how many people do you think we’re gonna have?

And I said, I don’t know, Rabbi, maybe a hundred people.

And he looked at me and he said, really, Linda?

I said, Rabbi Greg, I don’t know, a hundred people.

And I was shocked.

Not shocked once I understood how Scott reached people

and how people, you know, responded to him,

but I just never thought that I was gonna have a funeral

with a thousand people and I had to stream it live.

I had half a million people stream live Scott’s funeral.

- Tried to make a joke at the funeral

where if he was looking down at the funeral

he would think what are all those people here for?

And someone would tell him, oh, it’s for your funeral.

You should know they’re all here for the food

because that’s the type of sense of humor he had.

- If Scott came back and I had a moment with him,

I would say to him, I hope that at this moment

you can honestly open your eyes and realize

how important you were to so many people.

I love you.

I love being your mom,

through the good times and the bad times.

You need to look in the mirror

and you need to see how special you really are.

(solemn music)

- Jaime was a very interesting kid.

Had an amazing smile.

That’s the biggest thing that I can remember from her.

You could read her very easily

’cause her face, she didn’t have much of a poker face.

- I danced with Jaime for some time

and I just remember at dance, she would always be laughing

and she would just be having the greatest time

and she was such an amazing dancer.

She just really loved to dance.

- Back in October, I lost my brother to cancer

from his service in 9/11.

That, at the time, seemed impossible to me.

It made no sense.

It couldn’t happen.

And it couldn’t get worse.

This is worse.

This.

This is.

Makes no sense.

This is impossible.

My girl.

My 14-year-old baby and for those of you who know my Jaime,

she was the life of the party.

She was the energy in the room,

she made people laugh and yes, sometimes she made us cry,

but she was always known.

She always made her presence felt.

I sent her to school yesterday.

She was supposed to be safe.

My job is to protect my children

and I sent my kid to school.

In the morning, sometimes things get so crazy,

she runs out behind and she’s like, I gotta go, Dad, bye.

And I don’t always get to say, I love you.

I don’t remember if I said that to Jaime yesterday morning.

I love everyone out here,

I thank you all for your outpouring of support.

Parents, love your kids, hold your kids, kiss your kids,

and don’t ever, ever miss the chance

to tell them how much you love them.

- Alaina was very beautiful and graceful

in everything that she did.

Being an English teacher I get to read

a little bit more personal about the students.

She wrote about her family

and how she got along with her siblings

and you could see her sense of humor in there.

- I worked with her on a project one time

and she was just the sweetest thing.

She always, she tried to make conversation.

- Alaina was in the ROTC, they were involved,

they were active and for freshman, that shows a lot.

That shows a lot about their character

and how strong they were and just confident people.

(solemn music)

- He had a heart of gold and he was so proud

because he worked very hard towards his swimming goals

and he was just a very bright spot of the day.

He just really was a bright kid

and very interested in learning about the Holocaust

and very proud that he had reached that goal

where he signed with Indiana.

- Nick was one of class clowns.

He was always making jokes, he was so funny,

and I knew he aspired to be something big one day.

He planned to join the Olympics.

The first thing, when a girl next to me asked,

who was hit next to us, I said, Nick,

and she said, he wanted to go to the Olympics.

He’s supposed to go to the Olympics,

and that stayed with me ever since.

(people chattering)

- [Announcer] Lane one, air riser,

lane two, under lane three.

(woman whistles)

- Come on, Charlie! - Come on!

Go!

- [Announcer] Lane six, methods work, lane seven.

(announcer drowned out by crowd cheering)

- [Woman] Come on, Charlie!

(crowd cheering)

- [Man] Come on, Nick!

- [Woman] Come on, Nick!

- [Woman] Charlie!

- [Woman] Go!

(crowd cheering)

Go, go, go!

Come on, Nick, go, go, go!

(observer whistles)

- [Man] Woo!

(crowd applauding)

(solemn music)

- Helena, beautiful young lady.

Also comes from an amazing family.

She’s British, she was very proud of her British heritage.

She traveled with us to London, actually,

my husband and I, when we chaperoned a dozen girls.

She had a great outlook on life.

- She brought us to our first concert.

Like Justin Bieber and we had so much fun.

That was my first concert I’ve ever been to.

- She was my best friend.

She just cared about you, she remembered tiniest details.

I remember telling her I like fuzzy socks

and then for my birthday, she got me a pair of fuzzy socks

and it was just, like, a tiny detail and she remembered it.

And I remember taking, she came to church with me

two months consecutively.

So, I’m actually kind of grateful for that

’cause I had to spend time with her

and I also showed her a big part of my life

and what it means to me.

(bell ringing solemnly)

- He decided that he wanted to play football

and one of the stories that I can tell you about Luke

is I shared a portable,

our classroom was the same shared space

with our football coach,

who would make coffee in the morning,

and I had Luke’s class first thing in the morning.

So, Coach May’s coffee was ready and I went up to,

the students were doing a group project

and I asked the boys there,

do any of you guys play football?

And they all said,

well Luke’s gonna go out for spring football this year.

So I said, Luke, come on with me.

I said, I need you to go deliver Coach May’s coffee to him

and so he’ll get to know who you are

and you’ll get some, you know, brownie points

that you’re bringing him coffee

and he’ll know who you are for spring football.

And so when he came back to the portable and,

he had a smile from ear to ear and I asked him, I said Luke,

does Coach May know who you are now?

And he says, yup.

And so that was just really heartwarming

and something that I’ll never forget.

- I remember we used to joke around

and try to draw each other.

I would always draw his big curly hair

and his red cheeks and he was really funny about it

and ripped it up and then taped it back together

’cause he didn’t wanna hurt my feelings.

(sullen music)

(sullen music)

- I didn’t know that he was one of the victims

until the next day,

and I was in the living room watching the TV

and when the names and the pictures started to scroll,

I just screamed when I saw him

because it just, it just wasn’t fair.

His family came from Mexico,

he really wanted to have a career,

he wanted to change his parents’ lives.

He wanted to help them.

- He would go out of his way to make sure that I was okay

and that I was having a good day.

He would ask me how my day was, he would give me a hug.

- I still think about if I opened the door,

if they were still here.

It’s something that really gets to me

because they were two of my close friends

and I think that if I got to the door fast enough

they would still be here.

And so many people have told me, no, you can’t do that.

It’s not your fault, but sometimes I think it is.

(bell ringing solemnly)

- If you looked at her, you would’ve never thought

anything bad could’ve happened to her.

She did not have one bad bone in her body.

- Cara and I were in Girl Scouts together

when we were five years old.

Then I moved to a different house

and I didn’t do Girl Scouts anymore

and then it was about a couple months before the shooting

when she came up to me, she’s like, you’re Lea.

And I was like, yeah.

And she’s like, we went to Girl Scouts together,

and I was like, oh my gosh.

And she sent me a picture, she had pictures of us together

and we were just getting to know each other,

and that day, I actually ate lunch with her.

It was me and my friend and Cara

and it was just the three of us and like...

- [Charlie] That very day?

- That very day, right before we went to fourth period.

I walked to her, to class and yeah.

Last I saw her.

(somber music)

- He loved Stoneman Douglas,

he loved all the kids, he always gave people rides

on his golf cart around to their classrooms.

- He was honestly another father to me.

Throughout high school, I made a few bad choices.

You know, skipping classes.

He never did something to make you feel bad,

instead he would ask you, why?

Why did you do it?

- So the shooter was in the hallway,

the first floor hallway

and so he went in through the stairwell

and I think what he was trying to do

is get a advantage because he could look into the hallway

from the stairwell.

But he opened that door right when the killer

was on the stairs directly across from him

and the killer just turned and shot him.

- He died doing the thing he loved to do.

- [Charlie] And that is look out for the students?

- Being there for the students,

making sure that they’re safe.

(sullen music)

- Peter Wang.

Well, he was holding the door open for the other,

the second group of kids to come through the door

when he got hit.

The kid was 14

and had the wherewithal to react to help other people

before he even worried about himself.

Peter was a gregarious and affable young man.

He talked to everybody, but only after his work was done.

- Going into the classroom where he’s not there anymore,

it hurt like extremely badly

’cause it’s like losing a family member

and them not being there is like extremely hard.

- He was a very talented JROTC sharpshooter.

When his cousin first moved here, he was bullied

because he didn’t speak English very well

’cause he was an immigrant

and Peter stood up for him, even though Peter was younger.

And I wrote in my story that Peter was a protector.

From what I heard from everyone, he was a very brave boy.

He was very aware of the underdog,

he was very aware of everyone who might be hurt

and that was the reason his family and friends

told me he sought out JROTC.

He really wanted to protect people.

So, Peter was posthumously admitted to West Point,

which is his dream school he’d always wanted to get into

and at his funeral, he was even presented

with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in his casket.

His mother was able to give him the award.

And his funeral was really well attended

by veterans from up and down the coast.

I talked to people who drove their motorcycles

as far away as Virginia just to be there

because they felt he was an American hero

and he deserved all of the honor and respect

they could possibly give him.

- Whenever we had Spirit Week

and everybody was in the middle or during lunch,

playing music, playing games,

he was the one that was the most hyped about it.

He was dancing, singing, jumping around.

He really was the life and spirit of Douglas.

- Every day just he made me laugh until my stomach hurt

and he backed you up when somebody, you know,

was being mean to you.

- I always called him a beautiful soul.

And the fact that, you know, he’s gone is,

it’s a hole in my life, it really is.

I wanted to see him graduate

and I wanted to keep up with him

and I wanted to go to his wedding

and, you know, see his kids.

’Cause he wrote about that.

You know, he was in my writing class

and he emerged as this beautiful writer.

And everyone really liked him.

Even his enemies loved him.

(somber music)

- [Charlie] How has this whole tragedy changed you?

- I’ve come to realize

that you’re not guaranteed anything forever, you know.

You have to take your life day by day

and tell the people that you love

that you love them ’cause you never know.

- I wake up sometimes in the morning and I’ve been crying.

All night.

And we are definitely changed,

we’re not the same people that we were.

I don’t think I’ll ever,

ever be the person that I was before that day.

- I realize how important it is

to stay connected to everyone and

life’s short and that you should make it count

and try to get out more and spend more time

with my classmates from room 1213 and, I guess,

realize that I should get to know people more closely.

- lt’s so hard to think properly

and straight again.

And every time I think by myself,

I’m having those flashbacks and I’m thinking

and I’m seeing this figure of death.

There’s more to life, there’s a reason why I’m still here,

I have to think of the positives.

- We know that Gina would not want us to be

totally miserable and not having a life.

We just try and move on.

Try and move through every day as best we can.

- I can’t even pretend to imagine the pain

that you’re going through, I just can’t.

And I think every single day

and I just feel so sad all the time,

but I just want you to know that I love all 17 of them

and I will never, ever forget them.

They’re in my thoughts every single day, and so are you.

- I’m sorry for the incompetence that occurred

and the negligence and the not doing

what they should have done prior to all this.

And all the things that’s coming out now

in reference to how this could’ve been prevented.

- It shouldn’t have happened.

You sent them off to school,

you didn’t send them off to war,

you didn’t send them off to a danger zone,

they went to school.

Who thinks their kid’s gonna go to school

and not come home from school?

(crowd cheering)

- [Woman] Yes, Emma!

- Six minutes and about 20 seconds.

In a little over six minutes,

17 of our friends were taken from us,

15 were injured and everyone, absolutely everyone,

in the Douglas community was forever altered.

Everyone who was there understands,

everyone who has been touched

by the cold grip of gun violence understands.

For us, long tearful, chaotic hours

in the scorching afternoon sun were spent not knowing.

No one understood the extent of what had happened.

No one could believe that there were bodies in that building

waiting to be identified for over a day.

No one knew that the people who were missing

had stopped breathing long before

any of us had even known that a Code Red had been called.

No one could comprehend the devastating aftermath

or how far this would reach or where this would go.

We are kids in March for Our Lives.

We are young people.

The oldest people in our organization are 20 years old.

I’m proud to know that it’s mainly young people

who are pushing this but we have every generation behind us.

All types of people.

It’s not just the young people

but the young people are the ones

who are finally stepping up and finding their voice again.

Because when young people get active,

that’s when mountains get moved.

Six minutes and 20 seconds with an AR-15

and my friend, Carmen, would never complain

to me about piano practice.

Aaron Feis would never call Kira, Miss Sunshine.

Alex Schachter would never walk

into school with his brother, Ryan.

Scott Beigel would never joke around with Cameron at camp.

Helena Ramsay would never hang out after school with Max.

Gina Montalto would never wave to her friend Liam at lunch.

Joaquin Oliver would never play basketball

with Sam or Dylan.

Alaina Petty would never, Cara Loughran would never,

Chris Hixon would never, Luke Hoyer would never,

Martin Duque Anguiano would never, Peter Wang would never,

Alyssa Alhadeff would never, Jaime Guttenberg would never,

Meadow Pollack would never.

- [Man] Alaina!

(crowd cheering)

(crowd applauds)

(crowd cheers)

(crowd cheering)

(crowd cheering)

- [Crowd] Never again, never again, never again,

never again, never again, never again,

never again, never again, never again,

never again, never again, never again,

never again, never again, never again,

never again, never again, never again,

never again, never again, never again,

never again, never again, never again!