Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School began a phased re-opening process Monday, nearly two weeks after the Feb. 14 shooting.
Teachers, students, and parents returned to the campus for the first time since the shooting Monday morning to gather bags, books, and other property left in their scramble to escape 19-year-old shooter Nikolas Cruz. Teachers resumed their duties Monday, but students won’t return to classes until Wednesday, the New York Times reported.
“It actually felt good to be in the building,” Briana Valli, 17, told the NYT. “We’re all going through this together.”
Students took their parents into the school to show them where they hid from the shooter, and 17 memorials stand outside the school for the students and teachers who never made it out.
Blame for the shooting has landed on law enforcement, recently. The FBI and Broward Sheriff Scott Israel failed to act on multiple tips that Cruz was violent, mentally ill, and likely to commit a shooting. On the day of the attack, one of Israel’s deputies, Scot Peterson, was on site at the school but “did nothing,” according to the Sheriff. Peterson has since resigned, and there are growing calls for Israel’s resignation, despite his claims of having “amazing leadership.” (RELATED: Will The Parkland Shooter Get The Death Penalty?)
“It absolutely outrages me that at the CNN town hall, we had the sheriff who was virtue signaling against the NRA and against guns when he didn’t even act properly,” shooting survivor Kyle Kashuv said Sunday. “The armed officer at our school waited outside with the sheriff and his men for four minutes and let my classmates die while he stood outside and waited. He didn’t do his job properly, and then he turns around and says guns are the issue when he failed to act properly.”
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Peterson’s failure is just one of many local, state and federal law enforcement breakdowns that allowed the shooter to kill so many. The FBI was warned in January Cruz was likely to carry out an attack, but the bureau failed to alert local authorities. Sheriff Scott Israel’s deputies visited Cruz’s home 39 times over the course of seven years. Cruz’s host parents warned authorities he’d “used a gun against people before” and “has put the gun to others’ heads in the past.” The school also requested a threat assessment of Cruz in 2017.
“It is now clear that the warning signs were there and tips to the FBI were missed,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement. “We see the tragic consequences of those failures.”
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