Written by Dr. Stevn Webb
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As I opened the Maps app on my phone and typed in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, I wondered what to expect. Honor, and certainly heartbreak, overtook my anxiousness. I had been invited by Max Schachter, who had lost his son Alex that Valentine’s Day in 2018.
I drove as I was instructed, but my thoughts were on the seventeen victims and the solemn fact that I was going to view the scene of their murders. Fourteen defenseless children had lost their lives, as had three heroic teachers. I hoped the trauma of the crime scene could somehow spark my words to help others prevent similar tragedies.
When I turned onto the road that led to the school, I passed the Walmart where the murderer had stopped to get a soft drink after his cowardly deed next door. My mind raced to video footage of him running down the sidewalk. I wondered, Was he proud of himself? Was he scared that he was going to hell? Or was he just a deranged killer with no feelings at all?
I arrived at the school and saw several Broward County squad cars lining the rear parking lot; one was at the gate where I was instructed to enter. In the distance, I could see the front parking lot where the murderer had exited his Uber and begun his war on the innocents.
You see, I had been there before. I had traveled there years earlier to pay my respects and try to learn from this tragedy so that I could tell others, but I had not gone inside during that visit. I had interviewed a community member whose son had attended a neighboring school.
He had told me, “I can’t believe it happened here!” I have heard the same from interviewees at Littleton, CO, Uvalde, TX, Santee, CA, and just about everywhere I have researched, but his next words completely resonated with me: “It should have happened in my son’s school, because this is where the rich kids go, and my son’s school are the poor kids.” So, this type of violence is actually expected if you attend a “poor” school or live in a “poor” neighborhood?
My flashbacks of this encounter and my first time at Marjory Stoneman Douglas enveloped me as I approached the entrance, and only broke when a deputy with the Broward County Sheriff’s Office approached my window and very politely asked for my name and identification. She soon said, “Welcome, and thank you for coming.” Thank you for coming? I was honored.
When I saw Building 12, I was in awe. A sheet of plywood covered what I assumed was the third-floor window that the murderer had tried to shoot through at fleeing children below. I had studied media accounts and had followed the court proceedings and had thought I was very well versed with the timeline and events of that fateful day, but I soon realized there were holes in my knowledge.
In the east parking lot, another officer greeted the visitors and showed us to the gym area. I saw people milling around an area in the courtyard, which contained another memorial to the victims. On my previous visit, I had attended the memorial located at the school’s sign by the road.
This one, however, was much more individualized with the victim’s pictures and their stories that never got to be completed due to the killer’s ambition of “power”—as he had expressed in social media posts and videos before that terrible day—words that I have heard over and over. I use them in my keynotes to explain the dangers of social media and sociopaths’ insatiable need to become “famous.”
I viewed each of the victims’ memorials. Emotions had never hit like they did that day as I read each story, just feet from where they had perished. Around Building 12 stood a chain-link fence approximately twelve feet tall with a wind screen around it that bore the school’s logo. I realized that for over four and a half years, Building 12 and its barrier had been a constant reminder that danger is never far away.
Outside the gym, I was greeted by staffers who welcomed me and provided my name badge and some materials describing the support there that day. Also present were advocate groups, law enforcement—some in uniform and some in business casual—and counselors in case the tour became just too much. The wait on the bleachers was excruciating.
I knew from my readings that the killer had been a student there—he had possibly even sat where I was seated. My body began to tense from the anger of being somewhere that should have been safe for our children, yet a monster had lurked amongst the students. As if changing gears, I heard someone yell, “Please follow me for the tour!” We all stood and started toward the gym’s back doors.
We had been asked not to bring phones, so I had left mine in my rental car. A sheriff’s deputy “wanded” us to make certain no one could photograph the horrendous sight. Soon we were briefed by Max Schachter and the Broward County assistant state attorney at the time of the shooting, Steven Klinger, on what we were about to see.
I couldn’t help but stare into Max’s eyes as I marveled at his heroic strength in repeatedly showing total strangers where his son had taken his final breaths.
We walked into the breezeway toward the back of Building 12 and went in—the opposite of what the killer had done. We were told there would be dried blood in several places and to avoid disturbing those areas and that volunteers would be stationed where deaths had occurred. The building had been frozen in time from the day of the massacre, preserved as a crime scene.
Next, we entered Building 12’s stairwell door. In the hallway, we immediately sidestepped drag marks where we learned one of the teachers had rushed in to try to stop the shooter and had been immediately fired upon. Another teacher had died outside the stairwell door.
Evidence markers noted numerous bullet holes in the walls and in a fire extinguisher box. When we reached the front entrance to Building 12, Mr. Klinger asked us to turn around and look at the hallway doors. A bullet had penetrated one. It was morning, and light was shining through the hole as a reminder of the carnage of years earlier.
We entered the first classroom where deaths had occurred, and we saw the desk where Alex Schachter had been shot through the door’s approximately 8-by-40-inch window. While the deaths on the first floor had been largely in classrooms, people on the third floor, who could not hear the shooting, had been filing toward the stairwells due to a fire alarm, becoming targets in a confined area.
Books, bags, papers, and Valentine-themed cards and balloons had marked the festive environment before hell had broken loose. Even with all the terrible signs of death, we were unprepared to read an assignment posted near the back of the room: students had written their own obituaries, which were still there. We stood in pure disbelief.
We then went up to the second-floor hallway. There had been no deaths on that floor, because people there had had time to react as they had heard the shooting downstairs. When we entered the stairwell to the third floor, several volunteers were trying to protect the integrity of the crime scene, years later.
This was where students had been caught in the hallway trying to exit as the fire alarm blared. A teacher had tried to lock his door from the outside, to save lives. Due to his lifeless body blocking the doorway, the shooter had not found the students hiding in their safe area. All of the deaths on the third floor had occurred in the hallway.
I will not name the murderer, because he doesn’t deserve to be remembered, nor will I mention each of the deaths and how they came to be. I will save much of my experience for my keynote presentations. However, we must remember one significant fact: Some classrooms had tape on the floor, indicating where people could be “safe” from danger in the hallway. It marked the areas that could not be seen through the doors’ windows. There was no blood matter anywhere within those “safe areas.”
All of the deaths had been in the line of sight—in the classrooms or hallways that had been completely unlocked. This school had practiced what to do in the event of an active shooter, but no actual lockdown had ever been called. During the shooting, several people had dropped to the floor or otherwise tried to hide behind items that provided insufficient cover from gunfire, but the one-day “practice” had not been enough.
Locked doors and a readiness mindset would have saved a lot of lives that day. The question is not whether we have learned our lesson but whether we will remember and practice what we know can prevent more tragedy. It is not a matter of if, but when, another psychopath thinks they can become famous by entering a school and taking out their frustration with society on innocent kids and teachers.
Every day that you are responsible for our nation’s most vulnerable, the question is: Are you ready?
--
About Dr. Steve Webb
Dr. Steve Webb is an award-winning educator, police officer and founder of Safe Secure/School Systems. He is a nationally known motivational speaker and the Amazon best-selling author of Education in a Violent World. As a recognized safety and education expert, Dr. Webb has been featured on all of the major television networks and radio stations across the nation. He is a certified ALICE Active Shooter Response Instructor, a RAIDER Solo Engagement Rapid Response Trainer for law enforcement and security, a Board Certified Workplace Violence and Threat Assessment Specialist and a certified John Maxwell Keynote Speaker. His patented SAFE Violence Prevention and Response Trainings have been featured in schools, churches and business all around the United States. He brings an energy and passion that is second to none in protecting one another in a world that is rapidly changing. Participants leave his presentations with a lifetime of motivation, empowerment and logic with the knowledge and the ability to better understand themselves and their mission of "Connecting IS Protecting"! Go to www.drstevewebb.com to learn more and to book Dr. Webb for your event.
--
As I opened the Maps app on my phone and typed in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, I wondered what to expect. Honor, and certainly heartbreak, overtook my anxiousness. I had been invited by Max Schachter, who had lost his son Alex that Valentine’s Day in 2018.
I drove as I was instructed, but my thoughts were on the seventeen victims and the solemn fact that I was going to view the scene of their murders. Fourteen defenseless children had lost their lives, as had three heroic teachers. I hoped the trauma of the crime scene could somehow spark my words to help others prevent similar tragedies.
When I turned onto the road that led to the school, I passed the Walmart where the murderer had stopped to get a soft drink after his cowardly deed next door. My mind raced to video footage of him running down the sidewalk. I wondered, Was he proud of himself? Was he scared that he was going to hell? Or was he just a deranged killer with no feelings at all?
I arrived at the school and saw several Broward County squad cars lining the rear parking lot; one was at the gate where I was instructed to enter. In the distance, I could see the front parking lot where the murderer had exited his Uber and begun his war on the innocents.
You see, I had been there before. I had traveled there years earlier to pay my respects and try to learn from this tragedy so that I could tell others, but I had not gone inside during that visit. I had interviewed a community member whose son had attended a neighboring school.
He had told me, “I can’t believe it happened here!” I have heard the same from interviewees at Littleton, CO, Uvalde, TX, Santee, CA, and just about everywhere I have researched, but his next words completely resonated with me: “It should have happened in my son’s school, because this is where the rich kids go, and my son’s school are the poor kids.” So, this type of violence is actually expected if you attend a “poor” school or live in a “poor” neighborhood?
My flashbacks of this encounter and my first time at Marjory Stoneman Douglas enveloped me as I approached the entrance, and only broke when a deputy with the Broward County Sheriff’s Office approached my window and very politely asked for my name and identification. She soon said, “Welcome, and thank you for coming.” Thank you for coming? I was honored.
When I saw Building 12, I was in awe. A sheet of plywood covered what I assumed was the third-floor window that the murderer had tried to shoot through at fleeing children below. I had studied media accounts and had followed the court proceedings and had thought I was very well versed with the timeline and events of that fateful day, but I soon realized there were holes in my knowledge.
In the east parking lot, another officer greeted the visitors and showed us to the gym area. I saw people milling around an area in the courtyard, which contained another memorial to the victims. On my previous visit, I had attended the memorial located at the school’s sign by the road.
This one, however, was much more individualized with the victim’s pictures and their stories that never got to be completed due to the killer’s ambition of “power”—as he had expressed in social media posts and videos before that terrible day—words that I have heard over and over. I use them in my keynotes to explain the dangers of social media and sociopaths’ insatiable need to become “famous.”
I viewed each of the victims’ memorials. Emotions had never hit like they did that day as I read each story, just feet from where they had perished. Around Building 12 stood a chain-link fence approximately twelve feet tall with a wind screen around it that bore the school’s logo. I realized that for over four and a half years, Building 12 and its barrier had been a constant reminder that danger is never far away.
Outside the gym, I was greeted by staffers who welcomed me and provided my name badge and some materials describing the support there that day. Also present were advocate groups, law enforcement—some in uniform and some in business casual—and counselors in case the tour became just too much. The wait on the bleachers was excruciating.
I knew from my readings that the killer had been a student there—he had possibly even sat where I was seated. My body began to tense from the anger of being somewhere that should have been safe for our children, yet a monster had lurked amongst the students. As if changing gears, I heard someone yell, “Please follow me for the tour!” We all stood and started toward the gym’s back doors.
We had been asked not to bring phones, so I had left mine in my rental car. A sheriff’s deputy “wanded” us to make certain no one could photograph the horrendous sight. Soon we were briefed by Max Schachter and the Broward County assistant state attorney at the time of the shooting, Steven Klinger, on what we were about to see.
I couldn’t help but stare into Max’s eyes as I marveled at his heroic strength in repeatedly showing total strangers where his son had taken his final breaths.
We walked into the breezeway toward the back of Building 12 and went in—the opposite of what the killer had done. We were told there would be dried blood in several places and to avoid disturbing those areas and that volunteers would be stationed where deaths had occurred. The building had been frozen in time from the day of the massacre, preserved as a crime scene.
Next, we entered Building 12’s stairwell door. In the hallway, we immediately sidestepped drag marks where we learned one of the teachers had rushed in to try to stop the shooter and had been immediately fired upon. Another teacher had died outside the stairwell door.
Evidence markers noted numerous bullet holes in the walls and in a fire extinguisher box. When we reached the front entrance to Building 12, Mr. Klinger asked us to turn around and look at the hallway doors. A bullet had penetrated one. It was morning, and light was shining through the hole as a reminder of the carnage of years earlier.
We entered the first classroom where deaths had occurred, and we saw the desk where Alex Schachter had been shot through the door’s approximately 8-by-40-inch window. While the deaths on the first floor had been largely in classrooms, people on the third floor, who could not hear the shooting, had been filing toward the stairwells due to a fire alarm, becoming targets in a confined area.
Books, bags, papers, and Valentine-themed cards and balloons had marked the festive environment before hell had broken loose. Even with all the terrible signs of death, we were unprepared to read an assignment posted near the back of the room: students had written their own obituaries, which were still there. We stood in pure disbelief.
We then went up to the second-floor hallway. There had been no deaths on that floor, because people there had had time to react as they had heard the shooting downstairs. When we entered the stairwell to the third floor, several volunteers were trying to protect the integrity of the crime scene, years later.
This was where students had been caught in the hallway trying to exit as the fire alarm blared. A teacher had tried to lock his door from the outside, to save lives. Due to his lifeless body blocking the doorway, the shooter had not found the students hiding in their safe area. All of the deaths on the third floor had occurred in the hallway.
I will not name the murderer, because he doesn’t deserve to be remembered, nor will I mention each of the deaths and how they came to be. I will save much of my experience for my keynote presentations. However, we must remember one significant fact: Some classrooms had tape on the floor, indicating where people could be “safe” from danger in the hallway. It marked the areas that could not be seen through the doors’ windows. There was no blood matter anywhere within those “safe areas.”
All of the deaths had been in the line of sight—in the classrooms or hallways that had been completely unlocked. This school had practiced what to do in the event of an active shooter, but no actual lockdown had ever been called. During the shooting, several people had dropped to the floor or otherwise tried to hide behind items that provided insufficient cover from gunfire, but the one-day “practice” had not been enough.
Locked doors and a readiness mindset would have saved a lot of lives that day. The question is not whether we have learned our lesson but whether we will remember and practice what we know can prevent more tragedy. It is not a matter of if, but when, another psychopath thinks they can become famous by entering a school and taking out their frustration with society on innocent kids and teachers.
Every day that you are responsible for our nation’s most vulnerable, the question is: Are you ready?
--
About Dr. Steve Webb
Dr. Steve Webb is an award-winning educator, police officer and founder of Safe Secure/School Systems. He is a nationally known motivational speaker and the Amazon best-selling author of Education in a Violent World. As a recognized safety and education expert, Dr. Webb has been featured on all of the major television networks and radio stations across the nation. He is a certified ALICE Active Shooter Response Instructor, a RAIDER Solo Engagement Rapid Response Trainer for law enforcement and security, a Board Certified Workplace Violence and Threat Assessment Specialist and a certified John Maxwell Keynote Speaker. His patented SAFE Violence Prevention and Response Trainings have been featured in schools, churches and business all around the United States. He brings an energy and passion that is second to none in protecting one another in a world that is rapidly changing. Participants leave his presentations with a lifetime of motivation, empowerment and logic with the knowledge and the ability to better understand themselves and their mission of "Connecting IS Protecting"! Go to www.drstevewebb.com to learn more and to book Dr. Webb for your event.
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The opinions reflected in this article are not necessarily the opinions of LET
Comments
2024-03-31T20:44-0400 | Comment by: Michael
I realize that not all desire or are perhaps even capable, but had some of those teachers been properly trained and armed, even more would have been saved. Because such areas are "gun-free", but, of course, not to criminals, only the law-abiding become disarmed.