Students recount horror of Florida school shooting

Students held hands, trembled and hid for their lives in classrooms and bathrooms as a former student stalked the school, shooting with deadly intent. Some locked and barricaded doors, cowering in terror while they awaited rescue. For others, that rescue would never come.

By day’s end, 17 people were dead from the Wednesday shooting inside and around Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. More were seriously injured. Videos circulated among them of round after round being fired, a body surrounded by blood laying motionless on the floor.

And afterward, students relived the horror of the mass shooting at the end of a school day.

Cameron Kasky, 17, a junior, left his drama class to pick up his special needs brother Holden, a 15-year-old freshman. First there was a fire alarm, then running. Somebody said there was a shooter. Cameron called that boy a vulgarity, furious anyone would make such an insensitive joke. But then there was a teacher screaming for them to get inside. More confusion.

The brothers ran into a classroom, the door was locked behind them, the students crouched. “I didn’t let go of that kid for an hour and a half,” Cameron said of his brother, who has autism. “I told him, ‘Look, Holden, we’re going to be here for awhile.’”

And they didn’t leave until a SWAT team broke the door’s glass to get everyone out.

“It was difficult being with people who were hysterical and trying not to be hysterical,” he said. Cameron grabbed toward a chair, thinking he could attack anyone who tried to break in. A teacher told him no, don’t make noise.

“I don’t want to sound like a victim at all,” he said. “I didn’t get shot, I didn’t see anyone get shot. I am lucky as hell and I am very happy to be breathing right now air that is not coming from a tube. I am goddamn lucky.”

The boys’ father Jeff Kasky said: “We consider ourselves very fortunate to be together right now.”

Emily Sucher, 16, a junior who lives in Parkland, was in her TV Production class when an administrator announced over the intercom to evacuate the building. She said the students walked slowly to the staircase, trying to leave, when a teacher started screaming that there was a Code Red and to get back inside.

She got into the nearest classroom where a teacher barricaded the door with a bookshelf.

“All of us were shaking,” Emily said. “Some of the guys were trying to be cool about it but the girls were holding on to each other, even if we didn’t know each other. We just ducked.”

She videotaped students evacuating the school with their hands held high above their heads in the hallways. “I’m shaking,” a girl is heard whispering. “Let’s go, come on!” officers scream as students run past.

Freshman Ariana Perez said she heard about four shots from the 700 building, near where the gunman was reported. “I thought, ‘Is this real?’” Perez recalled. Her teacher instructed the class to sit in the corner so the shooter wouldn’t to be able to see them.

Andy Pedroza, 18, of Parkland, is a senior at the school.

“I feel a bit empty,” he said after he was home and caught his breath. “In the moment I was shaking. I was shaking like a Chihuahua who was terrified in a thunderstorm.”

Pedroza had permission to take an algebra II test by himself, in a room with less students and more time.

When he finished, he tried to return to class in the three-story freshman building and he heard the shots.

“I could hear the shots in the hallway,” he said.

“My instincts kicked in,” he said. He ran to the bathroom and hid in a stall. “The toilet was slippery and I thought I would make too much noise,” he said, so he stood nearby instead.

He waited until the shooting stopped, and then heard the sirens and the police chatter on their radios.

He walked out of the bathroom, and police directed him outside. “Just run,” he was told, after being patted down.

“Parkland is one of the safest place I know,” Pedroza said. “I would never [have thought] this type of awful thing [would] happen at the school. I feel ridiculously safe in Parkland. Words can’t describe that I can go out at night and look at the stars.

“This never should have never happened.”

Rabbi Michael Gold of Temple Beth Torah Temple Beth Torah Sha’aray Tzedek in Tamarac was summoned by the Sheriff’s Office chaplain’s office to come assist with victim families. He spent hours at the hospital and nearby hotel comforting families whose children were still missing as the night ticked on. He spoke with one family whose child was in surgery and expected to recover.

And what did he say? “Nothing,” Gold said. “You being there says it all. There are no words. They don’t want to hear words. I’ve said prayers with people. All you could do is wait.”

“You always hope against hope,” said Gold, whose son graduated from the school. But he was afraid for the worst for the families who sat with no news. Gold said authorities were trying to identify victims based on pictures and descriptions. “By the time they get to this point, it doesn’t look good,” he said at 8:30 p.m. “Most of them suspect it’s not good news.”

Jeff Kasky, the father of the brothers who attend the school, is angry.

“The Marco Rubios and the Rick Scotts who take money from the NRA [will say] ‘Thoughts and prayers.’ It’s enough already with thoughts and prayers. If they take money from the NRA, this blood is on their hands. The pigs who take money from the NRA, this is all on them.”

Staff writer Aric Chokey contributed to this report.

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