Parkland survivors demand Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School be torn down after Nikolas Cruz verdict
‘They better tear that building down today,’ former student says
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Survivors of the 2018 Parkland school shooting reacted to the life sentence verdict for gunman Nikolas Cruz with calls for the high school to finally be torn down.
Cruz was spared the death penalty as the jury recommended life in prison without parole on Thursday.
As families of the victims shared outrage at the verdict, survivors of the 2018 massacre took to Twitter to demand the demolition of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, which has sat vacant ever since.
Former student Carly Novell tweeted: “They better tear that building down today.
“No excuses now! Immediately!” Aalayah Eastmond responded.
“Seeing their beautiful faces on my tv took me back to the morning after.. finally seeing the full damage that MONSTER did to other classrooms & hallways. At the same time as the rest of the world. This was unexpected… My [heart] aches.. Four years later this pain hurts no different,” she added.
David Hogg, who became a prominent gun reform activist in the wake of the shooting, put the focus on the victims, “who actually deserves your attention”.
He listed all those killed on 14 February 2018, including Alyssa Alhadeff, Scott Beigel, Martin Anguiano, Nicholas Dworet, Aaron Feis, Jamie Guttenberg, Chris Hixon, Luke Hoyer, Cara Loughran, Gina Montalto, Joaquin Oliver, Alaina Petty, Meadow Pollack, Helena Ramsay, Alex Schachter, Carmen Schentrup, and Peter Wang.
Robert Runcie was the superintendent of the Broward County School District in 2018. He told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel at the time that “parents and students have resoundingly told me they can’t go back into that building regardless of what we do”.
“The other piece I heard is that that building will be used as evidence in any type of legal process that goes forward, so we won’t be able to access the building for a while anyway,” he added.
The paper reported in August that the Cruz defence team cautioned against bringing jurors to the school as it could lead to emotional harm because large parts of it stand as it did after the shooting more than four and a half years ago.
Parents called for the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas to be destroyed following the school shooting that killed 21 earlier this year.
Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Superintendent Hal Harrell said in June that “Robb Elementary, we will not be going back to that campus in any form or fashion. There will be no school personnel on that campus as we move forward”.
“As far as the future of that site, there are discussions about what that will look like, as we move forward as a community, we’ll have some community input to determine what that looks like for our community,” Mr Harrell added, according to Newsweek.
As calls mounted for the demolition in Parkland, furious families of the victims killed in the shooting held a press conference to condemn the verdict.
Lori Alhadeff, the mother of slain student Alyssa Alhadeff, told reporters she was “beyond disappointed”.
“This should have been the death penalty, 1,000 per cent,” she said.
Alyssa’s father, Ilan Alhadeff, asked jurors: “What were you thinking? ... Jail is about rehabbing someone. There is no rehabbing [Cruz].”
“I pray that animal suffers every day of his life in jail. And it should be a short life,” he continued.
“What a load of hogwash. There were no mitigating circumstances. He’s not a human being. He’s an animal.”
Tony Montalto, the father of Gina, said it was “pretty unreal that nobody paid attention to the facts of this case, that nobody can remember who a victim is and what they look like”.
“I know every day because I see my beautiful daughter’s face,” he added, calling the ruling “yet another gut punch”.
“Our justice system should have been used to punish this shooter to the fullest extent of the law, not as an act of revenge, but to protect our nation’s schools to stop others from attacking the future of this country when they attack our schools,” he said.