On Feb. 14, a 19-year-old man opened fire with an AR-15 rifle at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, killing 17 people and injuring over 15.
This past week, hundreds of UF students — some of whom are alumni of the Parkland high school — held vigils on campus to honor the victims and survivors of the mass shooting.
Zach Xu, a UF sophomore and an alumnus of MSD organized Tuesday evening’s student-led vigil in Turlington Plaza.
Xu opened the vigil with a retelling of his discovery of the shooting Feb. 14 through a CNN livestream. Immediately in a state of shock, Xu said he contacted everyone he knew with a sibling still at the school. He received relieving responses, except for that of a close friend who couldn’t find his sister. After calling every trauma center where her name was on none of the lists, he realized that she was either in surgery or that their worst fears had come true. Xu received a text at 6 a.m. Thursday that changed everything: “She didn’t make it.”
As alumni stood on the concrete Turlington table, words muffled by tears turned to lucid anger.
Many students told the crowd of 200 accounts from the day of the shooting from their siblings who still attend the school.
“This didn’t just happen close to home. This is home,” said a group of alumni in unison as they read aloud their grief for their Parkland community.
Catherine Stout, a freshman at UF who graduated from MSD last June, said her 17-year-old sister now suffers from PTSD after witnessing the deaths of her classmates. Stout described the guilt her sister feels after leaving behind her classmate Carmen as traumatizing.
The vigil brought the tragedy into perspective for many students, including freshman Thapthim Bussararungsee.
“We all know someone who has been affected by this — I do,” Bussararungsee said. “One of my friends went to MSD.”
UF architecture sophomore Amanda herring also felt connected to the event as a Parkland resident. Herring attended the second vigil in honor of Meadow Pollack, a family friend who died at the shooting.
“If anything, the least I could do is come out and show support for my community,” Herring said. “It’s going to be life changing to go from no one knowing what or where that is when I say I’m from Parkland to ‘I’m so sorry’ and ‘Did you know anyone’?”
At the UF led candlelight vigil on Wednesday, the Plaza of the Americas was a sea of light with over 200 gathered to honor the MSD victims. Candles were distributed upon entrance and lit as each member of the crowd passed the flickering flames to their left.
Vice president of Student Affairs David Parrot opened the event on behalf of UF President Kent Fuchs, who could not attend Wednesday’s vigil.
In a note from Fuchs, Parrot asked the UF community to remember and mourn the loss of Carmen Schentrup, one of the 17 victims of the mass shooting who was planning to attend UF in the fall. Schentrup was admitted to the UF Class of 2022 Honors program earlier this month. Only a day after her death, Schentrup’s family also learned that she was a National Merit Scholar finalist.
The mourning process has caused students around the nation — even those not directly impacted by the MSD shooting —to demand change.
At the vigil on Tuesday, Xu announced plans to travel alongside other MSD alumni from UF to Washington D.C. for the March for Our Lives, on March 24.
“If this can happen in Parkland, Florida, this can happen anywhere else,” Xu said. “My hometown will be the last. It has to be. It will be.”