Parkland - Dave Cullen Page 0,53
had to deal with its administration, and the responses ran the gamut across the country. Many administrators threatened detentions or suspensions for the insubordination. Others supported the kids and worked with them, but safety was a big concern. At Douglas, the plan was to walk out to the football field; play “Shine”; hear a short speech by Ty Thompson, the principal; observe the seventeen minutes of silence; and then file back inside. The entire event would take about half an hour. Everyone would be safely sealed off behind the tall chain-link fence, still festooned with flowers, brown and crumply now. The press, a constant presence and a growing irritant, would be kept at bay.
Other local schools were even more restrictive: walking “out” to the corridors inside. But all these plans suffered from the same glitch: most of the kids hated them. What was the point of limiting the protest to seventeen minutes? And reporters could be super annoying, but wasn’t this exactly the wrong moment to shut them up? This was a show of force—why seal off the messengers?
Susana Matta Valdivieso, a seventeen-year-old Douglas student, decided to do something bigger, even if her classmates couldn’t participate. She spent weeks organizing a multischool rally at North Community Park in Coral Springs. She lined up kids to speak from several schools, and coaxed Rabbi Melinda Bernstein to offer an invocation and lead a moment of silence. Bernstein was also bringing a microphone and portable speaker set. Angel Lopez helped publicize it on his browardstrong Instagram account. Angel was a recent graduate of Coral Gables Senior High in the neighboring suburb, who began organizing after the attack. The site was a short walk from Douglas, whose students had been warned not to set foot off the campus. Violators would be locked out and marked truant for the remainder of the day.
Not good enough. A small rebellion was brewing. Lauren Hogg first got wind of it on Instagram that morning. A Snapchat message was flying around during first period that read: “After the 17 minutes, please march with us to Pine Trails. 17 minutes is NOT enough.”
It was unclear how many students were ready to test the administration. They liked Mr. Thompson, and they had been through a lot together. Most kids later said they had been undecided, waiting to see if it amounted to anything. As they filed back in from the football field, no one seemed to be making a break for it. But everything changed when their young siblings made a move just down the street.
Westglades Middle School abuts the Douglas campus just beyond its football field. Its students were grumbling too. “We had organized a walkout,” said eighth-grader Christopher Krok. “The school said OK, but they put us in the field—which we thought wasn’t enough. That won’t show anything.” He and his friends hatched their own plan, which was also flying around social media that morning. “I didn’t think anyone would actually do it,” eighth-grader Justin St. Piere said. No one did. Only the four organizers were on board, and they were pretty iffy. That was so far fewer than at Douglas, where the rebellion was faltering—but these four actually walked.
It started with Christopher Krok, who led the rebellion in full military uniform—US Army dress greens. Christopher was the young commander of Westglades’ Junior ROTC program. He said they had been plotting all morning, but he wasn’t sure they would go through with it until “about two seconds before it started.” He nodded at his friends around him. “Ryan, Spencer, me, and my sister here, we were like, ‘Let’s just walk out.’ We got stopped by security and the principal and we just said, ‘No, we’re going.’”
They made it past the principal, out to the street, where they expected to be on their own. Back inside, there was a standoff. The hallways were full from the walk in, so hundreds had watched the four escape. The principal was furious. Kids were afraid to follow, but then a few bolted. Another stare-down, another burst. The kids were still intimidated, but growing nervier by the second, and the breakouts got bigger, the intervals shorter, until the dam burst. A wave of students poured onto Holmberg Road, and the staff gave up.
The kids ran down the street until they reached Christopher Krok, who was extolling the need for stricter gun laws to the assembled reporters while making his way down Holmberg Road toward Douglas High. Dozens of boys in army uniforms followed, many