Parkland, FL used to be just another western sprawl municipality, indistinguishable from all the others in Southeast Florida. Not any more. A young man with tragedy in his life and resentment in his soul changed that. The murders and assaults that occurred Valentines Day 2018 on a high school campus forces the entire community to change. Nothing will ever be the same. It may some day become familiar again, but the deep loss endured has altered what was.
Many in Parkland saw this tragedy coming. Warnings about the 19 yr old that committed these unthinkable acts, (not using his name on purpose), came from family, friends, peers, neighbors, and officials. Common sense says at some point someone would’ve taken these warnings seriously. According to CNN, Broward County Sheriff’s office responded to calls 45 times involving him. They started as fights with his brother, then assaulting his mother, and by 2014 police where called because he was shooting chickens with a BB gun and using his dog to attack other animals and people.
A Majory Stoneman Douglas High School peer mentor alerted school officials in 2016 that the shooter had tied to kill himself drinking gasoline, was cutting himself, and wanted to buys guns. Common sense says this young man needs help. That was what his classmate thought. Ultimately he was deemed not a threat to himself or others and released. Earlier that year, a neighbor saw an instagram posts threatening to, “shoot up the school”. Common sense says call the cops so they can check it out. The neighbor was told nothing could be done until a crime happened.
Now that a crime has happened, common sense says something needs to be done. But what? Will common sense prevail in light of so much violence and suffering. Will mass shootings, (an uniquely American problem), ever end? Common sense says no. The public debate about guns, and just about everything else, is so divided that discourse never really begins. Steven Stills wrote, “nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong”. Right or wrong shouldn’t, and doesn’t matter on this one. Common sense matters, for what it’s worth.
What it is ain’t exactly clear
There’s a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
Everybody look what’s going down
Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind
Everybody look what’s going down
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side
Everybody look what’s going down
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you’re always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away
Everybody look what’s going down
Stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
Stop, now, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
Stop, children, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
Mike Ramer Photo 