PARKLAND, Fla. (AP) — A crew is scheduled Friday to begin tearing down the three-story classroom building where 17 people died in the 2018 mass shooting at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
The victims’ families have been invited to watch the first blows and hammer off a piece themselves if they choose. Officials plan to complete the weekslong project before the school’s 3,300 students return in August from summer vacation. Most were in elementary school when the shooting happened.
The building had been kept up to serve as evidence at the shooter’s 2022 penalty trial. Jurors toured its bullet-pocked and blood-stained halls, but spared him a death sentence. He is serving a term of life without parole.
Broward County is not alone in taking down a school building after a mass shooting. In Connecticut, Sandy Hook Elementary School was torn down after the 2012 shooting and replaced. In Texas, officials closed Robb Elementary in Uvalde after the 2022 shooting there and plan to demolish it. Colorado’s Columbine High had its library demolished after the 1999 shooting.
Over the last year, some victims’ relatives have led Vice President Kamala Harris, members of Congress, school officials, police officers and about 500 other invitees from around the country on tours of the building. They mostly demonstrated how improved safety measures like bullet-resistant glass in door windows, a better alarm system and doors that lock from the inside could have saved lives.
RELATED COVERAGE North Carolina judges grapple with defining ‘fair’ elections in redistricting suit New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor testifies for government in Sen. Bob Menendez prosecution Donald Trump’s lawyers press judge to lift gag order in wake of ex-president’s felony conviction
Those who have taken the tour have called it gut-wrenching as something of a time capsule of Feb. 14, 2018. Textbooks and laptops sat open on desks, and wilted Valentine’s Day flowers, deflated balloons and abandoned teddy bears were scattered amid broken glass. Those objects have now been removed.
The Broward County school board has not decided what the building will be replaced with. Teachers suggested a practice field for the band, Junior ROTC and other groups, connected by a landscaped pathway to a nearby memorial that was erected a few years ago. Several of the students killed belonged to the band or Junior ROTC.
Some parents want the site turned into a memorial.