Let’s remember their names: Alaina, Aaron, Alex, Alyssa, Cara, Carmen, Chris, Gina, Helena, Jaime, Joaquin, Luke, Martin, Meadow, Nicholas, Peter and Scott.
All 17 are victims of last week’s mass murder at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida — an upper-middle class place that loves its parks, touts its promising young athlete-scholars and looks, on paper, a lot like Camas.
Carmen was a 16-year-old National Merit Scholar semifinalist. Nicholas had been recruited to swim for the University of Indianapolis. Aaron was an assistant football coach and father, who threw himself in the line of fire to save petrified teenagers. The list just goes on, one heartbreaking tale after another.
Their killer, a 19-year-old former Stoneman Douglas student who had been expelled for his violent tendencies, entered the school on Valentine’s Day, armed with an AR-15 assault rifle, ready to terrorize.
What happened in Parkland is every parent’s worst, most unimaginable nightmare: You send your child to school and they never come home.