School Safety--Megan

We heard a muffled yell over the intercom and stared at each other in horror.

May 2, 2014 was a day just like any other. It was a Friday, and I was looking forward to the weekend. The drought-induced heat was sweltering and I daydreamed of swimming in my pool after school. My classmates and I shuffled to third period around 10AM and sank into our chairs. In the middle of a lecture, a voice broadcast an intercom message to my entire school. “She’s down!” The class went silent as we listened close for any indication of what was going on. We heard muffled voices and commotion through the speaker, and then silence. Ten seconds passed.. then twenty.. We struggled to process what we just heard. I sat frozen in my seat expecting to hear a reassuring message from the principal, but minute after minute passed without any explanation from administration. Students around me began texting their parents and saying how much they loved them. Finally the principal’s voice rang out from the speaker and broke the stiff silence. The campus was going on lockdown. Mrs. Gonzalez moved briskly across the classroom, locked the doors, and shut off the lights. She put on a brave face to keep myself and my classmates calm. As our only means of shelter, we crawled underneath our desks. In my mind, any hopes that this was just a fluke were thrown out the window. Seemingly all of us came to the same conclusion: someone had been shot. We all assumed that the

intercom message had come from the front office and that we were in peril. I began to imagine my school in the news. “Shooting at Heritage Intermediate School,” played over and over in my head. Suddenly the headlines became real to me. I wondered if I would become another victim name on a news channel ticker tape. I looked around the room at my friends cowering in fear under the desks, thinking this would be the last thing I saw. We sat close to each other, hands shaking and clasped in the dark. It felt as if we were waiting in silence for hours. ​Tap, tap, tap.Someone knocked on our door. I could feel my stomach in my throat as we waited for whatever came next. The vice principal’s voice called to our class through the door saying that it was a false alarm. A collective sigh of relief swept through the classroom as my teacher opened the door, allowing a trickle of light to shine on us. We crept out from under the desks and stretched and hugged each other tight. We later learned from police that the false alarm was a practical joke played by one or more students who had learned how to use the use the intercom system in the gym.
I used to believe that I was safe at school. We've all heard of places like Columbine, Sandy Hook, and Virginia Tech, but no one ever expects tragedy to hit so close to home. This event made me realize that violence can happen at any school and any time, and anyone could be the next victim. I’m blessed that I only went through a false alarm, and my heart breaks imagining the terror that victims of actual school shootings experienced. Only twenty-two days later, a campus shooting took place at UC Santa Barbara killing seven students and injuring seven more. Shootings during the last two decades have made it clear that these events can happen at elementary, middle, and high schools, as well as colleges and workplaces, meaning that this risk

will follow me the rest of my life. I relive my experience every time I hear of another school shooting in the news. So what can my peers and I do to forge a safer future? We can follow the lead of the students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. We can speak with local community leaders. We can advocate for more extensive background checks across the United States. We can register to vote. We can support political candidates who will promote more restrictive gun ownership requirements. We can vote to diminish the power of gun lobbies in America. We can oppose companies and products backed by gun lobbies. Personal activism is the mode by which my generation will begin to make positive change in our nation. It’s not good enough to sit back and be part of the 40%+ of American citizens who do not vote. With every small action, we’re one step closer to a future without gun violence.