Families of the victims of one of the most horrific shootings in U.S. history watched as demolition began on a building at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where 17 students and teachers were murdered in 2018.
The building stood empty for more than six years, at first kept preserved as a crime scene as Nikolas Cruz, who shot more than 30, faced prosecution for the horrific killings. Cruz was sentenced in 2022 to life without parole after changes to Florida law stopped jurors — who toured the building still containing the blood stains and bullet shells left by the Valentine’s Day shooting — from enacting the death penalty.
The shooting, in which Cruz utilized an AR-15 assault rifle, came mere months after the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, where 60 were killed using more than 20 firearms and bump stocks, a device that effectively converts a traditional gun into an automatic-adjacent one.
A Supreme Court ruling Friday morning ended a 2018 federal regulation regulating the use of bump stocks, to the dismay of Parkland survivor David Hogg, who took to X to voice his disapproval.
“Ah, yes because who doesn’t need the ability to freely turn a semiautomatic AR-15 into what in effect is a machine gun? This is f***ing insane,” Hogg wrote.
As the fate of the site remains unclear, families and friends of victims of the largest mass shooting at a high school in U.S. history weigh-in on how they want the space to be used; including Dylan Persaud, who was a student at the school in 2018.
“I’d like to see it gone,“ Persaud, who lost 7 friends in the violent act, told NBC6 Florida. “It puts a period on the end of the story. They should put a nice memorial there for the 17."
Along with Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, other mass shooting sites, including Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, are subject to demolition.
