PARKLAND, Fla. — The walls still hold up the ceilings, but they’re pocked with bullet holes.
The floors still stand, but they’re stained with pools of dried blood.
In terms of infrastructure, Building 12 remains sound, but it haunts thousands who see it every day, knowing that on Valentine’s Day 2018, five years ago, 17 people were murdered in that three-story freshman building — 11 on the first floor, six on the third floor.
The more than 3,300 students, parents, teachers, staffers and neighbors who walk or drive by it on the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School campus in Parkland, and the families of those who died in the tragedy, have pleaded for its demolition days, weeks and years after that horrific day, the worst school shooting in Florida’s history.
Akira Gutierrez Renzulli, a Florida International University doctoral student who researches trauma, said a concrete reminder of a negative event, like a building, can lead survivors to relive the trauma through flashbacks, hindering their recovery.
“The physical representation of an experience can be very triggering,” she said. “It can lead to retraumatization.”
But, this year, the building may finally be demolished.
Linda Beigel Schulman, the mother of Scott Beigel, who was hired by the school in August 2018 to coach cross country and teach geography, roughly six months before he died while ushering students into his classroom, can’t wait for the demolition.
“The sooner, the better, for everyone’s sake,” she said.
Beigel Schulman lives in New York so she doesn’t encounter Building 12 often, but whenever she does, it’s horrifying.
“I get a knot in my stomach,” she said. “That building is just like an eyesore standing there saying, ‘Look at me. Look at what happened to me.’”
Why is the building still there?
On Feb. 14, 2018, Nikolas Cruz, an expelled 19-year-old Stoneman Douglas student, shot to death 14 students and three faculty members. He roamed the building’s corridors with an AR-15-style assault rifle and multiple magazines, firing at students and teachers locked in their classrooms or hemmed in the hallways.
Almost immediately, everyone agreed the building needed to disappear. Two days after the massacre, on Feb. 16, 2018, state lawmakers agreed to foot the bill to bring it down.
But five years later, the building still stands, albeit locked and sealed behind a 15-foot chain-link fence, wrapped in a mesh mural adorned with Stoneman Douglas symbols that mask the view. First, law enforcement cordoned off the site as a crime scene. Prosecutors then requested it be kept untouched as evidence against Cruz, arguing jurors determining his fate needed to visit the building.
Cruz was arrested later that day, three miles away from the campus. He pleaded guilty in November 2021 to 17 counts of first-degree murder and 17 counts of attempted murder for wounding 17 others.
The start of his sentencing trial began in July. The 12-person jury toured the site of the carnage in August. In October, jurors rejected the death penalty for Cruz. A judge sentenced him to life in prison in November.
Second trial holds up demolition
Despite Cruz’s sentencing, Building 12 still stands. The Parkland community is now awaiting another trial, this time for Scot Peterson, the only other person charged after the shootings.
Peterson, a former Broward Sheriff’s deputy who was the school resource officer, took cover outside the 1200 building for some 10 minutes before other officers entered the building, after Cruz had fled. Peterson had received “many hours” of training on active shooters, including a four-hour session in April 2016, according to his arrest warrant.
In his trial, scheduled to begin May 22, Peterson faces 11 criminal charges, including child neglect, culpable negligence and perjury, and nearly 100 years in prison if convicted.
Peterson’s defense team has requested the building be preserved, arguing jurors should see the outside of the building to understand why Peterson didn’t go in. Peterson initially had told police he only heard a few shots upon arriving at the building, but a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation that analyzed witness testimony, radio transmissions, body-camera footage and surveillance videos determined he lied.
Prosecutors haven’t opposed the defense team’s request, but requested that jurors enter the building too. Thus, the building’s demolition will not happen until after Peterson’s case wraps up.
A Broward County school district spokeswoman said the school district has allocated $1.4 million for the demolition costs and will take action once the Broward State Attorney’s Office releases the building.
What to do with the site of the mass shooting?
The Broward school district, however, hasn’t determined what to do with the land after the building turns into rubble.
In 2020, the district built an $18 million building to replace Building 12, so a new classroom building won’t be built on the site.
Gutierrez Renzulli, the FIU researcher, said those most closely affected by the tragedy should decide what will be built on the site. Most of the Parkland victims’ families are working toward building a memorial to be located in a 150-acre preserve that borders Coral Springs and Parkland.
The decision about what to do with the site could help the Parkland community come together, reclaim the space and redefine its meaning, Renzulli said.
That’s the case for Debbie Hixon, the widow of Chris Hixon, the former athletic director and wrestling coach at Stoneman Douglas. When he learned about the danger, Chris jumped into a golf cart and sped toward the sound of gunfire, trying to protect the children. He was one of the 17 people killed.
Hixon, vice chair of the Broward School Board, wants to reframe the space to remember those who died.
“I want a place where you can go and reflect and remember them in a happy way,” she said. “It always bothers me when I hear that they don’t want pictures of them or something about them on campus because it makes them sad. It’s always upsetting to me because Chris was more than how he died. He was an extraordinary human being who touched people’s lives and made a difference.”
A final goodbye
Beigel Schulman also wants a simple and peaceful space, perhaps a park.
But before Building 12 disappears, some of the victims’ loved ones will go inside, including Beigel Schulman and her husband.
In that sense, the demolition can lend itself as a purification ritual, much like a funeral helps to bid farewell, Gutierrez Renzulli said.
“I understand that the interior of the building has been frozen in time,” Beigel Schulman said. “I want to see the broken glass, the dried-up flowers and the stale candies on the floor and desks. I want to see the Valentine’s Day cards and the backpacks as they were left on that day.”
“I want to go up the stairs to my son Scott’s third-floor classroom and stand at the doorway like he did. I want to look back at the stairwell and put myself in Scott’s place. I then want to go into his classroom and sit in his chair at his desk and look over the classroom he taught that day. I want to look inside his desk and see if there are any of his personal effects that I could take home with me.
“I never really got to say goodbye to Scott, so I want to do it then.”
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