One year after the deadliest high school shooting in American history, survivor David Hogg is working to make sure the nation hasn’t forgotten.
By ANDREW WALTER (@ANDYWALTERETC)
One year ago today, 17-year-old David Hogg was sitting in his environmental science class in Parkland, Florida, shivering because his teacher left the door open on a chilly, 55-degree Valentine’s Day afternoon.
He was halfway listening to the lecture on municipal waste, which he’d later equate as his own understanding of how the U.S. government operates.
It was like any other day at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, which had always been a safe, ordinary school in a cozy, primarily white neighborhood. Hogg’s FBI agent father had moved his family away from Los Angeles when he was a freshman, so he was used to the Florida lifestyle by now.
He could hear his friend Emma Gonzalez outside the classroom handing out carnations and Valentine’s cards with the school’s Gay-Straight Alliance.
Then he heard a pop.
Hogg looked at the door and then at his seat partner. “Hey, that sounded like a gunshot,” he said. He didn’t know it yet, but that sound marked the beginning of the deadliest high school shooting in American history.
