The three-story building where 17 people died in the 2018 mass shooting at Parkland's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School looms over campus behind a screened fence, a horrific and constant reminder to students, teachers, the victims' families and passersby.
"Whenever I would walk past it, it was just kind of eerie," said Aisha Hashmi, who graduated this month. She was in sixth grade in February 2018, but her older siblings were on campus. "I want the building gone," said Lori Alhadeff, whose 14-year-old daughter Alyssa died there. Alhadeff was elected to the Broward County school board after the massacre and now serves as its chair. "It's one more step in the healing process for me and my family. My son still goes to school there, and he has to walk past that building where his sister died."
Schachter, whose 14-year-old son Alex died, said that while each tour was "excruciatingly painful," he believes the safety improvements that visitors implemented elsewhere made keeping the building worthwhile. Broward is not alone in taking down a school building after a mass shooting. In Connecticut, Sandy Hook Elementary School was torn down after the 2012 shooting and replaced. In Texas, officials closed Robb Elementary in Uvalde after the 2022 shooting there and plan to demolish it. Colorado's Columbine High had its library demolished after the 1999 shooting.
The murderer had a long history of bizarre and sometimes violent behavior that spurred numerous home visits by Broward sheriff's deputies. He was spared the death penalty, receiving a sentence of life without parole.
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