“I’m in a code red at school. I’m so scared daddy.”
That’s the text that I received from my daughter Jeanne at 12:25 p.m. on Feb. 21, 2014.
I called her — no answer. “I can’t talk dad. The whole school is in lockdown. Everyone was screaming in the cafeteria. … a lot of cops are speeding to the school.”
I responded, “I’m headed there right now and praying.”
“You can’t come here, Daddy. You won’t be allowed anywhere near the campus. There was a shooting, Daddy. I’m so scared. I can’t stop crying. We’re in my classroom with all of the lights turned off and huddled together.”
Twenty-one minutes later I arrived at a scene like so many that we’ve seen in recent years. Parents with their faces against a chain-link fence, helicopters flying overhead and dozens of emergency vehicles.
But this time it wasn’t happening in some other state and it wasn’t someone else’s child. It was my state and my child.”
