The candlelight vigil held Thursday at Pine Trails Park Amphitheater is one of at least six vigils scheduled for Broward.
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PARKLAND — Ryan Servaites said four of his classmates died in the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Wednesday.
He and a group of his friends attended the vigil Thursday evening at the Pine Trails Park Amphitheater on Thursday where hundreds of community members gathered to mourn the loss of life.
The community prayer service and candlelight vigil is one of at least six vigils scheduled for Broward County following the mass school shooting.
Around him people greeted one another with hugs and tears. A wall of kindness held up post-it notes of scrawled goodbye messages and white crosses were planted across the park’s field.
„We know the people we lost wouldn’t want this to make our lives terrible,“ Servaites said.
The freshman said his journalism classmate Jamie Guttenberg was one of the 17 killed.
„She sat next to me,“ Servaites said. „She was just one of the most kind people.“
Ava Steil, 15, also a student at the school said the vigil would help them mourn, but she and Servaites agree that more needs to be done to stop this.
Servaites said the school was prepared and they had trained in case of an active shooter, but that still didn’t save the victims.
„The system we are in right now is the problem,“ Servaites said. „We were trained as much as possible. This is a legislative issue. We need to fix it.“
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The father of a teenager who died in the shooting doesn’t remember if he got to tell his daughter he loved her the morning she left for school and didn’t come home.
„I don’t know what to do next,“ he said. „My wife is at home, and we are broken. What is unfathomable is that [our daughter] took a bullet and is dead.“
Students and parents cried and comforted each other at the vigil. Community leaders offered words of comfort and solidarity to a community left devastated by a mass casualty incident perpetrated by a former Douglas student.
Large white crosses dotted the lawn of the Parkland Amphitheater.
The news that „something had happened“ came from a friend on FaceTime.
Dylan Shapiro, 11, immediately turned on the TV, and the rumor was confirmed: 17 people had died at the high school that he and friends Annie Coppola, 11, and Matteo Battagliola, 10, will attend in just a few years.
The Heron Heights Elementary School students were stunned.
„Parkland is supposed to be this perfect place,“ Coppola said.
After the initial shock wore off the students felt numb; it just didn’t seem possible.
„You were safe, you thought nothing bad could happen, then it all went away,“ Shapiro said.
Moving forward the community has to continue to be strong, Battagliola said.
Asked how to curb gun violence Shapiro had a simple reply: „background checks.“
