Notes on Sources

Prologue

1

Nearly all Jackie Corin’s quotes in this book come from my interviews with her. Exceptions are noted. We did around ten formal interviews—some in person, but usually by phone—plus several dozen follow-up calls and texts. We met in person over a dozen times. Up until October, we checked in every few weeks at a minimum. Then I let her focus on the election and me on the final rewriting and editing of this book, and I remained in contact sporadically until early December. In general, I tried to get her impressions of any event two different ways: (1) within a few days (or while it was happening), and (2) much later, to see if her impressions had changed. Many of the events in the book involving her I witnessed firsthand, others she told me about. She described the North Carolina rally in the opening scene.

2

Until the final draft of this book, the first portion of this section read, “discovered that post-traumatic stress can strike without experiencing a trauma directly.” Dr. Frank Ochberg was kind enough to vet sections of the manuscript medically and advised me to change “experiencing” to “witnessing.” He served on the committee that first created the concept and diagnosis of PTSD, and said it actually had been a major point of debate whether secondary observers like me experienced an event. The committee concluded that we do, and experience has borne this out. It’s telling that I still don’t fully believe I experienced it without having been in the building. It’s a lesser experience—secondary—but still very real, and enough to take me down.

This story harkens back to Columbine and to my two decades on the wider story. I am frequently asked why I chose it, so I’ll use up my cliché quota early: I didn’t, really; it chose me. I was a freelancer living in Denver, just returning to part-time journalism after two decades. I happened to sit down for lunch just as the Columbine reports were hitting local news. Shots had been fired, but no injuries confirmed. I figured it would be nothing, but I hopped in my car just in case. First I left a voice mail for Joan Walsh, an editor in San Francisco I’d done one story for, apologizing for bothering her. I had never heard of Columbine, but my then-boyfriend had a vague sense of where it was. He sent me down Highway 6, with several possible exits to choose from, and I figured I’d fumble my way there. (It would be years before I owned a cell phone.) Driving toward the mountains, I spotted a ring of helicopters in a tight circle to the south. That was alarming. I tried to line them up with the best exit, and I drove toward them until I hit a police barricade. I pulled into a strip mall and asked the cops which way the school was. They pointed and said, “That way,” and I ran toward it. I had no idea what I was hurtling into.

The iconic photograph was published in the Rocky Mountain News, which deservedly won the 2000 Pulitzer for Breaking News Photography for its collection of twenty Columbine photographs. The Rocky went bankrupt and its site disappeared, but the photos are all collected at the Pulitzer site mentioned in the bibliography.

The CNN ratings I document are from 1999, and which I included in Columbine. We rechecked the number of consecutive New York Times front pages from its archives.

All information on the Columbine shooting in this book comes from Columbine, which we carefully vetted at the time. Many basic logistical details about the attack in it come from the Jefferson County sheriff’s report, but see the endnotes for details.

I have consulted with many trauma experts about norepinephrine, and vetted this passage with Dr. Frank Ochberg. The quote is from my interview with him in November. I relied on several sources to summarize the attack. Three were particularly helpful: “What Happened in the Parkland School Shooting” (New York Times), “What Happened in the 82 Minutes” (Chicago Tribune), and the Broward County Sheriff’s Office’s official report.

I read a wealth of news material on the suspect, but relied heavily on a series of articles in the Miami Herald, which did a stellar job. They included: “‘You’re All Going to Die’ . . .” and “Uber Driver Says . . .” The New York Times also published several informative articles: “Parkland Shooting Suspect Lost Special-Needs Help” “[His name], Florida Shooting Suspect, Showed ‘Every Red Flag,’” and “‘Kill Me,’ Parkland Shooting Suspect Said.” I also incorporated details from “Teacher Told Students to Run” (CBS News).

The figures for mass shootings in America come from Mother Jones’s open-source database of mass shootings since 1982.

4

We published an expanded edition of Columbine in 2016 with a new epilogue. In it, I document how frequently mass shooters cite Columbine and its killers as their inspiration, and copy their costumes, technique, timing, imagery, and so forth. I discuss the false Columbine narrative of those killers as heroes for the downtrodden, which so many perpetrators have bought into. Others have written about this as well.

The figures for numbers of mass shootings and Americans killed in mass shootings are pulled from Mother Jones’s database on American mass shootings. We included data from Columbine (April 20, 1999) through the Chicago Mercy Hospital shooting (November 19, 2018).

1. Valentine’s Day

1

I have been talking to Laura Farber about her Columbine documentary for several years, since its inception phase. It eventually debuted at the Minneapolis Saint Paul International Film Festival in April, and has since won a string of film festival awards.

David and Lauren Hogg, and their parents, discussed their Valentine’s Day experiences with me many times, individually and together. They had a chance to crystallize their thoughts over time and home in on them in their excellent joint memoir, #NeverAgain, so I used many of the quotes about that day from their book.

I followed up with Lauren while fact-checking in November, to see which friends she learned about each day. She said she first learned about Alyssa, and then it’s all a blur.

2

Authoritative sources on David Byrne seem split on whether his hair is black or dark brown. We examined photos closely and fall in the dark brown camp, though if it’s black to you, we won’t argue. David Hogg’s hair also appears black to many people, but he assures me it’s dark brown.

We rounded the school’s student body to 3,200 students. The exact figure was 3,158 students enrolled at MSD during the 2017–18 school year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

MSD has fourteen permanent buildings, confirmed in an email exchange with Nadine Drew of the Broward County Public Schools Public Information Office in November. As of that date, there were about forty temporary buildings, most of which serve to accommodate the closing of building 12.

3

I did not expect this to be a book. I actually began writing about Parkland the morning after the shooting, when a Politico magazine editor saw one of my tweets and asked me to write a piece about my becoming the media murder guy. I was so stunned by David—and his peers, whom I watched the rest of the morning—that I proposed writing the piece about whether this time might actually be different. I was wrapping that up Saturday when Michael Hogan called. He is a good friend and the digital director of Vanity Fair, who knows my restrictions and edits my occasional pieces for that publication. He said he knew I wasn’t allowed to go to these places, but . . . would I consider it anyway? I did consider it. But I had another problem: I was eighteen years into my book on two gay soldiers whom I’d first written about in 2000. (Half of that time was overlapping with Columbine, which was my primary occupation until 2009.) I was three years late on the gay soldiers book, the end in sight, and vowing to stay laser focused. But Parkland seemed too important to ignore.

I thought about it overnight, and hashed it out with Mike on Sunday. I agreed to cover Parkland for five weeks, publishing three to five pieces for Vanity Fair, and helping produce a documentary video short. Under no circumstances could I stay more than five weeks.

I had become so engrossed in working that out that I missed the Sunday-morning shows announcing the march. When I heard that, I knew I had made the right call. I started packing while hitting up my media and survivor networks to find a way to make contact with the kids.

I was down there Monday, and once I met those kids, I was hooked. I have spent much of the past two decades working with children. Countless high schools and colleges have brought me in as a speaker, and I had been Skyping with classes regularly until I put that on hold to finish the soldiers book. So I am used to being amazed by kids, and I never really bought into the idea that they’re incapable of huge undertakings. Still, the march was a lot. Once I saw Jackie and her team pull off Tallahassee, I had no doubts.

I got so enthused the first month that I toyed with the idea of a book a few times. I kept deciding it was a terrible idea. One book at a time. But my second trip to Parkland, mid-March, turned my head around. I was meeting several of the kids in person for the second round, with many phone calls in between. They were feeling more comfortable with me, and I was getting a real sense of them, and I could not bear the idea of not telling their stories. I had already written about several of them in Vanity Fair dispatches, but that canvas was way too small. I was staggered by the scope of this, and I wanted room to convey their personalities as well.

Vanity Fair signed on for a long piece in the October issue of the print magazine, which committed me for much longer. I told my agent, Betsy Lerner, that I was serious about a book, and she helped me work out an approach—leaving the content open-ended, to see how the story played out. (God, I hate it when journalists arrive at a story with it already written in their heads.) We worried about Harper’s possible reaction. I was already under contract and three years late on the gay soldiers book—would they be horrified at my suggesting another delay? (Or what if they suggested replacing the overdue book with Parkland? That would be far worse.) Luckily, they were eager to tackle both. (The new plan is for me to finish writing the gay soldiers book in 2019.)

Survivors showed me the Hokie Stones when I visited Virginia Tech at the Academy of Critical Incident Analysis (ACIA) conference. I recalled some very particular memorials at Newtown, but couldn’t remember what they were, so I dug through old news reports. I found the painted bedsheets and small cardboard angels in “Asking What to Do With Symbols of Grief as Memorials Pile Up” (New York Times) and “Christmas Day in Sandy Hook” (New Yorker).

All the details from Pine Trails Park are my observations and impressions.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but the young women were singing “What a Beautiful Name” by Hillsong Worship. They actually sang the fourth line out of order. The group leader would call out a line, and the rest would sing it back, and I recorded and transcribed it the way they performed it.

2. Lightning Strike

1

Jackie described her lockdown experiences to me in interviews, and we went over them several times. Cameron laid his down in a series of Facebook posts the first night, and pieces he later published, including his CNN op-ed the next day. I later discussed them with him and his mother, Natalie Weiss. Cameron has made his Facebook posts private, but those posts were captured before he did so. I ran them by his mom. (The kids have enormous demands on their time and get overwhelmed by media requests. I tried to offload routine matters to people around them whenever possible. His mom had all the posts and could vouch for them 100 percent.)

If you have never watched a “Run. Hide. Fight.” video, I highly recommend them for preparing yourself if you ever find yourself in this situation. They stress three simple concepts, and they offer lots of ideas that you can visualize when there is no time to think. Just google the phrase, or check out the great one I feature in the resources section of my website.

MSD’s alternating silver and burgundy days are named after the school’s colors.

The profile by Emma I cite was published in Harper’s Bazaar in February.

All the major investigations into the issue of school shooters and mental illness have issued the same caution: that most perpetrators never received a formal psychological evaluation, and they’ve then died during their attacks. Our inability to interrogate such perpetrators afterward has led to woefully incomplete data. Given that these statistics are pulled only from the cases in which a history of mental illness could be documented, the incidence of such issues among perpetrators may actually be considerably higher.

Though I only briefly touch on the mental health issue here, I have explored it in greater depth in several publications over the past few years. If you’re interested in this topic, my piece “What Does a Killer Think?” (Newsweek) summarizes the three major motivations of mass murderers other than terrorism: depression, psychosis, and, rarely, psychopathy. (The last two sound similar and are often confused by laypeople, but are in fact completely different.) I have written related pieces for the New Republic, Slate, and the New York Times. They are linked at my site.

3

I relied on several sources to document the perpetrator’s actions, including the Broward County Sheriff’s Office’s official report. The New York Times had several excellent pieces: “What Happened in the Parkland School Shooting,” “Parkland Shooting Suspect Lost Special-Needs Help,” “[Suspect name], Florida Shooting Suspect,” and “‘Kill Me,’ Parkland Shooting Suspect Said.” I also consulted “‘You’re All Going to Die’ . . .” (Miami Herald), “Uber Driver Says . . .” (Miami Herald), “What Happened in the 82 Minutes” (Chicago Tribune), and “Teacher Told Students to Run” (CBS News).

4

All quotes in the book from Cameron’s mom, Natalie Weiss, come from my interviews with her. I met her at the first two Spring Awakening shows, and asked if I could interview her. She said she would be happy to, but only if Cameron approved it. He did. I interviewed her for a few hours at their home on May 7, and followed up periodically by text afterward. The descriptions come from my time there. She let me tour their home and take lots of pictures for reference.

It was widely reported that Jackie’s post was made to Instagram, with “MAKE IT STOP” formatted as a picture, and the rest in the text. That is understandable, because her Instagram feed is public, and her Facebook timeline is not. However, Jackie assured me as far back as February that she posted it to Facebook first, and then created the Instagram post, using the last Facebook line for the Instagram picture. (She sent me the Facebook post.) It was also the Facebook post that made its way to the family of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, setting in motion the events described next in this chapter.

5

All the details and quotes about the development of the Tallahassee trip come from numerous interviews and follow-ups with Jackie, Claire VanSusteren, and State Senator Lauren Book in February and early March, primarily the first two. (We also did a lot of fact-checking calls and texts in the late summer, prior to a Vanity Fair piece.)

The primary interviews with all of them took place by phone, about a week after the trip. I spoke to Senator Book several times on that trip, and spoke and texted with Claire constantly—she was invaluable at getting us into sessions, sending urgent texts to hightail it over—but most of the reflection, and re-creating all the details, came later.

I shadowed Jackie through much of the trip, but she did not grant any media interviews during or prior (other than her brief chat on my Sunday call with David on speakerphone with the team).

State Representative Kristin Jacobs made her comments to me in an interview late Tuesday night, immediately after the training inside Leon High School covered in the “Tallahassee” chapter.

3. #NeverAgain

1

The re-creation of the first few days at Cameron’s house come from interviews with many of the kids over the course of several months, as well as trusted media accounts. Emily Witt’s excellent New Yorker piece “How the Survivors of Parkland Began the Never Again Movement” was incredibly useful. I borrowed liberally, checked it all out with the kids, and I’m indebted to Emily for capturing it so well.

Emma’s quotes come from her New York Times op-ed “A Young Activist’s Advice,” and her feature on the Instagram account Humans of MSD.

2

Estimates of attendance at the first Women’s March were determined by crowd scientists who conducted a digital image study, the results of which were reported in “Crowd Scientists Say Women’s March . . .” (New York Times).

Statistics on crowd size for the Women’s Marches and the March for Our Lives come from the professors Kanisha Bond, Erica Chenoweth, and Jeremy Pressman, who reported their articles “Did You Attend the March for Our Lives?” and “This Is What We Learned . . .” (both in the Washington Post). The authors belong to the Crowd Counting Consortium (CCC), which collects “publicly available data on political crowds reported in the United States, including marches, protests, strikes, demonstrations, riots, and other actions,” according to its website. The CCC was formed to collect data for the first Women’s March and its sibling marches, and it has continued to publish data on its website and in monthly articles for the Washington Post. It offers by far the most definitive numbers, so I relied on them throughout.

Eleven days before the Women’s March, the New York Times reported donations at $849,000 (“Women’s March on Washington . . .”). As of November 2018, the March has received $2,069,783 in donations.

3

The five recent grads were Matt Deitsch, Dylan Baierlein, Brendan Duff, Kaylyn Pipitone (Pippy), and Bradley Thornton. (All come up in the book except Bradley. Sorry Bradley—I wish our paths had crossed. I think they did briefly in Chicago.)

Statistics on Parkland’s demographics, median income and home value, and poverty rate are from City Data, DataUSA, and the US Census.

The Parkland Historical Society was invaluable in providing history on the area. The society’s president, Jeff Schwartz, and vice president, Jim Weiss, described the area as it was and is to my researcher Marc Greenawalt. (These were among the few interviews I did not conduct personally.) Jim Weiss also wrote articles on the Parkland Historical Society’s website that contribute to the background. Additional information comes from the city of Parkland’s website.

I relied on several sources to situate Parkland’s role in the Everglades, especially the US Geological Survey’s articles on the Everglades and the South Florida environment, and Michael Grunwald’s book The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida, and the Politics of Paradise.

For biographical information on Marjory Stoneman Douglas, I relied primarily on “At the March for Our Lives . . .” (Washington Post) and Tim Collie’s “Marjory Stoneman Douglas, ‘Voice of the River’” (Sun-Sentinel). That Washington Post piece also provides the number of stoplights in Parkland.

The statistics on Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School come from the National Center for Education Statistics and pertain to the 2017–18 school year. Additional statistics come from U.S. News & World Report.

Basic facts on the rally, including sponsors, come from the event’s Facebook page.

4

Emma’s experience in AP US government class that day and her thoughts about gun legislation at that time come from “Emma González Hated Guns . . .” (Washington Post).

The information about David Hogg recommending Emma for Anderson Cooper 360° initially came from the same article. I also spoke to the producers about David at the time, and appeared on the show that night.

Quotes from Emma in this section come from her appearances on Ellen and 60 Minutes, her interview with Milk.xyz, and the articles “Emma González Hated Guns . . .” (Washington Post) and “What We Know about Emma Gonzalez” (CNN).

Like most of America, I had never heard of Emma until Saturday, and I was unaware of the rally until Saturday afternoon, when I started seeing clips of her speech online. I watched it online many times. All quotes and descriptions are from that recording.

4. Tallahassee

1

All descriptions and quotes from the Tallahassee trip—including the organizational meeting and the parking lot—are from my interviews and observations. I rented a car and followed the first two buses in a long media caravan up to the capital. We made three rest stops along the way. At first, I left the kids alone to have quiet time, but at each break, more of them wandered over to chat with me. I pulled into Leon High School right behind the first bus, convinced a cop to let me into the parking lot, and then watched the kids get off the first two buses, receive a hero’s welcome, and make their speeches. Then the Leon kids went inside with them, and Claire let me inside the school. I spent the next few hours interviewing kids and observing the training. I was covering it with a two-man documentary film crew hired by Vanity Fair, so we often split up and compared notes, and I watched the video footage as well. The third bus arrived while I was inside, so I didn’t witness that. Jackie was on it, and she described their unceremonious entry to me later.

2

I watched Jackie and Cameron hop onto the SUV in the parking lot from a few feet away, but did not hear what they whispered to each other. I got the brief snatch of dialogue used in the book first by interviewing Jackie about it, and then I pasted it into a text message to run it by Cameron. He remembered a few bits slightly differently. I adjusted accordingly to match his memory, then ran that by Jackie, until they were both satisfied it was accurate. (This scene was included in a March Vanity Fair online story, and its fact-checker then checked most quotes like that, but I can’t recall for certain if she did that one.)

Jackie’s comment to the school board member is an exception to her providing the commentary later. I heard and recorded that at the time.

I filmed more than an hour of video on my phone in the Publix parking lot alone, and filmed much that evening and the next day in the capitol, as well as teaming up with the Vanity Fair video crew once we got to Tallahassee. I found it somewhat amusing that in all that time, the only person who asked me not to use what I had shot was a journalist. While the CNN producer was having the slightly heated disagreement with Jackie, she noticed me filming it. She then found me later and begged me not to use it. It was understandable. I could have made her look awful, by appearing to give a seventeen-year-old survivor a hard time. I assured her it was clearly a legit problem, which Jackie agreed with as well once she understood. I chuckled that the kids were fine, but a professional had gotten worried. But she had reason to—and it was a painful reminder that it’s very easy to make an innocent person look horrible if you come with an agenda, or if you’re just sloppy and don’t bother to sort out what actually happened.

I interviewed Jackie’s dad, Paul, in the parking lot. Her mom did not want to do interviews, but I spoke to her informally near the end of the trip, and a bit by phone and text days and weeks later.

I did not witness the dispute with the bus driver. We were already lined up in our cars with motors running, waiting for the buses to leave at any moment. (The bus engines had been running the entire time, and everyone had boarded the buses.) We were wondering what the holdup was. Jackie filled me in on those events later.

3

David, Cameron, and Alfonso all told me about their roles and the logistics getting there.

Information on the march’s projections comes from the group’s permit application. I discussed various aspects of it with the kids over the next month.

I did not interview Emma Collum. Her descriptions come from “Parkland Students Have a Cause and $3.5 Million . . .” (Miami Herald).

The information on the celebrity donations and their statements was widely reported, but I got them all from Deadline. I pulled Oprah’s statement from her Twitter feed.

I was flipping around the dial as we drove, and I heard the promotion on Sean Hannity’s radio show and the opening report on All Things Considered.

The comments from Jeff Kasky and the MFOL spokesman are from “Parkland Students Have a Cause and $3.5 Million . . .” (Miami Herald).

4

My approach to sizing up expectations was to pose the question to dozens of students twice: before they arrived at the capitol, and then late in the day to see how they matched up. Daniel Duff’s reaction was the most common, so I used him to stand in for the whole. In his case, I followed up with him with two phone interviews over the next few weeks to elaborate and reflect more in depth.

This seems like a good time to talk about how I chose the kids I would focus on in the book. There were about two dozen kids in the original MFOL group, and I knew I could not feature all of them, or the reader would get a strong sense of none. I knew I wanted to focus on a small number, with a mixture of perspectives: all the obvious things like male, female, and different ethnicities, but also the roles they played. I wanted leaders in a central role and foot soldiers a bit further out. The first time I interviewed Daniel in Tallahassee, I knew he was a strong possibility. I asked him to spell his name and give his age and year in school, and I was astounded he was a freshman.

I also frequently get asked how I made contact with all the kids. Woody Allen famously said that “showing up is eighty percent of life.” I quote that often, because I find it surprisingly true, particularly in journalism. Getting David’s number took some doing, but the rest was mostly showing up. Nearly a hundred kids went to Tallahassee (a few dropped out at the last minute), and I must have spoken to at least two-thirds along the way, plus lots of parents. I used to be reticent about asking minors for their phone numbers, and I’d ask for emails instead. That has all changed. Now they give their cell numbers out with barely a thought, so I didn’t feel bad about it. Over the course of the year, only a few kids said they would feel more comfortable giving me their emails, which I respected. Many kids rarely check email, so it’s frequently useless. (Of course I never share cell numbers. When someone wants to contact a particular individual, I send a message to the source conveying the request.) I came home from Tallahassee with forty to fifty numbers—more than I could ever follow up with. From there, one person recommended me to the next, and I kept bumping into more of them along the way. They generally gave me their cell number at that point, and we’d stay in touch. (In Jackie’s case, it was actually her dad who gave me his number in the Publix parking lot, and he conveyed the message to Jackie afterward, and she called me back.) Sadly, I never connected with a handful, which was mostly just odd luck. It was very hard to get to the kids through official media channels, because they were besieged. It was much more effective just to go to their events and connect with the kids in person. Even once we connected, it was sometimes hard to get a response, because they had so many more media requests than they could handle. But I found that when I actually flew down there—or wherever they were headed—they tended to respond. Showing up.

I obviously didn’t spend the night with them. Claire, Senator Book, and lots of the kids described the scene to me later. Everything else in this chapter I witnessed directly. (As in all cases, some of the quotes came in real time, and some were later follow-ups. It was a frenzied schedule, and impossible to get everyone’s impressions as they occurred.)

I rejoined them at the capitol as soon as they arrived, and I spent the day running around with different groups. Claire set up the same large chamber for both the kids and the press to stash our stuff and to use as a break room (and they ate their box lunches there), so we were really thrown together. In that room, I respected their need for downtime, and generally kept to the informal press side of the room. A few times—like right after they met with Governor Scott—I wandered over and asked, “Anyone want to talk?” (No one did then, because they were hungry, but several said they would come find me after they ate, and they did. That’s generally how it worked. They made it pretty clear when they wanted to talk, and they knew where to find us.)

5

“Seventeen bills that could have saved seventeen lives,” a mom told me, a senator told me, aides told me, and the incoming president of the Florida PTA told me.

6

Jackie was taking a brief respite from the press—and from everything—in Senator Book’s office. She was with just a few people, but Claire was one of them, who texted me to come confer with her about something I’ve now forgotten. So I happened to see Jackie playing with the babies, but I kept my notepad and recorder in my pocket, and gave her some space. Then I ended up playing with the babies myself. They were adorable, and we all needed a break. (Senator Book was there and handed one of them to me—sorry, I forgot which.)

Alfonso’s quote beginning “I’m extremely, extremely angry and sad” comes from “‘Look Me in the Eyes.’ . . .” (Miami Herald). He (and many others) characterized it the same way to me directly, but I thought he said it best there, so I used that version.

5. Spring Awakening

1

All the descriptions of Cameron’s childhood come from his mom, Natalie, mostly in our May interview. We stayed in touch by text through the end of November, and I followed up on small items that way periodically.

Natalie gave only a brief description of Cam’s stand-up set on the cruise ship. She let me know videos of the act were on YouTube, and I watched quite a few. I used the footage to re-create the specifics of that scene. As of November 2018, a video was still there, titled “Cameron Kasky-Norweigan Sky-040509-‘Jokers Wild’ open mike night.” (Note the typo of “Norweigan” to find it.)

French Woods was the name of the performing arts camp Cameron attended where he discovered his passion for drama. Campers attended and put on shows: ventriloquism, magic, circus. YouTube video of Cam there also helped me flesh out the scene.

2

Most of the backstory details on the Spring Awakening production before and after Valentine’s Day come from Christine Barclay, whom I interviewed and visited numerous times. (All her quotes in the book are from those interviews or from direct observations.) I also conferred with the kids about it, and attended the first two performances, a rehearsal and warm-ups before one of the shows, and the talk-back with Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater and the cast and crew after the opening-night performance. I also talked to Cam’s mom about her impressions of Christine Barclay, and how Cameron described their connection. All those impressions aligned.

Most of Steven Sater’s quotes in this chapter actually come from the talk-back in May, but I felt they made more sense in this chapter, especially for readers not familiar with Spring Awakening. There are additional quotes from the talk-back in chapter 18. In all cases, I went over the quotes with Steven in November, and he elaborated on several and rephrased a few. I also asked Steven to look over my summary of his play, and he helped me get it right—especially where I was summarizing his intentions, based on his talk-back. (I tried to collapse a great deal into a short space, and I’m grateful for his help.)

4

Concerning the pervasive feeling after these tragedies: I have observed it and discussed it with trauma experts countless times over the past two decades. The Columbine example is portrayed in that book.

6. Back to “Normal”

1

Daniel’s father, Brian, his two brothers, Brendan and Connor, and Connor’s girlfriend, Haley Richardson, came to the march in DC with him. My photographer and helper friend and I arranged to spend most of the day with them. Then the family had me over to their house for a sit-down interview in early May. Daniel, his dad, and his mom, Debbie Duff, attended that, along with Pippy, who was staying with them. Of course I interviewed Daniel throughout the year and chatted with him at events. All the quotes in the book from the family come from those various meetings.

I know Robin Fudge Finegan from Columbine, and have used her as a source many times. She posted her remark as a comment on one of my Instagram posts about the kids.

A large number of students talked to me about their anxiety returning to school. I chose a few incidents from Daniel and Jackie that were representative of what I heard. As always, I’ve tried to give you a sense of how this affected all the kids through the eyes of a handful.

There was a lot of eye-rolling from Douglas kids about the Play-Doh. But everyone seemed thrilled with the comfort dogs.

The basic facts behind the Washington Mall being previously booked were widely reported, and I consulted various news accounts. The application filed by Deena Katz provided the most significant details. Of course, Jackie’s reaction, summarizing the group’s response, comes from her directly. Others in the group described it similarly.

7. Peace Warriors

1

We calculated the gun fatality numbers using data from the Gun Violence Archive online. I defined a “kid” as someone between the ages of zero and seventeen and included perpetrators of gun violence who were killed or injured in the act in my total.

Delaney Tarr’s quote comes from Lisa Miller’s excellent New York magazine piece “On the Ground with Parkland Teens as They Plot a Revolution.” The kids were very open with journalists, including me, about their privilege. But I thought Delaney’s quote to Lisa was the most articulate I saw or heard, so I went with that one.

2

Everything about the meetings between the Chicago and Parkland kids comes from the kids from both groups, and from Father Pfleger. I first heard about it from Matt Deitsch on March 15. He and other MFOL kids talked to me about it several times, but I wanted to convey it from the perspective of the Chicago kids, so my account primarily relies on Alex King and D’Angelo McDade. (And on Father Pfleger for much of the origin.) Alex and D’Angelo also texted me pictures from the meeting, and Emma posted a few pictures online, which also helped with a few details, like the furniture in her house. (I’ve not been there.)

Matt put me in touch with all three of them, but I was juggling a lot of stories and didn’t interview them until June, about a week before I was set to meet them all at the Peace March (all three by phone, and separately, D’Angelo in two installments). I stayed in touch with all of them, particularly Alex, who spent the next two months on the bus tour, so I ran into him throughout the summer. We chatted many times.

During the meeting at Emma’s house, Alex and D’Angelo each told a powerful story of how gun violence affected them, which I recount here. No journalist was at the meeting, and I’m not aware of anyone recording it. So Alex and D’Angelo each re-created those moments for me, by retelling their story as they typically do. That is what appears here.

The snatch of dialogue between D’Angelo and Emma at the end of the chapter comes from him. I ran it by Emma via her publicist through email, and she confirmed it was accurate.

All quotes from Alex King and D’Angelo McDade in this book are from our interviews. (The exception would be snippets of their public speeches and statements at MFOL town halls. All of those quoted I witnessed in person.)

Martin Luther King Jr.’s six principles of nonviolence are:

Nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people.
Nonviolence seeks to win friendship and understanding.
Nonviolence seeks to defeat injustice, not people.
Nonviolence holds that suffering can educate and transform.
Nonviolence chooses love instead of hate.
Nonviolence believes that the universe is on the side of justice.

8. Strategy

1

I talked to many of the MFOL kids about the strategy formulation covered throughout this chapter, but Matt was the chief strategist, and I relied heavily on his account. David also had a lot of input.

It was Martin Luther King Jr.’s second principle that came up most commonly with the kids.

2

All quotes from Professor Robert J. Spitzer come from my interview with him.

3

Jackie made the rough calculation of thirty thousand miles for me in early June, so it includes only travel to that point.

4

Counts of NRA Twitter activity include only original tweets, not retweets.

We searched the NRA’s official Twitter account from Valentine’s Day through mid-fall and found only one tweet that tagged David’s handle (from August), and none that tagged Emma.

Wayne LaPierre’s comments come from “N.R.A. Chief, Wayne LaPierre . . .” (New York Times).

The Times story I cite describing the debate on NRATV is “Where the N.R.A. Speaks First and Loudest.”

5

David Hogg’s comments come from our May 13 interview.

The summary of the origins of the two National School Walkouts come from “Meet the Students Who . . .” (NPR) and the Women’s March Youth EMPOWER’s publicity materials.

The Ashcroft in America Research Project is conducted by Lord Ashcroft Polls. Elise Jordan is a colleague and also a friend. I have discussed the results of her focus groups regularly with her for the past two years; they have been very helpful in reading the political climate, particularly with Trump voters. We had a lengthy conversation about the Mississippi and Memphis focus groups in March. Her quotes are from those conversations and a follow-up interview in November. The quotes from participants are from the Lord Ashcroft Polls site and her Time magazine article titled “I’ve Supported the Second Amendment My Whole Life. It’s Time for Reasonable Gun Control,” in March.

9. Change the Ref

1

I interviewed Tío Manny (Manuel Oliver) in his office in Boca Raton in May. I later met him and his wife, Patricia, at other events during the bus tour, and spoke to them then. Most of the information and quotes in this chapter, and the later episodes with the family, come from these conversations.

Exceptions are noted here, with two big ones:

Maria Alesia Sosa and Luis Velarde wrote an incredible piece for Univision, “Where Is My Son?” It is the basis for most of section 1, interspersed with my reporting in Columbine. I later confirmed the veracity of their account with Tío Manny. The Univision piece provided the last names of Sergeants Rossman and Brown, but I was unfortunately unable to track down their first names for inclusion in this book.
My descriptions of the murals come from photos and videos of Manny creating them, as well as what he described to me. I was present in Chicago for the mural he created there, noted in chapter 18.

2

Tío Manny provided vivid descriptions of Joaquin, and he told me about the poem mentioned here. He directed me to the Eagle Eye’s special memorial issue for the Parkland victims for the precise wording and additional background. Some details and the quotes from Joaquin’s sister, Andrea Ghersi, and his teacher, Stacy Lippel, come from that issue.

3

Tío Manny’s account of dropping Guac off at school the morning of the shooting is from Manny and Patricia’s August interview with Democracy Now!

4

Tío Manny’s quote about giving a voice to Joaquin comes from his video message on the Posts Into Letters website.

A 2005 study by the Congressional Management Foundation titled Communicating with Congress reports, “Nearly all staff surveyed (96%) reported that if their Member of Congress had not arrived at a firm decision, individualized postal letters would have ‘some’ or ‘a lot’ of influence on the Member’s decision.”

The Posts Into Letters website keeps a running tally of all of the letters that have been sent to congresspeople through its app. As of November 2018, the tally stands at over 19,700 letters.

Posts Into Letters won Silver Lions in the PR and Print categories and a Bronze Lion in the Direct category at the 2018 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

10. Exhausted

1

In this chapter, I tried to illustrate how various MFOL kids were dealing with the situation at a single point in time, about a month after the tragedy, and just over a week before the march on Washington. Therefore, nearly all the quotes in this chapter come from in-person interviews I did with them on successive days: Alfonso, Daniel, and Ryan together on March 12; David and then his parents, March 13; David and Lauren at the school walkout rally, March 14; Jackie, March 15; and Matt Deitsch, also March 15 (but separately). There were a few exceptions. The first is a few great quotes by David from published sources, noted in the main text. I also spoke to Daniel by phone several times that week in addition to the group interview.

My first sit-down interview with David was in his kitchen, May 13, for just under an hour. I spent the next few hours with his parents, Rebecca and Kevin. They gave me their perspective, filled me in on David’s childhood, gave me a tour of the house, and showed me some of his favorite gadgets, like his first drone, and the newer model he had recently wanted badly and then gotten. Lauren was also there some of the afternoon, and we chatted just briefly. All the quotes from them in this chapter come from those interviews, except as noted. (And a few are from the rally the next day, where I ran into David and Lauren again.)

The Outline piece on David was written by Gaby Del Valle.

2

Beth González’s comments are quoted from her interview with 60 Minutes that aired March 18.

4

David’s comments on meeting Michael Bloomberg come from Lisa Miller’s excellent profile on David for New York magazine. (It’s easily the best profile of him I’ve read.)

Though many of David’s quotes in this chapter come from my conversations with him, a few come from Miller’s piece.

11. Walkout

1

All of section 1 is from my direct observations and real-time interviews. I watched the Douglas kids march out to the football field and back for their walkout from just outside the fence, along with the press and locals. I met Christopher Krok and the other Westglades students on the street as the Douglas kids were filing back in. I first interviewed Christopher and many of the others there (including big groups of the other junior ROTC kids), and then the big wave of students from Westglades arrived, and everyone started running. Where I wrote that reporters kept asking where they were going, I heard a few other reporters asking, but that was mainly me, asking over and over. I sprinted to the front of the pack and then let them start passing, and kept asking, and no one seemed to know, until that person finally yelled out “Pine Trails!”

The police had told the media to park our cars along the side of that road, and we happened to be running right toward my rental car. So I stayed with the pack for a bit, interviewing kids on the move, then backtracked to my car and drove to the park so I could beat them there and watch it unfold from start to finish. It was nearly two miles away, so it took them a while, and I also had a chance to walk the field to gather impressions of the state of the memorials, and to take a lot of pictures. That’s when I noticed Peter Wang’s sign had come free and was lying on the ground.

During and after the rally, I interviewed lots of other students, including all the ones quoted here. That’s when Susana Matta Valdivieso filled me in on all her planning for the prior month. Rabbi Melinda Bernstein and Angel Lopez gave me the background on what they had been doing. I spoke to dozens of Douglas students, and most said they’d gotten wind of the plan early that morning, but none of them thought it was actually going to happen. Lauren Hogg and others showed me the Instagram and Snapchat messages from that morning, which were still on their phones.

We consulted local news reports just to fact-check the spelling of names (although most of the kids spelled them for me, sometimes I couldn’t read their writing later).

2

Jackie’s exchange with her math teacher was conveyed entirely by her, which she recited to me from memory the following day. (This was the same interview used in the prior chapter. We met after school, at a Starbucks nearby.)

I cringed when Jackie told me about the friendships. It made me sad that it was happening, and it scared me that Jackie was sharing it with journalists (for the reason stated in the text). I decided to put it off the record for several months, to see how it played out, and I struggled for days about whether to advise Jackie to consider keeping that from people like me. Eventually, I decided that would be too intrusive, but I still wondered whether I made the right choice. These kids have never been in this position, and sometimes those of us with more life experience are in a better position to see the potential ramifications of certain decisions. In the end, Jackie was right, and as I made near-final edits over Thanksgiving, I decided it was safe to divulge.

3

This is the same group interview as that described in the prior chapter. We met on the patio of the restaurant at the Heron Bay Marriott (the same hotel that was used as a rendezvous point on Valentine’s Day). Daniel arrived first and I chatted with him for a while, then the others came. The entire session lasted about two hours.

12. The Memes Men

2

I followed Jackie’s car to the MFOL office immediately after our Starbucks interview on March 15.

That was the first time I met Matt and Dylan. I interviewed Matt that afternoon and Dylan the next day. All the quotes from them in this chapter are from those interviews.

As soon as I met Matt and Dylan, I knew I wanted to feature them, at least in a magazine piece. In fact, I was in the final stages of a very different story for the online edition of Vanity Fair, to run less than a week later, as a preview to the march. I walked out so excited that I called my editor from the parking lot to say I wanted to drop that story and replace it with a much better story about these guys. He agreed. I would continue to interview them and chat with them at events over the ensuing months.

Pippy was also in the office that day, and I recognized her, because she had assisted Jackie on the Tallahassee trip and had helped me out before and during. (For what it’s worth, I wanted to feature Pippy as well. She said she doesn’t like to be the center of attention, and I could use little bits from her, but she didn’t want to be featured. She was very helpful over the course of the spring coordinating things. And she finally agreed to be part of my sit-down interview with the Duff family in May.)

I spent a bit under two hours in the office that day, and less than two the following day. The kids gave me permission to take photos to use to describe the space later, and I took dozens, including close-ups of the Post-it notes and anything written on the wall, which is how I was able to reproduce it here. I also kept the tape running as we toured and narrated some of it as we walked—and asked Jackie about things.

The photos were intended for documentation purposes, but Jackie later gave me permission to publish several on Vanity Fair’s website with my March 22 story.

3

Several of the kids told me about the Fight for Our Lives rebranding, under strict confidentiality. Not all of them were sure exactly when the change was going to happen, but I got the impression it was going to be at the DC march. As we were leaving the march, I asked Daniel about it, and he was a bit surprised too. He noted that many of them had tossed out “little Easter eggs,” and thought it would be coming soon. I asked some of the kids a week or two later (I can’t recall exactly who), and although they were unsure about timing, they were sure I should keep it quiet. I didn’t ask about it again for a few weeks, and by then they had let it go.

The best count of actual sibling marches that took place in the United States comes from the Washington Post data, published in “Did You Attend the March for Our Lives?” The number given in the article is smaller than the figure stated in this chapter, because 84 of the marches were abroad.

5

Matt told me most of the Cold Beak stories, and Dylan filled in more.

13. Harvard

I did not attend the Harvard conference. Most of the information in this chapter comes from my interviews with John Della Volpe, as do all quotes from him in the book. He also sent me the slideshow cited, and I pulled the passages directly from it. I interviewed him by phone in June, with several follow-ups. I talked to the kids about it as well.

His key polling question—“Does political involvement have any tangible results?”—has changed wording over the years, so I paraphrased him. His most recent statement, to which he asks potential voters to respond on a five-point scale, is “Political involvement rarely has any tangible results.”

Like Della Volpe, I wondered for a while whether Alfonso and David had choreographed that one-two punch. I was going to ask them about it when I saw them both at a community barbeque on the Road to Change tour in Aurora, Colorado, in July, but I could never get them together. (They move around!) I was talking to Alfonso as he was about to board the bus after the event, and David was off riding a bike to decompress. Just then, David rode up, so I asked them the moment I had them together. They both laughed out loud. It had been a last-minute situation.

14. March for Their Lives

1

In the weeks leading up to the march, I thought about how I wanted to cover it. I figured there would be all sorts of reporting on Emma’s day, and David’s (a documentary crew was scheduled to follow him around). I was most curious what it would be like for someone not quite at the center of the organizing, outside the media storm. I knew immediately who I wanted. I pitched Daniel Duff the idea of spending the day with him and whoever he was going with: from first thing in the morning, through the day. He was game and checked with his family, and they agreed too. Vanity Fair also liked the idea, and sent a great photographer, Justin Bishop, to capture it visually. (My assignment was just to write extended captions, but it turned into a piece.) We knew it would be a crazy day, so my writer friend Matt Alston agreed to come down with us and help. He was working on a profile on me, and by sticking by my side, he could help me out and get a firsthand look at my process. 42 West gave us all access to the media interview tent.

Joan Walsh was Salon’s news editor when Columbine was attacked, and she edited nearly all the four dozen stories I published for it. (About two-thirds of those concerned Columbine.) That was my first time back into journalism since college, and she was really helpful in guiding me and honing my stories, and has been one of the major influences on my work. Joan was at Salon’s main office in San Francisco, so we did it all by email and phone, and didn’t meet in person for more than a year. We are now friends, and she is now national affairs correspondent for The Nation and a CNN political analyst. We coaxed the 42 West people to position us together in the interview tent, and we spent a good chunk of the day together, sharing findings, impressions, and ideas. Joan is one of the wisest people I know, and a great mentor, and we have been on this larger story together for nearly twenty years. She was incredibly helpful as a sounding board. She has also been covering civil rights issues within the African American community for decades, and that insight was invaluable.

We agreed to meet Daniel and his family at their hotel lobby a bit before eight a.m. and head to breakfast. It (stupidly) had not occurred to me that all the MFOL kids would be staying there, so I was surprised to see most of them in the lobby. I decided to give them their space. Some of them were clearly just waking up, and we were in their home for the day, and they didn’t need to deal with media yet. I just nodded and said hi when they came over to see Daniel, and tried to observe as inconspicuously as possible.

Brendan Duff played a major role in MFOL, but he kept such a low profile that I was not even aware he was part of it until I met him with Daniel at breakfast. Brendan was the key adviser on media and image early on, which was critical. The entire family has an interesting story. Brendan and Connor Duff were both in North Carolina when the shooting happened, but they were determined to come home immediately. The Duffs had moved to Parkland from New Jersey only a few years earlier, after Connor graduated from high school, so he had less of a connection to Douglas. But he wanted to be there for Daniel, and for Brendan, whose good friends had been traumatized. I had every intention of telling much more of Brendan’s story, and the family’s, but I just had too much material, and was never able to backtrack. (I also stayed in contact with the other kids by running into them at events, and Brendan was away at college.)

2

Most of the technical specs for the stage and equipment come from the National Park Service’s event permit, with a bit from the group’s application. The rest was from my observations.

David Hogg explained the orange $1.05 tags in his speech. They were used at later events as well.

3

I hated that the press area sealed us off from the crowd, but it gave us a good view of the stage, plus the Jumbotron for close-up detail. There was a metal barricade that separated us from the crowd, so we spent most of the rally leaned up against it, so we could watch them react and chat with the people inches from us on the other side. I wanted to get an immersive sense of the event, though, and to see what it was like for people several blocks back. So midway through, Matt and I took one long, slow walk all the way to the back (around Twelfth Street). We stopped along the way to gauge responses and chat with revelers here and there. I was slightly surprised to see the excitement level nearly as high all through. (Anyone who’s been to a concert knows how different being in the back can feel. I’m glad we did it, but we couldn’t always see or hear what was happening onstage during the trip to the rear. We missed Sam Fuentes throwing up. I heard about it back in the media area, and watched it later online to write that scene. The walk took twenty to thirty minutes, so we did that only once.)

Background on Naomi Wadler and her school walkout come from “A Parkland Father and . . .” (Alexandria News).

Media wasn’t permitted in the VIP area where Daniel was, so we had to part ways with him until after the rally. But our photographer, Justin, managed to score a wristband, so he spent most of it beside Daniel taking pictures and jotting notes. Justin provided most of the details of Daniel’s and Ryan’s experiences during the rally (which I confirmed with them later).

4

I tell a fuller version of Linda Mauser’s story in the afterword of Columbine.

5

I texted Daniel right after Emma finished, and we realized they were about to pass us on their way out. So we reconnected moments later, and they were elated, so I hit the record button on my iPhone to get their immediate impressions. Then we found both their dads and family members. We all walked over to the Capitol, but Daniel and Ryan were so amped up that they kept running ahead and then circling back to us. I stayed back with the dads and got their impressions for much of that time. We caught up with the boys at several stoplights, while they searched for their documentary team. I was beside them with the tape rolling when they stopped in traffic, and when they chatted up the cops.

6

The Crowd Counting Consortium published its results on the march, along with historical comparisons, in “Did You Attend the March for Our Lives?” (Washington Post). I drew additional historical references—including on the Vietnam War and Iraq protests—from “This Is What We Learned . . .” by the same authors in this piece on the Women’s March.

The University of Maryland sociology professor Dana R. Fisher led a research team to gather very specific data on the composition of the Women’s March in 2017. They surveyed every fifth person in the crowd to compile a wealth of detail about who the attendees were, why they came, and what their backgrounds were. It was very successful. Major demonstrations continued in the months that followed, so Fisher redeployed her team for every large protest in Washington from that date forward, and she was continuing her crowd analysis at least through October 2018. Her results on the MFOL march were published in “Here’s Who Actually Attended the March for Our Lives” (Washington Post). This is incredible data, and my source for crowd analysis.

The Trace’s data comes from the article “Parkland Generated Dramatically More News Coverage Than Most Mass Shootings.”

15. PTSD

All quotes and reflections from Dr. Frank Ochberg and Dr. Alyse Ley come from interviews with them. I have been consulting with Dr. Ochberg about trauma issues since 1999, when he played a big role at Columbine. I became an Ochberg Fellow at the nonprofit organization he founded, the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. I first discussed the Parkland kids’ situation at length with both doctors during the ACIA conference in Las Vegas mentioned in the prologue in May—both individually and in panel discussions. It was enlightening to also involve two recent survivors of the Las Vegas tragedy, Chris and Jenny Babij, in that discussion, and for their real-time coping experience to inform it. I followed up with Dr. Ochberg periodically, and he helped vet portions of the manuscript medically and filled in and fleshed out many ideas in an interview in mid-November (though I of course take responsibility for the material in this book). I then followed up with Drs. Ochberg and Ley in separate lengthy interviews in late November. Dr. Ley followed with citations from the DSM-V.

16. Denver Noticed

1

I again used the Crowd Counting Consortium’s (CCC) data for the sibling marches. However, a major distinction is necessary between estimates of the DC and the sibling marches. A wealth of different organizations weighed in with estimates of the DC march, and the consortium evaluated all of them to create both a range and a best guess. With the sibling marches, there were far fewer sources. The CCC relies on estimates published in local news outlets, and on Twitter posts in the cases of small demonstrations. Typically news reports are intentionally vague, with terms like “thousands” or “hundreds.” Local authorities used to estimate crowd sizes, but the numbers grew so politically charged that they stopped doing that years ago. So the CCC conservatively converts “hundreds,” “thousands,” and “tens of thousands” to “200,” “2,000,” and “20,000.” That can result in a gross undercount. Because much of this chapter is set in Denver, I dug a little deeper. Most local news reports used the “thousands” catch-all, but everyone I spoke to felt the actual number was toward the upper end of that range. Denver’s alternative weekly Westword was the only news outlet to offer a harder number, reporting “almost 100,000.”

I wanted to experience how the walkouts played out in many different places, but I could be in only one place at a time. For the first walkout, I decided it was most important to attend the Douglas event, and I used news accounts to gauge the impact nationwide. (That was just for background, and I didn’t describe any other walkouts in the book, but the New York Times had a thorough roundup of them, and the TV networks offered great video footage.) For the second walkout, I decided to risk something big happening in Parkland to check out what was happening further afield. Columbine’s choice to hold a walkout-related event a day early allowed me to experience it in two cities. I flew to Denver on April 17 and spent three days meeting with organizers and others related to their big event, watching them handle last-minute logistical details (like walking the site and choosing where to put the Porta-Potties, and so forth), interviewing the Parkland kids who had flown in, and then attending all the events on the nineteenth.

Then I caught a six a.m. direct flight to Austin, to take part in its walkout rally. Nine local high schools organized a joint rally on the steps of the Texas State Capitol, busing in students from some of the further schools. Full disclosure: Cecilia Cosby, the daughter of old friends, is now in high school and was one of the organizers. She asked me to speak at the rally, and I accepted. (I was not paid, but the organizers offered to cover my travel expenses, and ended up purchasing a flight one way. Vanity Fair covered most of my travel, since I tacked it on to the Columbine trip I was covering for them.) The gist of my speech was:

The Parkland kids have demonstrated so much more power than parents of survivors, because when adults see their teen faces, we see our own kids. Similarly, you [Austin kids] have a different kind of power: when adults see you, we see future targets, kids in power. You all are the face of this movement. Use that power as you see fit.

The Austin event drew several thousand and was very powerful. I had hoped to include it in this book overtly, but it was also crowded out. (Most of my reporting was crowded out. There was room for only a small fraction of it.) The Austin trip was great for perspective, though. It gave me a chance to witness how MFOL was affecting kids in cities where they hadn’t been (i.e., most cities). I spoke to the Austin organizers and to dozens of kids who came out to the event. Many came up to talk to me immediately afterward.

Austin also gave me an added behind-the-scenes peek for several reasons. I know how long the various groups had been organizing, because Cecilia first emailed me on February 27: just thirteen days after the Parkland attack, and nearly two months before her event. It’s kind of extraordinary that by then, the Austin high schools had already formed their alliance and were deep enough into planning that Cecilia had taken on the role of fund-raising and acquiring speakers, had a budget to do so, and was lining up speakers. Of course I also had backstage access during the event, but the biggest insight came via Cecilia’s parents, Doug and Monica Cosby. I often interview parents, but of course they tend to be highly protective of their kids and wary of what they disclose to reporters. I have known Doug and Monica since we worked together as consultants at Arthur Andersen in the early 1990s. Monica actually worked for me on several jobs, and she is driven, and a perfectionist, and badly wanted to help the kids. It was amusing to hear her frustration at how adamantly they rebuffed all her attempts. The kids insisted they were doing this themselves. It was helpful to get the perspective of someone who would give me the unvarnished truth. (Cecilia even insisted on making the initial reach-out to me. She was born after I moved from Texas, and I had never met her or spoken to her before receiving her email in February.) I spoke to faculty members at some of the Austin schools, and while they told me they were offering advice and some logistical support, they assured me that the kids were just as firm with them on directing the project. This stance of kids organizing themselves, on their own terms, was central to the MFOL narrative, and it was interesting to see how profoundly that template had permeated distant communities, with whom the Parkland kids had no direct contact.

All the quotes from Colorado sources in this chapter and the next are from my interviews. Depictions of all Colorado events were from my direct observations, with one exception: because I was in Austin on April 20, I did not attend the service events. I spoke to Frank DeAngelis and the kids about what they had scheduled, and then confirmed those details with local news coverage.

The Denver sibling march and the April event outside Columbine were huge undertakings, and I talked to dozens of people involved in organizing them. I could name only a few in the text without confusing the narrative, so I focused on Emmy, Kaylee, and Madison, but I don’t want to give the impression they did it alone. Emmy’s copresident was Sam Craig, who deserves recognition.

Emmy’s group was originally organized under the name Jeffco Students United for Action—and that was still its name at the time of the events depicted here. However, the group soon rebranded itself as Jeffco Students Demand Action—which I use in the narrative to avoid confusion. (My researchers had trouble even verifying the original name ever existed. If you google to learn more, it’s the current name you’ll want to use.) The reason for the change is actually interesting, and it was duplicated around the country, as kids learned the power of branding. Groups were sprouting around the country with their own creative names, but Students Demand Action quickly developed into a brand, with T-shirts, hashtags, a logo, principles, and so forth. When kids networked around their region and tweeted around the world, SDA was a known quantity, so large numbers of them quickly began to coalesce around the name.

2

Full disclosure: the leaders of MFOL and the Columbine survivor community both knew I was connected with the other, and both sides reached out to me for contact names and numbers. In a strange coincidence, Frank DeAngelis and Jackie Corin texted me at almost the same time for help in reaching each other. (Frank didn’t specify Jackie in particular, but wanted to invite the MFOL leaders to the April 19 event. Jackie wanted to invite Frank to Douglas High to advise them on the grieving process.) That was the full extent of my role: helping connect them—and advising Frank that Jackie was a reliable person to use as a primary contact there. However, it gave me an early window into what the groups were planning long before they revealed it to media, and I kept in touch with both sides about the developments.

3

My interview with the four Legally Blonde kids actually took place a few weeks later, on May 8. As a rule, I tried to use quotes in the narrative when they occurred, or very close to that time, to give the reader a sense of how individuals’ impressions evolved. Two weeks is longer than I usually like to stretch it, but this was the place in the story where this material was relevant for readers, and it was clear that the kids had settled on these feelings for quite a while. I had also heard bits and pieces of this sentiment from many Douglas students for weeks before and after this point in the narrative (April 20). Of all those conversations, I felt this foursome really captured many shadings and perspectives of those feelings. I hope this scene provides a sense of so many more like it.

4

The meeting with survivors was by far the most intimate exchange between survivors I’ve ever witnessed in two decades covering such events. It was closed to the press and public. However, since I’ve known several of the Columbine survivors so long, they trusted me to observe quietly in the back of the auditorium. I took notes but did not record it. To augment my notes, I taped several minutes of impressions immediately after walking out. Because no one taped the session, I used only the few brief quotes—which I jotted down and then confirmed with the source later. Because it was private, I used only names and quotes from people who gave me permission afterward.

More disclosures: I have gotten close to many of the Columbine survivors over the years. After Columbine was published, I foolishly believed I had moved on from this horrible story, and became good friends with some of my “former” sources, including Kiki and Paula. The reality is that after two decades, we have all been pulled into the strange gravitational orbit of these awful events, and are part of it together. Normal journalistic boundaries have blurred.

In the years after Columbine was published, I also faced an ethical dilemma. I had always sought to remain neutral and objective on issues like the gun debate. However, I am now frequently sought out for advice on mass shootings by students, parents, school administrators, academics, and law enforcement officers. (For example, I was the keynote speaker one year for the annual threat management conference organized by the FBI and LAPD.) I realized at some point that I had blended into being part of this, and with people dying—so many children dying—and such an obvious national problem with guns, I could no longer stay completely neutral. I avoid public positions on specific gun legislation, but I take the overt position that we have badly failed to do anything, and some reasonable action is clearly called for.

Paula and Kiki are both articulate and empathetic, and I often recommend them as speakers when reporters, TV producers, or others ask me for suggestions. In 2014, John Ridley, the executive producer of ABC’s American Crime, contacted me for help selecting survivors for the second season of the series, which involved a school shooting. He wanted to weave clips of actual survivors into the show. I suggested Kiki and Paula, and ABC eventually hired me (for the day) to interview them and three survivors of other brutal situations on camera. It aired in February 2016. Kiki has taught Columbine as a text in one of his English courses for the past several years. The first year, I Skyped in with the class. He knows writers struggle to make ends meet, and on several of my trips to Colorado, he and his wife, Kallie, invited me to stay at their house for a few days, and I accepted. That included both trips covered in this book: the April trip in this chapter, and the August trip in chapter 19.

I see people like Kiki and Paula now less as sources and more as friends, as well as valuable conduits into the closely guarded world of trauma survivors. When tragedy strikes or controversy arises, and insiders seal themselves off from the press or recite talking points, I have abundant sources who will share the blunt truth. So now I rarely use Paula or Kiki as direct sources, but because the Parkland kids sought out the Columbine community, Paula and Kiki ended up at the center of a few powerful scenes that I thought readers would appreciate. So I’ve included them, with this disclosure of our friendship.

This boundary crossing comes with risks, but I think they are heavily outweighed by the insights and access they afford. These people have been living with this for twenty years, and they trust me to share feelings they otherwise never would with a reporter. On the April trip, staying at Kiki’s home provided extraordinary access, including long conversations with him immediately before and after events, in his kitchen or living room. He also arranged for me to interview Kaylee there, and then to visit at her home, where about twenty of the Douglas kids were hanging out and preparing to go on the Lookout Mountain trip. (I made sure all those kids knew I was a reporter, and a few chose to do interviews with me there. I got another window into them behind the scenes.) It’s also highly unlikely I would have known about Kiki’s car crash without staying there. I learned about it when I landed in Denver and switched on my phone from airplane mode. Kiki had texted that he might be late meeting me at his house, because he had just crashed his car. (He was not injured.) I saw the car crumpled in the driveway for the next three days. I talked to Kallie about him being too upset to call the insurance company.

5

Two years after Paula Reed taught Dylan Klebold, he and Eric Harris attacked Columbine. Most of Dylan’s friends shared Reed’s perception that Dylan was a sweet kid, and were shocked that he participated.

17. Setbacks

1

Because of my existing relationships with Frank DeAngelis and others in the community, I was monitoring the evolving controversy for weeks while it remained private. I had agreed to keep it off the record at that time, because everyone involved supported the movement and didn’t want to sow public discord. They eventually hit an impasse and DeAngelis went public—taking issue only with the timing. (He was an enthusiastic supporter of MFOL both publicly and privately.)

2

My quotes from Diego Garcia come from my interview with him. That was June, when I met him the weekend of the Peace March, but his comments about the walkout were pertinent here.

3

Most of the information about Alfonso and Charlie’s trip comes from my interviews with Alfonso and an Arizona representative who spoke on the condition of anonymity. I also spoke to several other MFOL kids about it and its implications, including the passage quoted from Dylan. Alfonso didn’t cover all the nitty-gritty details—and he was not present to the end of the die-in—so I augmented his account with news reports: “Hamilton High and Other . . .” (Arizona Republic), “We’re Not Going to Give Up” (Arizona Republic), “Parkland Student to Campaign for Hiral Tipirneni” (Arizona Republic), and “Arizona Students Stage ‘Die-In’” (Arizona Daily Independent).

Background on Arizona’s and Pennsylvania’s special elections come from the New York Times. In the Senate race, the bisexual woman leading in contention for the Democratic nomination was Kyrsten Sinema. She won the nomination and the seat.

Officials eventually chose not to arrest five students who remained in the Arizona capitol building, but they shut off the lights and left the students in the dark. When that failed, officials carried them out around ten thirty p.m.

Gadsden flags are the yellow ones embellished with a coiled snake, which read dont tread on me.

5

In addition to David’s Axios interview, he made similar comments at a Twitter Live Q&A with Alex, Cameron, Emma, Jackie, and Ryan earlier in the week.

Yahoo News picked up the Newsweek story on David’s Axios quote, and Tyah-Amoy Roberts actually linked to Yahoo’s version in her tweet.

18. Graduation

1

The company put on four performances of Spring Awakening, and I attended the first two. I bought my ticket to the first show early, a front-row seat, on the far aisle, stage right. That put me beside the front VIP table, which Cameron’s family happened to purchase, so I got to see their reactions during the show. (I learned who they were only later, though it was clear they were connected to him in some way.) Cameron also performed some of his major scenes at that edge of the stage. For the second performance, I got a seat toward the center, several rows back, which allowed me a much wider view of the show. I didn’t design it that way, but the two seats were highly complementary in giving me different perspectives on the show.

I attended the talk-back with Sater and Sheik. I hope my account doesn’t give the impression that Duncan was silent. They both had great insights, but Sater wrote the lyrics, which are most pertinent to this story, so I ended up quoting just him. The talk-back was intended to be held in the theater and open to the public, to begin after the cast had a chance to meet with friends and family outside on the boardwalk. But while that was happening, the theater owner locked up the venue, so Barclay was forced to come up with a quick plan B, and she moved the talk-back to her studio, just steps away. It was a small space, so the event had to be restricted to the cast, crew, Sater, Sheik, and a few journalists. It made for an intimate setting, with the two dozen of us barely squeezing in. They brought in chairs for Sheik and Sater, and the kids sat or lay on the floor, many curled up together. The adults mostly stood. All the questions came from the cast and crew. I got it all on tape. As stated earlier, I went over Sater’s quotes with him in November, and he clarified and expanded on them. (For the most part, he added back bits that were either included in the question or a previous answer.) It was also in November that Sater shared his poem and gave me his permission to include it.

Sheik and Sater had also met with the students earlier, visited their school, and met with their drama instructor, Melody Herzfeld. I should also note that Melody played a big part in these kids’ lives, and they really liked her. I contacted her in March (with Daniel Duff’s help), and we texted several times, all off the record. She was extremely gracious but decided that she wanted to be there for her kids and keep the focus on them. That was very understandable. I always intended to follow up, but as with some other sources, the story got so big and great story lines got crowded out. The Spring Awakening material was so powerful, and so aligned with what they were going through, that I decided to focus on that. If I had another few months and could write a few more chapters—and were she willing—I would definitely include Melody. Sadly, I also intended to interview Ed Stolz on that trip, but our paths kept missing. He was assistant musical director at Douglas High, and was with most of the kids in lockdown in the drama room. He was also the musical director for Barclay’s company. I regret not finding the time or space to include him. Eric Garner is also on that list, the broadcasting teacher at Douglas.

I did not attend the master class with the original Broadway cast. I spoke to Barclay about it, and some of the kids mentioned it from time to time, but I relied heavily on Alexis Soloski’s excellent New York Times feature “Parkland Survivors Get a Broadway Master Class in Healing.” Most of the quotes I used from the event come from her.

2

When I write “Everyone saw a change in David,” that was an understatement. The kids were often bringing it up, and just walking into a room with David, you could feel it. He was also quite aware of it.

I had already spent a lot of time with Cameron and David over the previous months, but it was really concentrated that week. I spent a good chunk of the late part of the week shadowing Cameron and the rest of the Spring Awakening company, and then about five hours on Saturday at the Hoggs’ house (with David there for a bit more than half of that). The contrast was so extraordinary that I bounced my impressions off David.

3

I was in town for prom weekend because of Spring Awakening, and I also took the opportunity to talk to some of the kids about their plans. But I felt strongly they needed a break from the media that night, so I stayed away and made no contact that evening. I used the kids’ social media posts and media reports for most of the details about it, including “Marjory Stoneman Douglas High Plans ‘Over the Top’ Prom” (Los Angeles Times), “Marjory Stoneman Douglas High Prom” (Sun-Sentinel), and “Parkland’s Seniors Celebrate Prom, but Four Are Missing” (NBC News).

By coincidence, I happened to spend much of prom day at the Hoggs’ house. I was actually supposed to do an interview with Rebecca and Kevin on Thursday, but Kevin was rushed to the ER with a kidney stone. He was back on his feet quickly, and they suggested I come by Saturday morning. They were held up a bit, and only Lauren was home when I arrived, but she was open to an interview, so I caught up with her. (This is when she told me about the incident with the special issue of the Eagle Eye, among other things.) Then I did a long interview with Kevin and Rebecca while the kids went to lunch. Rebecca showed me the unique wrist corsage she had gotten Emma and let me photograph it. She could barely contain her giddiness about her only son going to prom. (I agreed to keep everything about Emma and David going together off the record.) We were still talking when the kids returned, and David sat down on the couch and just listened for about twenty minutes. Eventually he chimed in, and it gradually morphed into a long interview with him. Prom came up several times, and that’s when David broke the news about no pictures, and he and Rebecca had it out. Eventually, Rebecca left, and Kevin spoke to David again about it, trying to find some compromise. They both felt terrible about it for Rebecca, but David said the price for letting the information out would be terrible. Eventually David went up to get dressed, while I chatted more with Kevin. (Kevin is the introvert in a very extroverted family, so it’s best to get him alone. And David said he was fine with my staying.) When David came down in his tux, I got out of there to give him some space, wished him well, and promised not to text.

I regret not finding more space for Rebecca in this book. She is hysterical in person and also extremely caring. (All the parents I met were incredibly gracious and kind to me.) Rebecca always put me in a good mood. I also appreciated her candor. I hope all that comes across. I wrote and deleted much more material about Rebecca, but decided the focus needed to stay on the kids.

4

I was concerned about Lauren the first time I met her. Of all the Parkland kids I spent time with, she reminded me most of the shell-shocked Columbine kids I’d come to know. All three of the assessments of Lauren in this section (by Lauren, David, and Rebecca) came over the course of prom day. (Kevin did not weigh in.)

5

I interviewed Tío Manny on May 8, five days before Mother’s Day, and he was really worried about the upcoming holiday. It seemed unthinkable for Patricia. But then when he considered it, he realized graduation would likely be the worst day of all. All the quotes in this section are from that interview.

6

My reflections at the start of this section come from nineteen years watching survivors go through the process. It tends to be a much bigger milestone than most of them foresee at the beginning.

I next saw Tío Manny in Chicago on June 15, and met Patricia then. They had just been through graduation, and they were bracing for Father’s Day two days later. We talked about all three occasions. Mother’s Day had been as bad as expected, and graduation was terrible, but they’d felt much better after they devised Patricia’s silent protest of a T-shirt.

I did not attend the graduation. I discussed it later with many of the MFOL kids, and particularly with the Olivers, who were still reeling from it. I composed this section primarily based on those interviews. For details, I watched much of the graduation online. I drew additional details and quotes from the NowThisNews article “Joaquin Oliver’s Parents Appear on Their Son’s Behalf at Parkland Graduation.”

19. Road to Change

1

The kids talked to me about the tour throughout April, May, and early June—with all conversations embargoed until it was announced. During much of that period, they were still figuring out what it would really look like. (I didn’t hear about the Florida bus until rather late in the game, but perhaps it just didn’t come up.) I went most in depth about it with Matt and Jackie, and to a lesser extent with David and several others. All quotes and descriptions in this section are from those conversations.

Earlier in the book, I refer to Father Pfleger organizing the Peace Marches (plural), a series of marches held every Friday night throughout the summer. But with MFOL coming to the kickoff march this year, it became a big event, and the church itself dubbed it the Peace March (singular), which is how everyone I encountered before, during, and after spoke of it. So for clarity, I used the singular in this chapter.

2

I attended the Peace March on Friday, and also all the related events that evening and Saturday. Friday’s activities included the MFOL students touring the area around the church, Tío Manny creating his mural, the rally, the march, and street interviews after. (The march lasted a long time, and the MFOL kids were dispersed throughout the crowd. I ran up and down the length of it watching the MFOL kids, and speaking briefly to get a quick impression, but mostly giving them space to enjoy it. Daniel was feeling chatty, so I marched with him for a while and talked with him and his new friends.) Saturday included the press availability with kids at Saint Sabina, a public barbeque in a park nearby, and then the first town hall Saturday evening in Naperville, and more press availability afterward (and a bit informally squeezed in before). We also did a Vanity Fair group portrait session with twelve of the MFOL kids early Saturday afternoon. In all, there were opportunities to catch the kids in a multitude of different settings and moods. I checked in with many of them repeatedly throughout the weekend. All depictions and quotes come from that reporting, as well as my preinterviews. I spoke to the MFOL kids about the Peace March many times leading up to the event, and interviewed Alex, D’Angelo, and Father Pfleger by phone several days before. I spoke to all of them throughout the weekend.

Terrell Bosley was shot outside the Lights of Zion Church on Halsted and 116th on Chicago’s Far South Side.

The “freedom riders” added at the last minute were literally last-minute, or close. When the barbeque ended, I stayed to write down my impressions, so I was one of the last to leave. I pitched in with the cleanup and found a manila folder, which looked like something someone would need. So I looked inside, and it was the release forms for one of the Chicago kids to join the bus tour. I had just interviewed him at the barbeque, and we were all headed to the town hall in suburban Naperville, so I texted him that I would bring it to him there. He had signed up to join the tour in the final hour. And he was not the only one.

3

All quotes and depictions from Naperville come from my reporting there. Several of the organizers from Downers Grove North High were also at the Peace March, and I chatted with them briefly on Friday, but we were interrupted and didn’t talk long. (There was a lot going on.) I had done some basic research on their car wash the week before, and followed it on Facebook, because I was planning to attend. (There were some protests planned, and they also got so many RSVPs that they moved to a bigger location.) I ended up not going, because the barbeque was too interesting to leave. I talked to a whole lot of local activists there, and also people from the neighborhood who had come to check them out. (And the food was delicious!)

The quotes from Jackie reflecting on Naperville are from a phone interview I did with her Monday morning (two days later). When we settled on a time for the interview by text, she gave it to me in EDT. (By the way, Jackie is very precise, and includes time zones to avoid confusion.) I asked if she really meant EDT, because she was going to be in Missouri, and that was central time. No, she meant eastern. Jackie, Emma, and one of the other team members (sorry, I lost track of the third) were flying to Atlanta for a big event, and then right back to rejoin the tour. They were three days into a marathon bus tour and already tacking on extra travel? But I wasn’t too surprised, because they had been behaving that way all spring. Still.

4

The July TargetSmart report is titled “Analysis: After Parkland Shooting, Youth Voter Registration Surges.” The Miami Herald article cited is “Youth Voter Registration Went Up 41 Percent . . .”

5

I attended Road to Change tour dates in and around Chicago, Denver, and New York City, checked in with the kids regularly by phone and text, and monitored the tour by social media postings daily. (When something interesting happened, I would follow up by phone or text.)

All the quotes and depictions in this section come from my reporting.

6

All the quotes and depictions in this section come from my reporting, with one exception: I consulted local news accounts in Salt Lake City for background on the theater owner canceling the venue there. I did not quote any of those.

I had one of my researchers track down one of the Second Amendment protesters in Texas to pre-interview him to get his perspective. I normally conduct all my own interviews, but I was on a tight deadline for a Vanity Fair piece for which I was considering using it. I didn’t, so I never interviewed him personally, but he was forthcoming with my researcher, and it was informative to get his perspective.

I have followed Tom Mauser’s efforts since 1999 but had not checked in for a while. It was stirring to see how he had really come into his own, and how the MFOL kids looked up to him as a sort of elder statesman in their cause. Because he was. He was a pioneer.

20. Homeward Bound

1

When I saw the kids at the two Colorado stops midtour, I had the sense that some of the kids were nearing the ends of their ropes. Then and in New York City, some of them made offhand comments, but no one wanted to name names, as they were all still working it out. But it was clearly coming, and it seemed natural.

The Joni Mitchell song is “Coyote.” I recommend the live recording on The Band’s farewell concert album, The Last Waltz—and Martin Scorsese’s film of the same name.

2

Everything in this section is from my reporting, except the paragraph on David, where I got most of the details and the quoted phrase from Lisa Miller’s New York magazine profile on him, “Parkland Activist David Hogg . . .”

3

This section is from my reporting.

4

Cameron announced his departure on the Fox News Radio show Benson and Harf on September 19. A transcript of the key passages is online on the Fox News Radio website.

5

This section is from my reporting.

21. The Third Rail

1

The kids briefed me about the Mayors for Our Lives initiative in advance, and I watched the Morning Joe interview. I happened to see Katy Tur’s comment while watching her show.

All quotes from the kids in this chapter are from my interviews, except as noted.

Ariana Grande’s push for voter registration was reported in Billboard: “March for Our Lives Website Crashes . . .”

Quotes from Emma in this chapter come from her interviews with Diverse magazine, The Alligator, and Variety.

3

I was not at the Hurricane Grill & Wings gathering. I relied on accounts from the kids, augmented by news accounts. Jackie’s quote about shaking with anger and vowing to keep fighting comes from “Pain for Parkland Students . . .” (The Guardian). Her other quotes come from my interviews.

4

All quotes from Professor Robert J. Spitzer in this chapter come from my interview with him. His cogent op-ed about the results of the midterms in the November 12 New York Times also provided context.

Epilogue

1

All quotes and updates from the kids in this chapter come from interviews and texts with them, up through early December.

4

I was a huge Springsteen fan in my youth. In high school, I bought the first four albums of my life at one time, and Darkness on the Edge of Town was one of them. I had never seen Bruce in concert, though. His Broadway show played for over a year just a few blocks from my apartment in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen, but I couldn’t afford tickets, so I didn’t enter the lottery. But June 21, less than a week after the Peace March, I was invited to attend a performance less than an hour before the show. I always carry a pen and paper. I try to keep one letter-size sheet folded into quarters in my back pocket, but art often inspires me, so I packed two. I’m so glad I did. When Bruce mentioned the March for Our Lives kids, I was stunned. I immediately pulled the paper out and jotted down everything I could. I’m pretty sure I got the quotes right, but the way they appear in this book is from my notes, in the dark, as I heard them. I wrote a first stab at this section in the dark, during the final minutes of the show. I filled both sides of both papers, though I was writing very large, praying that I was not overwriting and that it would be comprehensible. It was. I walked straight home and fashioned the first draft of this section over the next hour, and refined it over the next several days.

I figured word must have gotten to the kids, but I texted Matt and Jackie (separately) that night just in case, and they were shocked and awed. And honored.

I said Bruce “has yet to meet” Jackie, because it’s true; they haven’t met, as of the final edits in December 2018. But I have a feeling that will prove temporary.