Clarkstown Walk Out Commemorates 17 From Parkland

CLARKSTOWN, NY — Students at Clarkstown North High School gathered on the football field for 17 minutes Wednesday morning to commemorate the 17 high-schoolers shot and killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida on Valentine's Day.

About half the 1,300-student body attended, said one of the organizers, junior Mannion McGinley. "It went really well," she said. "We had a large turnout. Everyone we stood with each other and worked with each other and it was our time."

During the Valentine's Day massacre at the school in affluent Parkland, as the chaotic first seconds ticked away the emotionally disturbed gunman squeezed shot after shot from his AR-15 rifle unchallenged as callers choked the 9-1-1 switchboards with pleas for help — 71 to the Broward Sheriff's Office and another 86 to Coral Springs police. Puffs of smoke rose with every trigger pull as the smell of gunpowder wafted through the halls and hot bullet casings clanged onto the corridors and stairwells of Building 12. Outside, police officers were mounting their response for what must have seemed like an endless 11 minutes and 15 seconds to the frightened survivors huddled in closets and under desks. Three weeks after the Florida high school shooting, the Broward Sheriff's Office released its most detailed timeline to date as well as a sampling of 10 chilling 9-1-1 recordings from the worst such shooting — 17 people were shot to death and 16 others injured — since a gunman opened fire in Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

During Wednesday's Walk Out at Clarkstown North, the student leaders stood on the bleachers to speak and read the names of the dead.

Elad Raymond, a senior, said they had been inspired by the passion and commitment of students in Florida and across the country. But their primary concern was this community and their fellow students, he said, "and our entire school community came together."

The student leaders dismissed accusations that the students who planned the walkouts were tools of adults who were co-opting kids for liberal causes. They just want to go to school in safety, said junior Ethan O'Donoghue.

"That is one of the main things we wanted to get clear," he said. "We're not listening to politics, we're worried about people coming in and killing us. We're not brainwashed, we're motivated."

PHOTO: Clarkstown High School North Walk Out, March 14, 2018/Photo credit: Marissa Krasny

Paul Scicchitano, Patch Staff, contributed to this report.

SEE: Florida School Shooting: 9-1-1 Cries For Help