Grieving father and Parkland student push for school safety
Andrew Pollack, whose daughter Meadow was murdered in Parkland, and student Delaney Tarr, who's mobilizing for change with other survivors, demand change.
A survivor of the Florida high school massacre and a father whose daughter was killed called for wide-reaching changes to school safety in an interview Sunday with Fox News.
Delaney Tarr, a senior at the school, has been one of the most prominent student activists calling for changes to gun laws, a ban on certain weapons and improved care for the mentally ill since a shooter slaughtered 17 people at the Parkland high school on Valentine’s Day.
“We need to address the failures that have created a situation like horrible situation like this. All of the things that have failed us, all of the systems that have failed us,” she said on “Fox News Sunday.” “I also believe we need to make it harder for people to access guns when they are not mentally stable, when they are young, when they are not in a place where they should be owning a weapon like this.”
Seventeen people were killed in the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland by alleged teen gunman, Nikolas Cruz, who used an AR-15 and who had a history of emotional problems, according to investigators.
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One of the victims’ fathers, Andrew Pollack, whose daughter, Meadow, died in the shooting, spoke about the need to make change now: “The new norm has to be our kids are safe in the school. This can’t happen again, I can’t let it happen to another kid in another state.”
He told Fox News' Chris Wallace: “I want to tell every governor in every other state, they need to be proactive right now. They need to get a bill in place and we’re going to put all America together, work with these governors to protect our schools. We can’t have another shooting in this country. I can’t live with it. This has to stop with Parkland, and my daughter’s death can’t be in vain. It has to be the last one.”
Cruz was arrested and charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder.
Pollack said that he has been making his grief actionable. “It’s rough, I have my moments you know. It’s like a wave of emotions,” he said about the fire that drives him now. “I can’t explain it, I could walk through flames right now, there’s nothing I can’t do.”
Tarr has been one of the most vocal advocates for change since the shooting, but she knows first and foremost she’s a student.
“It’s very daunting to imagine going back to a place that just two weeks prior held such horrors, and it’s scary because I don’t know if I am going to be safe there, but I know that I have to,” she said about returning to school. “I know now more than ever I’m proud of who I am, and I feel like I need that sense of normalcy because it’s, like, I can’t even be a high schooler anymore.”
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