Students Respond to Florida Mass Shooting on Social Media

While a 19-year-old man shot up his former high school in South Florida on Wednesday — killing 17 and injuring 16 others — the students barricaded inside shared horrifying videos and images as it happened on social media.

“Students shouldn’t have to tweet through shootings or post snaps while worrying that they’re the last messages they’ll ever send. That they now do—and that social media posts from inside active shooting zone will likely soon become another routine element of a situation that should never have been routine—should fill us with as much horror as the images themselves,” writes Slate’s Heather Schwedel. “This is not the fault of kids who have grown up tweeting, snapping, and posting their every thought and feeling. What’s really disturbing is that these shootings keep happening and that even being inside the classroom with these kids, via their first-person, real-time accounts, seems unlikely to change a thing.”

The videos, images and messages from the shooting below are extremely graphic, and continued to circulate as the suspect, Nikolas Cruz, was booked Thursday morning at a local jail on 17 counts of premeditated murder.

shooting at stoneman douglas high school in Parkland florida (broward county). wish the best to the families who suffered in this pic.twitter.com/GtvFN9Lq2Y

— zezima (@AJ_sesh) February 14, 2018

Another video of footage taken by a student during the shooting at Majory Stoneman Douglas High School. You can hear the students trying to hush each other as they try to figure out what is happening. You can also hear gunshots from outside the classroom which they are hiding in pic.twitter.com/SqByFc21P0

— – (@naturaIwrath) February 14, 2018

The Florida shooting is still racing through my mind. I am genuinely terrified to go to school tomorrow. When is this madness going to end? pic.twitter.com/7z6Gj5ewcA

— Lizard (@moiraalizard) February 15, 2018

RAW VIDEO: SWAT Team Clears Classroom Following Deadly School Shooting In Florida pic.twitter.com/ARYekZI17p

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) February 14, 2018

Even students who didn’t attend the affected school took to social media to express their overwhelming grief and fear about going back to their own high school.