Some testified that they thought the shooting was a drill – others said they knew instinctively what was happening. For some, it felt like everything happened so fast. Others said time slowed to a crawl as they waited for someone, anyone to help.
Students and teachers who survived the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School are reliving the horror of that day as they take the stand to testify in the sentencing trial of the convicted shooter. His guilt is not at issue – the question is whether he deserves to die for what he did.
Christopher McKenna was in Dara Hass’ freshmen English class in room 1216 on Feb. 14, 2018. Testifying Tuesday in a 17th floor courtroom in downtown Fort Lauderdale, McKenna said that he left the classroom to go to the bathroom just after 2 pm that day. Heading down the hall, he ran into Luke Hoyer and Martin Duque, who he high-fived, not knowing it would be the last time he saw them alive.
McKenna kept walking until he saw a man wearing a maroon JROTC shirt and carrying a rifle – Nikolas Cruz.
“He told me ‘get out of here. Things are about to get bad’,” McKenna testified.
McKenna said he immediately ran to find help – ultimately reaching Coach Aaron Feis, who took McKenna to safety before heading back towards the gunshots. The shooter would kill Feis minutes later.
When asked by lead prosecutor Mike Satz to identify the gunman, McKenna stood up and pointed straight at the person who had murdered 14 of his classmates, an athetic director, a teacher and a coach.
This was the first time a witness directly referenced the defendant during the formal phase of the trial, which began at the Broward County Courthouse on Monday.
Former students take the stand to testify about the deaths of their friends
On Tuesday, nine students and two teachers recounted the massacre in gruesome detail – the horrors they witnessed, the wounds they suffered and the friends they watched die.
Alexander Dworet was in Hass’ English class when gunshots shattered what had been “a regular day.” He testified that he didn’t want to believe what was happening.
“Then I remembered feeling trickling down the back of my head and onto my chest. And then I touched the back of my head and then my hand was all bloody,” Dworet said. “I realized something’s wrong but I still didn’t want to believe that it was a shooting or anything. So I was trying to stay calm.”
“And then the people next to me were like, oh are you ok? Do you feel like you’re going to die?” he said.
Dworet told the jury that he saw 14-year-old Alex Schachter take his final breaths, still sitting at his desk. Later, Dworet would learn that his own brother, Nicholas Dworet, was among the 17 people murdered.
English teacher Dara Hass broke into tears as she remembered that day. Initially she thought it was a drill – until she saw that Schachter had been shot. Gunshots and debris flew through her classroom. Haze and the sulfur smell of gunpowder hung in the air.
“The kids were doing the best they could to get to safety in a classroom that has nowhere to go,” Hass said.
She testified that many of her students were injured – some fatally. When officers finally came to escort them out of the classroom, Hass said it was hard for her to leave.
“It was hard for me to leave because I wanted to stay with the students that couldn’t go,” Hass said, referring to her dead students. “A police officer told me to quickly get out and he would help the students that were still there.”
Schachter, Alaina Petty and Alyssa Alhadeff all died in that classroom.
In her final moments, Helena Ramsay helped protect her friends
Samantha Grady testified that she was shocked by the shooting too. She was in Ivy Schamis’ history of the Holocaust class that day and said that when she first heard the sound of gunshots, she froze.
“I didn’t move initially because I was unsure what I heard,” Grady said.
Grady said a friend tapped her on the shoulder and said her name to get her attention – it was Helena Ramsay, who would die just moments later.
“That’s when I knew it was serious," Grady said. "Should go and hide? And so I did.”
She ran to the left side of the classroom where some students had moved filing cabinets for them to huddle behind. Grady said, in her final moments, Helena was trying to help protect her friends.
“Helena said, grab a book, maybe it’ll help. So we did,” Grady said. “We were just trying to protect ourselves.”
Samantha Fuentes was also in room 1214 that day, sitting at a desk at the front of the classroom. She testified that once the shots rang out, she crawled across the floor to hide with other students who barricaded themselves behind a podium, a cart full of laptops and “just a few books”.
“I was crawling on my hands and knees,” she said.
Fuentes said that she peered around the podium and could see the shooter standing in the window of the classroom door. She testified that the bodies of Nicholas Dworet and Helena Ramsay lay nearby.
“We were checking pulses to see if either Nick or Helena were still alive,” she said. “They weren’t.”
Fuentes says it was later that she noticed she herself was bleeding. She had been hit by a gunshot and multiple pieces of shrapnel – she says one fragment is still embedded behind her right eye. Fuentes told the jury she has had three operations to treat her injuries from that day, and that she still suffers from chronic spasms and pain.
Through all of the prosecution’s witnesses so far, the defense team had declined to ask any questions or conduct any cross-examination – until the final witness of the day on Tuesday.
Tamara Curtis briefly asked math teacher Michael Powell, who was in classroom 1230 on the day of the shooting, whether any campus monitors were nearby. Powell replied that one was assigned to his floor but that he couldn't recall many details.
