Parkland families react to Georgia school shooting: ‘I feel very frustrated’

PARKLAND, Fla. – Those who know what it’s like -- those who lost loved ones in the Parkland school shooting in February of 2018 -- have been triggered, yet again.

On Wednesday, a 14-year-old student shot and killed four people -- two students and two faculty members -- at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia.

“Why are the authorities in Georgia saying that you have to pray?” said Patricia Oliver, whose son Joaquin was killed in the shooting. “Really? That’s the reaction? I feel very frustrated.”

Andrew Pollack, who lost his daughter in the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, wrote on X:

“Another day where a parent won’t get to pick up their child from school. It’s long past time to make every American school secure and safe.”

“Ban assault weapons. I want to see intensive background checks,” said Oliver. “You have no idea what it is to go through this tragedy again -- it takes me back to February 14th, 2018.”

Debbie Hixon lost her husband Chris in the MSD school massacre.

“There’s a huge problem and we’re not doing the right things to fix it,” she said. “You’d like to believe that your tragedy was the last one, that it meant enough to somebody that they would demand that (it) is the last one, but when? When is it going to be enough? It doesn’t seem like there’s an end in sight.”

As the current Broward County School Board Vice Chair, Hixon has been part of adding safety measures at district schools like new metal detectors, but she feels gun safety and increased school security will only go so far to prevent the next one.

“How did a 14-year-old get access to a gun?” asked Hixon. “And even more than that, how does a 14-year-old have so much anger and hate?”

She hopes families take this time to check in with themselves.

“We don’t teach people resilience skills anymore, we don’t teach people to deflect things,” she said.