You Never Think It Will Happen, Until It Does
Tuesday, March 6th, 2012, is a date that stands alone in the minds of students and faculty at Episcopal School of Jacksonville. It’s the day that one of the safest schools in Jacksonville became a living nightmare.
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It was seventh period, my tenth-grade English literature class. It was a gorgeous day outside, so the door was open and I could feel a light breeze. We were reading the Odyssey, but I had zoned out because I was stressing about a test I had to take later that day. At a dance practice, a few weeks prior, I had discovered that I had an osteochondroma, or a bone tumor—an extra growth of bone on my fibula, that was not supposed to be there. I was having surgery the next day to get it removed, so I had to make up a test I was missing. I knew it would be impossibly hard, so it was consuming my thoughts.
I had heard through the grapevine that the Spanish teacher Mr. Shane Schumerth had been fired that morning, and some of the kids in my class were whispering about it. I recalled the only interaction I had with him. I had gone into his classroom and asked for tape, so I could decorate my friend’s locker with wrapping paper for her birthday. He acted jumpy and made me promise several times to bring it back. I assured him I would and I did. It was an unusual encounter to say the least, and that was the only time I had ever talked to him.
Class had started and we were going over the reading from the night before, when three bells went off. My teacher, Miss Flint, turned off the lights, closed the blinds and locked the door. We all huddled around her desk, unsure of what was happening. We weren’t sure it if it was a drill or not, so we just waited. Kids pulled out their phones to see if there was any news.
Someone joked that it must have been “revenge of Schumerth.” They were right.
News reports started buzzing on every phone, saying 2 students had died, saying a janitor had died, saying a teacher had died. No one knew what was going on, so we remained waiting until Miss Flint got the phone call. They let us leave and call our parents; it was pure chaos. As I was walking to the pick-up spot, a boy next to me asked if I knew what happened. I didn’t, so he told me. I can still hear him saying it, “Mr. Schumerth shot Mrs. Regan, and then he killed himself.”
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Lilly Sheppard had hit her head the past weekend. She was sitting in her 8th grade French class with a pounding headache, so she asked if she could go to the main office. Her nanny came to get her, but as they were waiting in the office to be checked out, three bells went off. Mr. Phillips, the head of upper school at the time, got all the kids in a nearby hallway to come into the office. The counselor told Lilly to get under the desk. She asked the counselor what three bells meant, and got the response, “I’ve been a counselor here for 40 years, and I’ve never heard three bells.”
Eventually, Mr. Phillips got a call, the silence stopped, and he told Lilly and the other students to report to the front office. When she arrived, Dean Hodges was making an announcement, “You really need to pray for your school right now. We are not having school for the rest of the week, and we are going straight into spring break. There will be more to come.” On her phone, Lilly read that there had been a shooting at a local school, “but it couldn’t be here,” she thought, “there’s no way.”
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Jordan Mullens was a freshman in one of the health classes they made everyone take. She was in the new buildings, on the north side of campus, tucked away next to the baseball fields. She remembers the three bells going off and the endless waiting. The teachers received a call and started sobbing uncontrollably. The students were released, and Jordan found her brother. It wasn’t until she got to the car that her mom told her what had happened. She recalls breaking down and crying after hearing the news. “I was shocked that someone could do that to such a lovely person,” said Jordan, “It was terrible.”
Dale Regan
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I had friends who were closer to Mrs. Regan’s office when it happened. One was sitting in a math class with the door open. She told me it sounded like popcorn, continuous muffled “pop pops” heard from around the corner behind a close door.
Some of my friends had Mr. Schumerth as a teacher, and were perpetually behind in Spanish. We would study together for tests and realize that they were weeks behind because Shane often went on tangents in class, and would stray from the curriculum. They said he would talk about history and how it was flawed. He would talk about philosophy and different conspiracy theories. He would talk for the entire 45-minute period and somehow leave out the Spanish lesson.
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We sat in front of the TV for the rest of the day, numb, watching the news endlessly cycle the headline “Shooting at Episcopal, Murder Suicide.” They played the 911 call over the stations. They interviewed students and teachers to get information on what had happened that day. They replayed the story over and over again. They listed the facts repeatedly. Mr. Schumerth had been fired that morning. He returned to school after lunch, with an Ak-47 in his guitar case. He made his way across the football field and to Mrs. Regan’s office. He fired nine rounds of ammunition and then killed himself.
His family didn’t interact with the media, but his brother, a freelance writer, tried to provide some insight and closure for the community in an article he wrote about his older brother. I’ve linked it here because it does more justice for Shane’s story than I can.
Mr. Schumerth was not a bad person. He was a little socially awkward, but he just wanted to be accepted. That’s something everyone can relate to. He had a history of mental illness including depression, anxiety, insomnia and paranoia. He frequently had to switch social circles, but he masked his pain really well.
When I think back to his time at Episcopal, the signs were definitely there, but no one took the time to acknowledge them. In times of tragedy there are a lot of “what if’s,” but no one could have predicted what would happen.
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The next day I went into surgery, my mind still filled with the events of the day prior. I remember going into the OR and then everything going black.
I woke up several hours later, groggy and very disoriented. I had dreamed that there had been a shooting at Episcopal; that Mrs. Regan, our headmaster, had been murdered. My mom swiftly reminded me that I hadn’t dreamed it, as she told me that Dean Hodges had called her that morning to see how my surgery had gone. Despite everything that was happening at my school, she had called to check on me, and I think that’s a testament to the kind of school Episcopal is.
I returned to my house, still feeling the effects of my morphine block and numb to the pain in my leg and the pain in my heart.
Episcopal had opened the school that day for students and teachers who wanted to be there in solidarity. They had decorated river rocks with pictures and messages of hope and love. There was counseling available and places to just sit and think.
I couldn’t walk, much less attend, so I had to watch the memorial service on TV, because like everything else about that day, the news was covering it. My friends were sweet enough to bring me some of the rocks they had made. One had a sun on it, and the other had “love.” I still keep them on my nightstand at home.
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9 months later, another shooting would shake the country, at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Both of these tragedies have one thing in common; someone got their hands on a gun who should never have been given access to one.
Shane Schumerth legally purchased an Ak-47 at a gun show in Florida, even though he had a history of mental disease.
Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook shooter, used a gun that his mother had legally purchased. He was given access to weapons even though he had a psychiatric history of mental disorders.
Gun restrictions are not a scheme to prevent people from buying guns. Regulations are a suggested solution to tragedies such as these, because there are people who should not be allowed to own weapons that can hurt others.
There is no reason that a single person, for self-defense or not, should have legal authority to buy a machine gun. Those guns are military grade, and are intended to do significant damage.
This is not an isolated incident; shootings happen all the time. There have been 74 school shootings since Sandy Hook, and the number of deaths have increased at alarming rates (New York Times).
I used to consider Episcopal one of the safest places in the world. It was a private well-known school, right on the river. The faculty and staff were top-notch, and it was a warm and supportive community. This incident caused me to realize that there is no safe haven from violence.
People in favor of gun rights argue that people who want to get guns will find a way to do so regardless of regulation. However, if we could create legislation that would just make it more difficult for people who might misuse guns to buy them, these tragedies would happen less often.
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The next week consisted of me lying around furiously reading, distracting myself from everything. I finished The Hunger Games series in 3 days. The news continued to recycle the shooting story.
Eventually I began to practice walking with my crutches, since I would have to use them for the next month at school. I had to relearn to bend my knee, and get my leg to start working normally again. I had to ignore the pain and keep moving forward. Episcopal had to do the same.
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The Monday after spring break marked the return to school. It was overcast. They had the seniors waiting at the upper school drop off to greet the underclassman.
It felt strange to be back, because it was still Episcopal, but it was different. Everyone looked somber and no one really knew what to say.
Over the next few weeks, things started to go back to normal. They had counseling for those who needed it, and there was a lot of support for both the faculty and students. I continued to hobble around campus, regaining my strength, as Episcopal regained a sense of normalcy.
It didn’t happen overnight. It took me weeks to be able to walk without crutches, and more time after that to be able to run and dance again. Episcopal had to go through the same process, learning how to walk again with a piece of our structure missing. Eventually we healed, but I still have a scar, a reminder of what happened, and Episcopal remembers too.
The Great Oak
A year after the shooting, a plaza was built beneath the limbs of The Great Oak as a memorial to Mrs. Regan’s legacy. Sitting in the middle of campus stood the largest tree I’ve ever encountered. The Oak stood at 90 feet, with branches extending 150 feet on all sides, and was estimated to be around 400 years old. Sitting under the shade of the Great Oak was one of Mrs. Regan’s favorite spots on campus. Two years after Mrs. Regan was killed, the Great Oak died.
I think everyone was affected by what happened that day in one way or another. For me the most troubling part was the uncertainty. For that hour or so, we were left in the dark. We didn’t know what was happening, and had no control over any of it.
Mr. Schumerth brought an Ak-47 to our school, with enough ammunition to hurt a lot of people. We’ll never know what his plan was, or why he committed the actions he did. What we do know is that this story could have had a very different ending.
To this day, I don’t like surprises. I developed a need to have control over aspects of my life, because for a long time, I felt like if you had control over your life, if you had a plan, then bad things wouldn’t happen. But that’s not how life works. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that bad things do happen, and often we have no control over it. All you can do is learn to walk again, and then run, and then keep moving.
