I rush over to her, crouching behind the same wall.
“You okay?” I ask. “Where are you hit?”
“Don’t worry about me,” she says. “Just get that evil fuck before he gets anyone else.”
“How many are there?” I ask.
“Just one as far as I know.”
“Who is it?”
“Don’t know. Coward’s wearing a mask.”
“Backup is coming,” I say. “And an ambulance for you.”
“Okay, but just get him.”
A round blasts above us, chipping off the corner of a cinderblock.
“Shit,” she says. “What the— That was close. Are the other deputies already up here with us?”
“I’m not sure. Why?”
“That was a different weapon than he was using before.”
I radio Tyrese. “Is SWAT or any Potter County deputies up here with us yet?”
“No, they’re pulling up onto the property now.”
“Okay,” I say. “I’ve got a message for them. I’ll radio you back in a second.”
I return my attention to Kim. “Can you keep firing at him from here while I run around and come up on him from the other side?”
She nods. “Yeah.”
“You sure?”
“Go.”
I do.
I dart out from the alcove and back down the hall in the direction I have just come.
As I do, I radio Tyrese, let him know Kim’s position and condition, and what I’m doing, asking him to convey that to anyone else entering this part of the building.
Eyes stinging, throat burning, I begin coughing and hacking.
I run fast and carelessly. If there’s a second shooter I’m making myself an easy target for him.
Thankfully, mercifully, the fire alarm stops.
Visibility is still low, especially with the way my eyes are watering, but I can hear a little better now—only a little better, though. My ears continue to ring.
I try to run as quietly as possible, not drawing any attention to myself as I make my way toward the shooter, but the smoke and smell of nitroglycerin have me coughing.
My old alma mater looks like a bombed out building from a war-torn town in the Middle East, lights shot out and dangling by shorting electrical wires, glass shards crunching beneath my shoes, huge chunks of walls missing.
I pass by another shot-out library door, then an open classroom with a dead body crumpled on the floor, but the most horrific scene by far is the blood-covered side hallway leading out to the art building and the pile of bodies lying dead or dying in it.
As I near the place I estimate the shooter to be, I can hear the blasts of his shotgun and the return bangs of Kim’s sidearm.
I slow down, hoping to be able to sneak up behind him and take him alive, but as I round the curving hallway, he spins toward me, levels the barrel of his shotgun in my direction and fires.
The round whizzes by my head. I can hear and feel it.
In the split second before I fire back, I can see that not only is the boy not wearing a mask, but he’s not one of the suspects we’ve been investigating.
He’s big and blond and sort of soft looking, dressed in jeans, boots, and a T-shirt, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him before.
He fires another round.
I aim at the shotgun, attempting to knock it out of his hands, but his head is leaning down on the stock, sighting, and I’m afraid the round will hit him in the face.
Lowering my gun, I squeeze off two quick rounds. One aimed at his left hip, the other his left knee.
He spins around and goes down, his shotgun thudding heavily on the hard hallway floor as he does.
295
These aren’t random shootings. They’re school shootings. They’re not happening at libraries or malls or churches or fast-food restaurants. They’re happening at school. The school part is as significant as the shooting part.
Ears still ringing, I run over to him, kick the shotgun away from, pat him down, and cuff him.
Leaving him there bleeding on the floor, I rush over to check on Kim—but not before letting her know that’s what I’m doing.
“You hanging in?” I ask, continuing to glance around in case there’s another shooter.
She nods. “Still here. Who was under the mask?”
“I didn’t recognize him,” I say. “He wasn’t wearing a mask.”
“What?” she asks. “Help me up. Take me over to see him.”
“You sure?” I ask, but she is already trying to pull herself up.
“Where are you hit?” I ask.
She holsters her gun and reaches up with her right hand. “Pull me up by my right. My left arm and left thigh are . . . wounded.”
Getting her up is obviously painful for her, but she’s determined.
I duck down and she drapes her right arm over my shoulder, and I help her sort of limp and hop on one leg down the hallway.
“Oh my God,” she says. “That’s not him. That’s Derek Burrell. He’s a good kid. He wasn’t the shooter.”
“He was shooting at you and at me,” I say.
“I can’t . . .” she says, shaking her head. “I don’t know why he would be . . . but . . . the shooter we’re looking for is smaller than Derek, dressed in all black, wearing a mask. Help me down.”
“Derek?” she asks. “Derek? Can you hear me?”
He mumbles something as I help her down beside him.
As she talks to him, I continue to search the area around us for other shooters or backup.
Tyrese on the radio. “Kim, John, Potter deputies and EMT are on the way up to you. Where are you?”
I tell him. “Tell everyone to use extreme caution. We believe we still have an active shooter situation.”
“I was . . .” Derek says, “trying . . . to help. Did I . . . get him before . . . he got me?”
Kim looks up at me. “Uncuff him, John.”
“Are you sure?” I say. “Let’s wait and—”
“I’m positive,” she says. “No way he was a part of this. He’s too hurt to do anything now anyway. Please.”
“Okay,” I say.
Continuing to search all around us for the shooter, I kneel down beside him and quickly remove the cuffs. Standing, I return them to my belt and withdraw my gun.
A classroom door opens about ten feet away and a teacher and two students lean out.
“Is it safe to come out?” the teacher asks.
“No,” I say. “Not yet. Stay in—”
“Is that— Did he get Derek?”
“Derek,” one of the female students says. “Is he okay?”
“I tried to get him not to,” the teacher says, “but I couldn’t stop him. He went to his truck and got his gun and went out to stop the shooters.”
The bottom drops out inside me and my heart plunges into my stomach.
Kim says, “He was in there when the shooting started?”
“He was in here for most of it,” the teacher says. “Just went out into the hallway a couple of minutes ago.”
“Oh, no,” Kim says. “No. Derek, hang in there. Help is on the way. You’re a very brave young man. You’re going to be okay. Hang in there.”
Another explosion goes off somewhere else in the building.
“Back in the room, now,” I yell, but the teacher and students have already disappeared inside.
I can hear the approach of the deputies from both sides of the hallway.
“We’re over here,” I yell. “It’s John Jordan and Deputy Kimberly Miller. We have a student here who needs immediate medical attention.”
Eventually, flashlight beams find us and Potter County deputies step out of the smoke.
They are followed by EMTs who begin to work on Kim and Derek as I fill them in on what we know.
“So we’ve still got a shooter roaming the hallways?” a deputy says.
“He must not be in the main hallway since y’all just came from
both directions and didn’t see him,” I say, “but yeah, somewhere in the school. When we have enough personnel, we need to get the kids in the classrooms out and do a thorough search of the building.”
“Our SWAT team will be on site any minute now,” he says. “All available officers are rolling, and we’ve got FDLE and other agencies on their way. Before long we’ll have more help than we’ll know what to do with.”
“Until then, let’s guard the EMTs while they help the wounded and get them out of the building—all while looking for the shooter.”
“Hopefully,” another deputy says, “he’s holed up in some small space somewhere blowing his brainpan all over the wall.”
“I don’t think so,” I say.
“Oh yeah, why’s that?”
“If he was planning on killing himself,” I say, “he wouldn’t have needed to wear a mask.”
“He’s got a mask on?” he says. “We hadn’t heard that.”
“Yeah,” I say, “and my guess is he plans to discard it and the rest of his attire and weaponry to blend in with the other students.”
“Oh, my God,” Kim says, “that’s . . .”
“He probably already has,” I say. “Now just waiting to walk out of the building with the rest of them.”
Kim shakes her head. “Wow. Oh my God. If that’s . . . true . . . If he’s able to pull that off he’ll . . .”
“Live to do it again,” the deputy says.
296
Face it, there are two sets of rules. The ones for the popular and pretty kids, the jocks and prom queens, and the ones for the rest of us.
As the smoke begins to dissipate some I realize it has been a few minutes since we’ve heard either gunshots or explosions.
While two deputies guard Kim and Derek and the EMTs working on them, two others search the halls.
I’m about to start a search of my own when I see LeAnn and Tyrese approaching.
“It’s still not safe,” I say.
LeAnn rushes over to Kim.
Tyrese says, “Safe enough for y’all, it’s safe enough for us. We’re not doing any good down in the office. We need to evacuate the school.”
“We have no idea where the shooter is,” I say.
“But he’s stopped shooting,” he says.
“For now,” I say. “Could be more to come. Need to act as if there is.”
“We’ve got parents outside wanting their kids,” he says. “We don’t get them out soon, they’ll be coming in here to get them.”
I nod. “Okay. When more officers arrive, we can begin an orderly evacuation. Have each class escorted by a couple of officers, while SWAT sweeps the building.”
“That’ll work,” he says.
Over by Kim, LeAnn is saying, “I should’ve been up here with you. I’m so sorry you got shot.”
“I’m okay,” she says. “But I’m worried about Derek. He needs to get to a hospital.”
“They’re working on it,” LeAnn says.
“Have you heard from Ace?” Kim asks. “Is he safe? I’m surprised he’s not out here barkin’ orders at everybody.”
The body in the classroom I passed as I ran over here flashes in my mind. Whether it’s what I actually saw or not, I now see the dead body of Ace Bowman lying on the floor.
“I’ll check on him in a minute. I’m sure he’s fine. Just hunkered down with his class. You just lay back and let them take care of you. We’ll take care of everything else.”
“We need more EMTs and ambulances,” I say to the deputy nearest to me. “They’ll probably need to send them out of Gulf, Bay, and Calhoun Counties.”
He nods and radios it in.
“Okay,” the EMT working on Derek says, “we need to go now.”
I turn to the deputy. “Let the others know we’re coming out with wounded. You two lead them. Tyrese and I’ll guard them from the back.”
Tyrese says, “We should just take them out of the back exit. Have the ambulances pick them up by the art building.”
I shake my head. “The hallway to that door is blocked. We need to go there to search for survivors next. There, the library, and a classroom on the northeast side.”
The first EMT nods to himself and starts pushing the stretcher around the hallway toward the commons and main entrance. We follow.
“Why there?” Kim asks. “That’s where Ace’s room is. Unless he was in the gym or the front office. He was probably in the gym. Did anything happen in the gym?”
“No,” Tyrese says. “Everything in the gym is fine.”
“Come on everyone,” the EMT with Derek says. “Pick up the pace. We need to move.”
Not for the first time I say a prayer for Derek, pleading for his recovery, begging God not to have let me killed a kid.
The wheels of the gurneys are hindered by debris, shards of glass, chunks of cement, rubble, and shell casings, but we make steady progress.
LeAnn, who walks beside Kim’s gurney holding her hand, is more exposed than I would like but refuses to be anywhere else.
As we near the short hallway that leads down to the commons, Hugh Glenn is there with additional deputies and his small SWAT team.
He gives me a look like what do we do?
I say, “Can you send two of the deputies with you to help escort these two patients to ambulances while I brief you on what we’re dealing with and we begin a sweep and evacuation of the building?”
“Stan, Rob, with them,” he says. “Everyone else follow me. And as soon as y’all have them safely loaded in the ambulances get back in here and help. Escort the other EMTs in if they’ve arrived.”
The EMTs and four deputies, along with Kim, Derek, and LeAnn continue down the hallway.
I watch after them as I brief Glenn on what’s going on and make subtle suggestions about what to do, Tyrese jumping in with information and suggestions as I do.
He agrees with what Tyrese and I suggest, ordering SWAT to sweep the building while the deputies escort the classes from the school.
“Everyone talk to each other,” he says. “Overcommunicate. Let everyone know exactly where you are and what you’re doing so we don’t shoot each other. And find the little fucker who did this to our school.”
They rush off to start their respective jobs.
Tyrese says, “I’ll go announce what we’re doing on the intercom so the teachers and students will be ready. And let them know to stay together and close to their escorts since we haven’t apprehended the shooter yet.”
When he rushed off to do that, Glenn turns to me and says, “Why the hell didn’t the bastard do this Friday when we were ready for him?”
Believing his answer is in his question, I don’t respond.
“How many fatalities?” Glenn asks.
“No idea yet,” I say.
“Well, let’s go find out.”
“You might want to have SWAT start their sweep in the library,” I say. “It’s open. Be easy for him to access and offers lots of places to hide.”
He radios his SWAT team and tells them.
“Remind them there are mostly other students in there so to use extreme caution.”
He does.
When he’s done, we head to the northeast section of the circle to assess injuries and fatalities.
“Can you imagine if we shot a kid?” he says. “I mean besides the shooter. We’d be . . . brought before a firing squad and shot ourselves.”
I don’t mention me shooting Derek and the evidence that indicates he wasn’t one of the shooters but just a brave boy trying to help. As soon as I do or he finds out, I’m out. Kicked off the case, placed on administrative leave while undergoing a use of deadly force review. Until then I want to do all I can to help find the shooter, secure the scene, and get help to the wounded.
“Say a prayer that that doesn’t happen,” he says. “That’s not something we could recover from.”
297
I heard someone say that we’ve gotten to the point that eve
ry year more Americans are killed by firearms than in the entire Korean War. Every two years more Americans are killed than in all of the eight years of the Vietnam War. That can’t be right, can it? Hell, even if it’s close it’s fuckin’ staggering.
Hugh Glenn, two deputies who have just rejoined us, and I approach the open classroom with the body on the floor I saw when running by earlier.
We all have our weapons drawn—even Glenn, something I’ve never seen before.
When we reach the doorway, we stand on either side, entering two by two, and sweep the room before we do anything else.
Once we’re satisfied the room is clear, we confirm my suspicions about who is lying dead on the floor and identify ourselves to the students hiding in his barricaded office.
My heart hurts for Kim, but as with my shooting of Derek, I have no time to grieve or process any of it right now.
“Coach Bowman was so brave,” one of the girls says as she exits the office and glances down at him.
“He saved our lives,” another student says.
The students are frightened and in shock and have a few minor injuries—mostly self-inflicted as they scrambled to get away from the gunman—but they’re okay and there are no other fatalities in here besides Bowman.
“Did any of you see where the shooter went or anything that might help us catch him?”
“You haven’t caught him yet?”
“He was wearing all black with a mask.”
None of them saw where he went or anything that might help us catch him.
As one of the deputies escorts the class around the hallway, down to the commons, and out of the school, I take Bowman’s keys and lock the door. I’d like to do more for him—for Kim, but I can’t even cover him until we get forensics in to process the scene.
“We need to go to the library next,” I say to Glenn, “and then the back exit that leads out to the art room, but I need to make a call first.”
As I call LeAnn, Glenn and the deputy step down to the next classroom door and look in.
“John,” LeAnn says.
“Are you still with Kim?” I ask.
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