The Parkland shooting is being reenacted as part of a civil lawsuit. One survivor's mother who could hear the 'eerie' gunshots from her home says she hopes it'll force school resource officers to get more training.
AP Photo/Gerald Herbert
- Officials are reenacting the 2018 Parkland high school shooting as part of a civil lawsuit.
- One survivor's mother says she didn't think the reenactment should happen, but hopes it leads to change.
- Others believe the reenactment is necessary to prevent the next tragedy.
The Parkland, Florida, shooting is being reenacted Friday, August 4, as part of a civil lawsuit. One survivor's mother who could hear the reenactment's "eerie" gunshots from her house says she hopes it'll lead to more training for school resource officers.
Vicki Amodio — whose son survived the 2018 high school shooting that left 17 others dead — told Insider that she didn't want the reenactment to happen.
"I was against the reenactment and still against it," Amodio said. "But the only thing that I can say that comes out of this is that it proves that we need more training" for school resource officers.
"Outside of that, I don't feel that these parents and the community around it needed to go through this again," she added.
The reenactment of the shooting — where officials will fire off at least 140 live rounds of bullets — is part of a civil lawsuit filed by victims' family members against the then-school resource officer, Scot Peterson.
Peterson, a former Broward County sheriff's deputy who was working at the school on the day of the shooting, was acquitted in June on criminal charges of child neglect and culpable negligence. Prosecutors argued that he ignored his training and failed to confront the active shooter for 48 minutes, while Peterson said that he couldn't hear all the gunshots and couldn't tell where they were coming from, according to CNN.
In the ongoing civil suit, the victims' families are trying to use the reenactment to prove that Peterson did in fact hear over 70 gunshots and could tell where they were coming from, CNN reported.
But the community has been torn about whether or not the reenactment should happen.
"I just don't understand that five and a half years later, these parents are still wanting to go through this and just not put it behind them and heal and try and move forward," Amodio told Insider. She said she lives across the street from Marjory Stoneman Douglas School, where the shooting happened, and could hear the "eerie" and "disturbing" shots being fired on Friday.
Max Schachter, whose 14-year-old son was killed in the shooting, said at a news conference Friday, "It's going to be scary, but we hope the reenactment will get a jury to understand that there is no possible way that the school resource deputy only heard two or three shots when 70 went off in that building," according to CNN.
"If nothing changes, if we don't use this building to teach others and to educate and use it to prevent the next tragedy, you know, it's all for naught," Schachter said, according to CNN.
The building where the shooting took place, which is just one of several buildings on campus, is set to be demolished after the reenactment. Amodio said she hopes they turn it into a park for students.