Isabelle Robinson, 17, was hiding in a dark closet inside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida on February 14 as a gunman prowled the corridors, smattering the school’s classrooms with bullets.
She didn’t know it at the time, but 17 of her teachers and fellow students would be killed in the attack. And the person allegedly responsible, the 19-year-old with the gun, would turn out to be her former classmate, a student who she once tutored, Nikolas Cruz.
Now, Robinson has written an extraordinary op-ed for The New York Times outlining her experience with Cruz – from when he first struck her hard in the back with an apple five years ago in the school cafeteria, to those terrifying moments in which she hid in a closet, fearing for her life.
Why has she shared her story? To answer the current backlash in which people are wondering: If only his classmates were kinder to him, showed him more attention, maybe Cruz wouldn’t have done what he allegedly did. The sentiment even has a hashtag, #WalkUpNotOut, in reference to the walk out protests students staged across America last week.
Robinson is appalled:
“The idea that we are to blame, even implicitly, for the murders of our friends and teachers is a slap in the face to all Stoneman Douglas victims and survivors,” she writes.
And, from her account of Cruz’s behaviour throughout his time at the Florida high school, it’s overwhelmingly clear – it wasn’t the role of students to intervene.
Mia Freedman and Amelia Lester examine the long-term fall out of the Florida School shooting. Post continues below.
“My first interaction with Nikolas Cruz happened when I was in seventh grade,” her essay begins.
Top Comments
It's a common thread with all of these killers.........violence and a degrading attitude towards women.