The Hoax
“What is going on at the high school?”. A simple text from my sister provoking unimaginable terror for the hour that followed. I had no idea what was going on at the school my oldest daughter attended but from this message, I knew I needed to find out.
I immediately turned to Facebook to see if there was any mention of the high school. And that Is when I see it – the high school is in lockdown after a shooter was reported on site.
Malia!
My heart dropped as I frantically tried to recall my daughter’s daily schedule. Had she ever told me? Did I store that information somewhere in the periphery of my memory? Can I find it online?
Should I text her? What if her phone volume is on? What if the shooter hears the notification and it draws their attention to her? The high school is only a mile away from my home. I wanted to run to her, but I knew I shouldn’t. I needed to console her, but I knew I couldn’t. What could I do? What should I do? I felt helplessly tormented between my needs as a mother to protect my child and the desire to follow protocols allowing law enforcement to do what is necessary to protect our community without interference.
A parent’s greatest fear is for their child to find themself in an uncontrollable, harmful situation – especially when we cannot be there to guide them through it. There is no way of preparing yourself for the unimaginable. In fact, I intentionally push those unthinkable scenarios out of my mind. The ultimate form of self-preservation from fear is believing it will never happen to me. But here I was, in the middle of the day, terrorized by thoughts of what Malia was going through in her high school.
Desperately, I continued to refresh my social media apps hoping to get a glimpse of what was going on at the school. Other parents were either doing the same or posting communication they had had with their teens. I still had not heard from Malia. The need to hear from her was so strong. Deep down I knew she was ok, but I wanted confirmation. I decided I couldn’t wait another minute. I texted her. “What is going on? Are you okay”. I stared at my phone willing the message status to change from “Delivered” to “Read”. It did not. I anxiously waited for those 3 dots to appear. They did not. I returned to Facebook. Refresh and scroll. Refresh and scroll. Then back to my messages. I can’t tell you how long it took before Malia returned my text – it could have been 10 minutes or 2 but it felt like an eternity. She finally responded with “yeah. I’ll tell you later”. That was it. Based on the brevity of her response and my own denial that this could be reality, I assumed she was far from the incident. Perhaps the whole thing had been exaggerated and my daughter was completely unaffected. I decisively buried all the fear and emotion I had built up as unnecessary and perhaps even silly. I returned to my day.
It was later determined that this incident was just another swatting incident. Until then, I had never heard of the trend that was causing havoc in the communities around me. However, I had just had a firsthand experience to educate myself on the malice. Swatting is a hoax that involves making prank calls to law enforcement to provoke large responses by local emergency groups, such as SWAT teams.
A couple hours later, Malia came in the front door just like any other day. She shrugged when I asked her about the incident and told me what I already knew – it was simply a hoax. She retold the event and how horrible it was for other students. The gym class who did not hear the shelter in place announcement. Those poor students became aware of the situation only when they saw police running around the building from the windows. She retold how those friends barricaded themselves in the workout room armed with free weights if defense were to be necessary. She described the students in the lunchroom who also did not hear the announcement and were alerted by a teacher who ushered them into a corner of the room. We went on to discuss how disgusted we were with what we now knew was an instance of “swatting” and we were one of many targeted schools in the area.
Overall, our conversation was brief. Malia hurried off to her evening rehearsal and I began to prepare for day 2 of my 5th grader’s production of Annie. As soon as she left the room, our conversation was forgotten. I completely dismissed the distress of the day as if it never happened.
That evening, I threw myself into my volunteer work at the elementary school. Not once did I mention any of the day’s events to my friends – who primarily had elementary age students and were blissfully unaware of the chaos at the high school that day. I did not hear a whisper of the day’s events from the attendees of the show, even though the room was packed with faculty, administrators, and fellow high school parents. The entire incident was stored so deep in my mind, it was almost as if it never happened.
The following day, Malia came home from school ready to talk and her description this time was a vast contrast from the day before. Her recount of the events was no longer based on the stories she heard from others around the school but on her own experience within her chorus classroom.
It was her chorus block, one of her favorite hours of the day with one of her favorite teachers. This teacher has turned into a mentor for my theater bound high school daughter and one we both respect as not only a professional but a genuine human being. Like the students in the gym and cafeteria, the choral students did not initially hear the announcement due to their vocal practice. Once they did, the teacher lead them in following the protocols they had all practiced during drill, barricading the doors and huddling low. Malia knew it wasn’t a drill. They all knew. She could see the fear on everyone’s face around her. Her good friend who held her cross in her hand – sobbing. The seniors huddled in the corner together comforting one another. The student who sat with her eyes closed intently trying to control her emotions. She goes on to tell me how she looked out the window and saw a man with a knit hat run by. She had been convinced he was the shooter. As she retold the story from the first person, her tears flowed in streams down her face. My heart broke for her, and I was shocked neither of us had anything near this reaction the day before. How did I let the previous day continue as if we hadn’t gone through a significantly abnormal experience? There was nothing normal about sheltering yourself from danger within the confines of your school! There is nothing normal about a parent trying to decide if sending a text to her daughter will ultimately make her a target for an armed intruder!
Part of Malia’s recounting that afternoon included her own fears and confusion. Why would someone pull such a prank? And what If the officials became immune to these false alarms – prohibiting them from responding with the efficiency they had yesterday? I assured her that wouldn’t happen. These false alarms, as horrible as they are, gave real life practice to better us if a situation arises. I was confident in my reassurance, however internally my own fears were forming. Is our society in danger of becoming immune to the ongoing threats of violence? Are we so unaffected by these events that they go forgotten as soon as the threat dissipates. I was still astounded by how easily I let the whole incident go in the hours that followed.
Our kids go through shelter in place drills from a very young age. These drills are necessary to prepare them and our faculty for potential threats. Because they need to be ready. When I was a child, we had fire and earthquake drills. My parents had air raid drills. Mine was a prevention of injury from a natural disaster. My parents from attack of an unknown enemy. My kids are learning to protect themselves from someone who will most likely be a peer or a member of their own community. Someone they should deem as trustworthy. It is unnerving and the thought of this should rock us to our core.
That evening was the final show for Annie. Malia did not have rehearsal and I did not want her home alone. I put her to the task of wrangling 5th graders dressed as orphans for the evening. It was my way of keeping her close and her way of staying busy.
Her chorus teacher happened to be in the audience in support of a relative. At the conclusion of the show, I thanked him for being a great leader through the ordeal. I told him how grateful I was that the hoax had occurred while Malia was in his class. The sadness and concern in his eyes were palpable. He gave me a big comforting hug and revealed even more of the event obviously still raw on his mind. He described the experience as the hardest moment as a teacher and many of the faculty were still reeling from what occurred. He told me Malia had been one of the students who was most distraught and how hard he saw her fight to contain her emotions but couldn’t. He called her strong. I agreed. But I was in shock.
Of course, I knew she had to be terrified during the ordeal but in both of her retellings of the dramatic event – everyone else was worse. Her trauma and my concerns were based on what she observed in the reactions of her peers – not her own. She did not tell me that she was scared for her own safety. She shelved those feelings. Putting her own emotions aside was surviving the best way she knew how. Afterall, I did the same with all the anxiety and fear I had felt as her mother that day. I could not face the potential violence as my reality – so, I dismissed it. Too many districts in our country know just how real the threat of violence can be. There is no reason this could not happen within the confines of a school in my own district or any other. It should be unbelievable. But it is not!
What if dismissing the situation wasn’t my way of protecting myself from facing the truth? What if this is just the way of life? What if we are all becoming numb to the noise of threats, shooting, violence, and mental health? What if it is the only way to survive the world we live in, to accept, and move on with the day?
I just can’t bring myself to accept this as reality. So where does that leave me? Where does that leave us? How do we ensure that these horribly tragic scenarios remain shocking and unimaginable? How do we keep them from becoming the normal noise of our daily news – completely ignorable? I don’t have the answer. I don’t have an insightful antidote for this blog. All I know is I can’t get the fear I heard in my daughter’s voice or the concern in the eyes of her teacher out of my head.
And you know what? I don’t want to.