Public warned away from school area for Aug. 4 reenactment of state’s worst school shooting

Image via AP.

Shots will ring out next week at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School building that’s been largely silent for more than five years since 17 people were killed there — prompting advance notice from school officials.

A planned Aug. 4 reenactment of the state’s worst school shooting prompted Broward County Public Schools Wednesday to warn the public and the media away from the buildings and provide information about mental health resources.

It’s a court-ordered event, a Wednesday news release from the district explains. And it will mean that the high school and neighboring Westglades Middle School will be closed to all students, staff and visitors on the reenactment day.

“District and school leadership understand how difficult this event may be for the entire community,” the official statement says, noting that a website directs people to mental health resources. “Advanced notice of this court-ordered event is being provided to families at all schools within the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High zone so they are aware and can make plans that best fits their needs on the day of the reenactment.”

The sound of gunfire is the point: A reenactment was sought as part of a lawsuit against Scot Peterson, the former Sheriff’s deputy who was recently acquitted of all criminal charges for failing to attempt to stop the shooter on the deadly rampage that also injured 17 people.

To help the community cope, the state-sponsored Eagles Haven Wellness Center, 5655 Coral Ridge Drive, Coral Springs, will be open for special hours from Aug. 4-6, for extra support, the release says.

Live bullets will be used to simulate best what Peterson heard that fateful 2018 Valentine’s Day. The rounds will be fired into a ballistic bullet trap commonly used at gun ranges.

The building, left virtually untouched since the shooting, will be demolished once the legal action is completed. The reenactment would be based on school surveillance videos of the massacre that show second-by-second the actions and locations of Peterson and the shooter during the six-minute attack in which some 140 rounds were fired.

Victims and family members have taken grim tours of the building since the criminal trials ended with the shooter being sentenced to life in prison.

Peterson, 60, insists that echoes prevented him from pinpointing where the shots were coming from and that he would have charged inside if he had known the shooter’s location. He retired shortly after the shooting, but was retroactively fired

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.