This interview was originally conducted on November 6, 2009.
After hearing about the shooting yesterday at Ft. Hood (where my brother-in-law is stationed - thank God he wasn't there), I decided to search for information about the shooting at Lindhurst High School and stumbled onto your site. First, I want to thank you for posting about it and I want to thank those that have allowed their stories to be shared.
I am writing to you, not as a casual reader, but as a survivor of that fateful day. And I want to share my story in hopes that it might help someone else.
Most of the day, that day, was business as usual. Going to class, doing the class work, etc. My last class of the day was Shakespeare taught by Mr. Robinson. The class was on the top floor of C Building in the right-hand corner (if you were looking up from the doors by the library). Mr. Robinson had decided to watch the news instead of our normal play reading and vocabulary work since the Rodney King riots were in full swing in Los Angeles. The last thing I remember on the TV was that truck driver being dragged out of his truck and beaten with a brick. Then we heard what sounded like someone dropping tables off the balcony (come to find out later it was rounds being fired from a shotgun). Mr. Robinson turned the TV off and stepped out on to the balcony. Within seconds, he was back inside the classroom shutting off the lights. "Get to the back of the classroom and on the floor..." I remember him saying. "He has a gun."
At first, it didn't register. Then more shots were fired... closer, this time. We all laid there for what seemed like hours. I'm still not sure how long we hid there. Then the gunfire stopped. Still we laid there, waiting. Hoping that the police would come in and help us. We heard the police on their PA's pleading with Eric to let us all go and give up. We heard helicopters circling the school. Still we waited. Eventually, a kid came by our classroom and flipped on the light. He told us that if we didn't come out of hiding, the gunman was going to start shooting everyone. He told us to all sit on the floor. We did. Somebody had mentioned something about going to the bathroom and Eric asked if any of us had to go. Timidly, I raised my hand along with a few others. He sent the first two down and told them that if they didn't return he would start shooting kids and that they had to return with their shirts up off their waist to make sure they didn't go to their lockers and get weapons of their own. Those two came back. He pointed at me and one other to have our turn at the privy and told us the same thing. I got to the landing on the stairs and had another gun in my face. This time it was a member of the local SWAT team who quickly grabbed me and practically threw me into another SWAT officer. They told me that I was going with them. I protested. I had several friends still up there and I didn't want them to get hurt. They dragged me from the building and into the lunch room where they were debriefing students as they came out. After the debriefing, they sent me and some other students to Yuba Gardens Middle School where I met up with my grandmother and aunt. After that, I went home and plastered myself to the TV to see if I could find out about my friends. Nothing. The news wasn't telling me anything except for the same crap they had, no doubt, been spewing since the beginning of the whole ordeal. I was worried and frustrated. I finally passed out from sheer exhaustion sometime in the wee hours of the morning.
I woke up the next day to some of my friends calling me to let me know they were alright and to tell me that Jason and Beamon had died and Wayne was critically wounded and in ICU at UC Davis (I think). During the next few weeks that school was closed, I hung out with my friends. We walked all over the place. We were walking by what's left of the Peach Tree Mall on a Sunday afternoon and I hear a shotgun again (it was a truck backfiring). I dove for cover and tried my damnedest to open the locked doors. My friends Wilson and Jack had to peel my hands off the door handle. I was shaking so bad that I couldn't stand, so they sat me down against the wall.
To this day, I don't know the extent of the mental trauma I went through. And I still have issues stemming from it to this day (Nov. 5, 2009). I get angry and don't know why. I have a bad tendency to seclude myself, and absorb myself on the Internet. I am scared to death something's going to happen to one of my kids while they are at school or daycare. Honestly, it's a wonder I'm not a drunk (guess it's good that I don't like to be drunk). Every day is a challenge for me. Have had people tell me I am depressed. If I am, I'm in denial.
But I refuse to quit. I refuse to give up. I am determined to live life to the fullest that I can.
You kinda have to be that way. Get stubborn, dig your heels in and never give up.
