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Welcome to episode 467 of Behind the Shield podcast.
As always, my name is James Gearing.
And this week, it is my absolute honor to welcome on the show
Tori and Anthony Gonzalez.
Now, this is going to be the first part of a two part series
I'm doing on the attacks in Parkland, Florida, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
As many of you that followed the podcast for a while know,
I did a similar thing on the Pulse attacks a few months ago.
voices, the actual men and women and in this case, children that were involved in the incident.
What breaks my heart when we have an event in schools, especially,
is it becomes almost immediately a media frenzy and a political polarization
on gun control or pro guns.
And the actual voices and the trauma of the people involved are so much more than just
actual voices and the trauma of the people involved are pretty much discarded
for these conversations to be had.
So their stories are lost.
Their ability to process and grieve is pushed aside
so that cameras can report on the event and politicians can kind of push their agendas.
So I wanted to tell the story of the people.
Now, Anthony and Tori's story is incredibly powerful for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, Tori was at the high school as a student.
Her boyfriend Joaquin Oliver was one of the 17 murdered.
Tori's father, Anthony, was one of the responding
firefighters and was acting as battalion chief that day.
So it was one of the first officers on scene.
So you have a double parallel.
You have responder and victim slash patient.
And then you also have father and daughter.
So you can imagine how harrowing that must have been.
So learning from the children, the kids that were at the school,
learning from the responders, we can take away lessons.
We can hear the stories of the people in the school.
And we can take that human element and apply it to our own communities as parents,
as responders, as teachers, and hopefully prevent or at least be prepared for
an event like that happening, God forbid, in our own towns or cities or counties.
So before we get to that conversation, as I say every week, please just take a moment,
go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback,
but most importantly, leave a rating.
I don't do this for some sort of accolades.
Every single five star rating the podcast gets, it elevates it on the kind of virtual ladder,
therefore making it easier to find, more visible for others.
And this is a free library for you, Planet Earth.
And so all I ask is that you help share these incredible men and women stories
so I can get them to everyone else who needs to hear them.
Because I know many of these episodes will save lives.
So with that being said, I introduce to you, Tori and Anthony Gonzalez.
Enjoy.
I just want to say thank you.
We're sitting here and everyone listening, yes, there is a soundtrack in the back.
It's not a band playing.
We're just in a quiet corner.
Jungle at the window is beautiful, but yes, there's a soundtrack playing.
But we're in Fort Lauderdale.
I'm sitting with Anthony and Tori.
Thank you so much for trusting me to talk to you today.
Oh, you're very welcome.
All right.
So I want to start at the very, very beginning.
So that means your dad.
So Anthony, tell me where you were born and then tell me about your family dynamic,
what your parents did and how many siblings.
Well, I was born in Long Island, New York, Smithtown area where I grew up.
And total of five of us in the family and the dynamic was my dad was always a worker.
And my mom did work for a little while, but it got to a point that I can remember
because it's I can only remember back so far.
But it became a while where she was, you know, she was the caretaker of the family, if you will,
took care of everybody like most moms do, you know.
So that's what I remember a lot about.
So the dynamic was the caring and whatnot and the dad always working.
So I don't know if you can kind of get that perspective of that's what I was kind of used to.
And, you know, my brothers, we were all three brothers and two sisters.
So the three of us kind of did our thing.
My oldest brother, you know, whatnot, normal pranks, you know, in fights, you know,
you got that kind of stuff.
And, you know, my sister and my oldest sister, they kind of did that thing too.
So it wasn't, I don't know, kind of a point of dynamic of them.
I mean, we were just being typical kids, you know, growing up.
And I don't remember anything crazy happening drastic wise or, you know,
just seemed to me like a normal childhood.
Right now, you're obviously very, very fit even now.
We seem to become similar age.
So back then, what kind of sports were you playing as a kid?
Well, I was a little bit of a shy kid.
You know, the shyness still kind of there today.
But, you know, if you were to see me then and see what I am now,
you wouldn't think I'm the same person.
You're an extrovert now.
Maybe that's what it is.
You grow up, you learn to deal with some things.
But back then, I tried out Little League for a little while because I loved baseball.
I still love baseball to this day.
And that was where I was at, you know, playing in the yard with my Tonka trucks.
And, you know, I was a boys boy playing in the yard with matchbox cars, this whole thing.
So, you know, baseball was really the only thing that I got into.
You know, I did a little bit of high school football and, I mean,
during recess kind of thing, but not much stuff other than that.
Right. Now, what about career aspirations?
Were you influenced by any responders in family?
And or were you even dreaming of being a firefighter as a kid?
Well, to be honest, going through high school,
actually, when I first saw the high school, I wanted to be a heavy equipment operator.
So that was kind of my drive.
But living in a town of nothing but volunteer fire departments,
you know, you'd hear the whistle go off.
I would at the same time would chase fire trucks, see what they hear them coming.
And we go, you know, my bike and go ahead and chase them down to see what they were doing.
So there was, you know, that little subtle interest at times.
But, you know, my desire was to be a heavy equipment operator.
You know, my high school ring is a bulldozer on it.
Really?
So, but then but I get to do that today, believe it or not, it kind of comes back,
circle back into me doing operating some heavy equipment that I do today.
And when we get to that point, I can touch into what I do with that.
But I think the neighborhood might the lady or excuse me, the gentleman that lived across
the street from me was the old ex-fire chief of my fire department at the time where I joined,
that I did join the volunteer up there.
That's what kickstarted the career.
His son was down the street on the corner.
And then the guy to the left of him, if you're facing his house, was a volunteer.
So he would always leave with the blue light on going to the firehouse and you hear the whistle
go off.
So, you know, there was a call.
So, you know, it was kind of it was there.
I mean, maybe that was a little seed that just sort of got planted and it just grew.
I'm the only one in my family that's a firefighter.
Now, I always ask volunteers this.
Some people volunteer and they live in BFE, as people like to call it.
And it's totally justified.
You know, there's, you know, one stop sign, a post office and, you know,
Oh, yeah.
50 houses.
One square mile was my town.
But what I find in the US a lot of times now is that you'll find volunteer fire
departments in areas that are very densely populated where we probably should have a
career department.
What was the dynamic?
What was the kind of layout where you were?
Pretty much similar to that.
Like I said, we're one square mile.
It wasn't I don't remember the population by any means, but it wasn't a lot of people.
And again, it's Long Island where I'm from.
There was nothing but volunteer fire departments.
So some areas were a little more populated than others, but it's the culture.
I guess you could say for the Long Island area, as you go get a little closer to the city
where you'd have that transition to FDNY and obviously the city fireman versus the
volunteers, which is still strong today.
So I guess it's just, that's just the neighborhood, even if it's grown, you know,
they're still going to stay volunteer to my knowledge.
Now they have trouble responding to calls just like some volunteer fire departments.
But, you know, it's, I guess for us, Coral Springs, we were volunteer for a while when
I first moved here.
So tell me about that.
We, I moved here and like I said, I started in this concert was where my fire service
career kind of kicked off.
And that was about a year and a half, almost two years of a volunteer up there.
And then we moved here.
You know, we had to, my father wanted a new start.
So we came down here and then come to find out we moved here in 91.
It wasn't for a few years later that I found out.
Because like you just mentioned that you would think that town that we lived in was paid
because of the size and all the amount of people that we had.
We had 1000 people in there.
So when I moved here, I wasn't in my mind that I was always told or known it to be a
career oriented county.
So I come to find out a few years later that it was volunteer.
So I joined in 95 to five years of volunteer to get in a higher 2000 to where I am today.
So you volunteered for the county then got hired for the city.
Actually, I volunteered for Coral Springs and then they made the transition of paid
rescues, which is an ambulance for some, depending on where you are.
And then to the paid full paid fire department in the year 2000.
Beautiful.
Well, I'm talking to Chris already have spoken to Chris and Frank have to re
speak to Chris and Frank because of a technical error.
But you know, they have a, you know, an interesting story within that department,
within that city that I think a lot of people should mirror.
You're in training now.
So when you look back in hindsight, what was your training like and what were the
fitness standards like when you got hired?
I was a little dynamic.
We volunteer because it's volunteer slash to the career side of things.
It was training was the station I happened to be at, which is station 71 is has a training
tower there.
So we on our scheduled nights, which forgive me, I can't remember off the top of my head.
I want to say it was Wednesday nights.
We would go and train and I don't want to say there was some old guys there full on
beards, you know, it was a definitely different atmosphere back then volunteer versus career.
You know, career has a lot more stringent rules, no facial hair, you know, for the reasons,
the policies in NFPA, et cetera, et cetera, stuff like that.
But there was a variety of, geez, I'm trying to think about some of the people that I'm
dealing with because some people were out of shape.
But because it's, if you want to go, maybe it's, I should ask the question to you is
you want to talk about volunteer side of it or you want to talk about the career or
is it blending it together because volunteer was different than any schmo, no offense,
could, you know, fill out an application, pass the test or whatnot and come on in and
volunteer.
The intent is there.
So I say schmo, I don't mean disrespect to schmo, it's just, you know, people want to
volunteer some time.
You can meet certain qualifications, you can get, become a volunteer.
Obviously, career is a little bit more stringent and being an instructor for a while and
seeing people develop.
You wonder it's how they, how some people do it.
But it's, I mean, to get back to your question, I guess I totally went off the topic there
was the training has obviously improved at the 100%.
I mean, from what it was to what it is today, the care of the individual, making sure that
you're, you know, you're healthy on all levels.
You know, there's a lot more investment in the individual.
Maybe that's a little bit short of it.
Sorry for dragging it out.
But no, you didn't drag it out. I think that's one of the lot of things in my mind to try
to process it all and think about a lot of things and what to say, what not to say without
upsetting anybody.
So we also got the guy serenading us from the speakers.
No, but it is, it's one of those things that is a thing like who is going to show up to
rescue your child.
Is it going to be someone who may be volunteer, maybe career, who's taken their job seriously
and is in shape and is trained and is an environment that's enabled them to thrive?
Or like you said, is it career or volunteer who hasn't been held to a standard, who is
deconditioned, who has a giant beard where they can't even get a seal on the mask, you
know, whatever it is.
So, you know, it's a hard thing to navigate because in reality, the standard should be
the standard.
But it is harder to ask people that you're not paying a penny to show up to be at that
standard.
Conversely, I find it very hard to understand why we can't ask people that we pay to be
firefighters to hold a standard.
And that happens in a lot of places around the world, too.
I will say that our organization, it's for being a volunteer, we were very, very professional
for volunteer.
We were uniforms certain way.
You know, we would try to set a certain tone as I'll say as professionals, but, you know,
they had very high standards and a lot of people and I don't want to make it seem that
people didn't.
It's just a different classification of people that you would attract, I guess you could
say volunteer versus career.
So I don't want, again, I feel like I put some people down.
I don't want anybody to take it that way.
We were very, there was a lot of dedication.
You know, volunteers are, you know, you got to look at a volunteer person versus somebody
of a career.
They're doing it for nothing.
That's got to speak volumes of their spirit and, you know, their personality, what they're
willing to do for nothing.
Absolutely.
Yeah, I had a bunch of guys from Canada that were on here that were all volleys and they're
putting out content and training all the time and, you know, they have their own podcast.
I mean, it's incredible.
So you have that diverse spectrum from, you know, people who are probably a liability
on a fire to some volunteers that you would choose any day over some career people that
don't take their job seriously.
I can see that.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, let's bring Tory into the picture.
So tell me when you became a father.
Well, when we were born?
No, I'm just kidding.
December 18, 2000.
And we're not too far from my birthday, which is New Year's Eve.
So the whole world celebrates me for a little while.
But it was Tory painted back a little bit.
I married my wife and she had three children before Tory came along.
So we had three, you know, people poke fun or I even poke fun a little bit
where it's the family, just Aunt Anthony, you know, and, you know, my wife at the time
wasn't able to get pregnant.
So I didn't care.
It wasn't, you know, I was very happy with what I had and what I have, excuse me.
And, you know, I was going to take it.
She's like, I can't have kids.
You don't want to marry me, the whole thing.
So, you know, lo and behold, a little while later after dating for a little while,
she wants me to come home for whatever reason.
I didn't think anything of it.
Then she left the little thing out and said, wanted to show me.
And, you know, I kind of blew it off because that was the last thing on my mind
because of what she had a medical condition and she wasn't able to get pregnant normally.
So, lo and behold, she shows it to me and, you know, and it was a little bit of a,
you know, I don't want to say tiff, but there was, she was a little disappointed
that I didn't come home because it was exciting.
But again, it was the last thing on my mind.
So, you know, I still, maybe there's a little guilt there that I have that I kind of
brushed it off a little bit.
I probably shouldn't have, but again, and lo and behold, with that, it was kind of,
we was treating it as a miracle child because, you know, she was not supposed to happen.
Yeah.
But she was coming in this world regardless.
Amazing.
So, that's where it at.
I mean, where we are today, obviously, we'll talk a little bit more about it,
but I don't want to steal her thunder.
No, well, let's wing over to Tori.
So, one thing I've only had really perspective once and as my own son talking about what it's
like to be a child in a firefighter family.
So, tell me about that growing up.
Like, what was that like for you, that family dynamic that probably a lot of your friends
didn't really get to experience good and bad?
I let my friends in a little bit.
They got to sit in the truck or do whatever, you know, they loved that.
My dad was a firefighter.
I always went around from as young as I can remember.
My dad's a hero.
My dad saves lives.
Like, I would just, I was boasting to everyone.
My dad's so cool.
He does this, he does that.
He's a hero.
Like, literally, that's all that I would say about my dad.
And I would cry every morning that he left because he'd be gone for so long.
Definitely a daddy's girl.
But I've always been proud.
I think that's the biggest thing.
I always held pride in knowing that not everyone can say that their family
literally saves lives for a living.
Now, what are some of the things you remember where he wasn't able to be there?
Because I think you talked about guilt.
One of the guilt elements of being a mother or a father in the fire service, I think,
is that Christmas is a very dynamic day.
It might be December 26th.
Is 25th your birthday too?
31st.
31st?
Okay, that's when you said about people celebrating.
So we have that, like, you know, Father's Day, all those things.
What are some of the things you remember where he wasn't able to be there?
And maybe you were even disappointed because I think it's important to hear
from the family the sacrifices that you guys make.
It was definitely hard sometimes, but I can remember as the years went on,
the holidays would shift that he would be there or not be there.
Christmas is like his favorite day ever.
Mine too.
Ever.
Like our whole house is lights, lights, lights, lights.
The whole neighborhood is like, who lives there?
So I feel like I can remember him.
I feel like there was only what, one or two years that you were not there.
You were not there on Christmas?
Well, yeah, Christmas.
That's when I can remember.
The shifts were rotating, but it's hard to actually sit here and even for me to think
about stuff.
I guess I think about some of the things that I missed on her level as far as maybe her
first steps and, you know, things like that for being at work.
But I can't remember that.
You know, it's unique for us come the holidays because we, my wife is Jewish,
you know, I'm Catholic, so we celebrate everything.
Yeah.
Why not?
So there's really, you know, it's not the missal.
I mean, there is a variety.
So yeah, there's some days that I was there and some days I'm not.
I can't pinpoint one particular day.
Very simply, though, the most that I can remember when you asked that is like maybe
him not being at dinner sometimes.
And that's where it's like a weird feeling at the table where he's always at the head
and then he's not there.
Yeah.
That's what I, that's the first thing that came to mind when you asked.
But I think we made up for a lot of that, too.
I tried to, you know, we celebrate holidays and we'll change them, you know,
instead of selling them the day of, we do some stuff the day before.
I mean, it's still, they try to make up for that.
I mean, that's, you know, the nature of our business when we have to work the schedules
and, you know, we don't get time off and, you know, we don't shut down like police or
whatnot.
We have to work, you know, other than a vacation day or a swap or shift trade or
whatever you want to call it, you know, that's the only way you get those days off.
We, uh, uh, Dila Kelly, they call it, you know, and it's, you get some trouble for
calling out on a holiday, but.
Well, Tori, with, with you, same as I asked you that.
So firstly, school age, what about sports?
Were you playing in sports?
Were you artistic?
You know, what were your passions?
I was always, always very artistic.
It took me a long time to actually call myself an artist, but I was definitely
drawing and painting from a young age.
Only sport I really got into was lacrosse, which I actually really enjoyed in middle
school and high school.
But I stopped playing because girls can be, you know, a little mean.
What?
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Uh, um, but I stopped out for a reason.
I'm, I'm an artist at heart and I did that my entire life.
That's all I can remember doing.
Don't forget cheerleading.
Oh, I was a cheerleader.
I forget about that.
Have you suppressed it?
Is it one of those things you've lost there?
Yeah, I don't even.
But the cheerleading for her was very active because she was a flyer.
So the acrobatic cheerleading.
The acrobatic air stuff.
How did I forget that?
Cause I'm not a cheerleader at heart, but I did.
I was pretty good.
That's pretty good.
All of our kids did cheerleading.
So every one of my girls, 12, 13 years of cheerleading, I was a cheer dad.
Sorry.
Take your time to go ahead.
No, you are a cheer dad.
That's what that was.
He didn't miss games.
That's something he did not miss games.
But don't that's athletic wise.
Yeah.
I mean, between that and lacrosse.
No, thank you for reminding me.
Yes.
I did that for like 15 years.
I was a cheerleader for a long time.
That's a substantial amount to not mention.
Oh my gosh.
It just wasn't my favorite time, but I did it.
It was tough.
I mean, yeah, I'll keep going.
I'll let you go.
Sorry.
No, I'm okay on that.
So earlier, like middle school, early, early high school, what about career aspirations for you?
I went all over the place, but they were all in the same theme of healing.
That's always been my thing is giving back.
When I was younger, maybe 10, 10 years old, I had a pretty major career.
I had a pretty major surgery of the cervical spine where I had a intramodulary tumor removed,
like vaporized.
They had to like remove bones, put them back, put hardwires.
You took the vertebrae, took them and had to put them back in and put plates in there.
You had to learn how to walk again.
That's a pretty massive surgery.
Yeah.
So waking up like paralyzed and not knowing that I have to relearn how to walk,
have to relearn how to feed myself and do all of these things.
I remember my nurses the most.
And that was from then on, I was like, you know what?
I really want to work with kids.
I want to be a pediatric nurse.
I want to be that person that makes someone smile when they're going through a hard time
because I remember Sheila, Sheila, my favorite nurse, because she just made that time so much
better, so much easier.
Being away from home too, we were in Joe DiMaggio, not excuse me, Johns Hopkins in
Baltimore.
Oh, wow.
That's where the surgery was done.
So we were there for what?
Two weeks?
Two weeks you were there?
I remember being there the entire summer somewhere.
Well, it was there because then we came back home and it was Joe DiMaggio back home's
rehab center.
So it was, yeah.
Go ahead, sorry.
But I mentioned that because I went back to the cheerleading field in a wheelchair to
learn the routine just to sit there and watch what was going on.
I went to school with a walker a couple of times.
Anyway, it led me to knowing that I have that strength and that power to give to someone else.
From then on, it was like, okay, well, maybe I want to be a therapist because I was in
therapy from sixth grade on and maybe I want to do this and that and maybe I want to be
a vet or maybe I want to...
Then it became art therapy.
Maybe I want to be an art therapist because I love art and I also want to help people.
And now I'm a yoga teacher.
I'm a Reiki practitioner and I'm an artist where I create healing, physical healing
tools.
So I kind of put a bunch of it together, but always, always, always my goal was to give
back and to do what I can for other people.
So question, you had the surgery at 10.
Yes.
What mentally and physically, what was that journey like from, I'm assuming you cheerleaded,
cheerlead, is that the past 10?
No, no, no.
Prior to the surgery.
What was that journey like to actually being able to fly again?
I mean, that's a pretty traumatic surgery and a very dangerous one.
That traumatic surgery in a very dangerous place and to get back to that, that's a hell
of a journey.
It's crazy that that trauma has been pushed aside because of the bigger trauma and I'm
still looking back sometimes knowing that I've not processed that at 10 years old.
But I do remember specific moments.
Like I remember the first time getting back up in the air.
I can see it in my head right now.
Like getting up there was just a half is just a simple thing, but I was like, holy, I'm
not going to say it.
You can say whatever you want.
Just in case it comes out, you can.
I usually do.
That's what I was like, holy shit.
I really just did that.
And it was another moment of just being so proud, but definitely difficult.
I can remember sitting in the hospital, unable to even sit up on my own and just seeing my
mom crying on the floor next to the bed.
And like that for me, that's something that I still have to process because as a kid,
I'm just like, mom, I'm trying my hardest.
Like, why are you sad?
But I just know that it was all love, but definitely a physical toll.
It was terrifying to not know if I was going to walk again, if I was going to have to use a
walker or a wheelchair.
I did use a wheelchair for a long time.
I went home with it.
After being a cheerleader, after doing all these things, I'm like, what happened to my
legs?
What happened to my neck?
What is this?
But really, it just showed me my strength.
I'm constantly in my life being reminded of how strong I am from a young age.
So I come back to gratitude for that.
I can talk about the hard stuff for a long time, but I don't need to because I really
see the value in that experience.
Yeah.
Now, how much value do you give to gratitude?
I'll give you a preface question.
I put up, I like to put it in my head.
I put up, I like to post a lot of positive things, not blindly positive with a message,
you know, not kind of a real world positivity.
And when I posted the other day, someone said, and it was like two or three people that joined
into this little thread.
And I don't respond to this, but it was just interesting watching.
I got accused, I never heard this term before, of toxic positivity.
That is a thing, but I don't believe that you would do it.
Go ahead.
Yeah, so, you know, but again, it was like this particular thing, it wasn't at all.
But the point of that post was when you are truly in a state of gratitude, and I'm not
saying it's easy to get there, but when you're in a state of gratitude, I personally think
that it's impossible to be anxious and it's possible to be impossible to be depressed
because whatever's going on in your life, you're sitting on that beach looking out
of the vast ocean, seagull shits on your head, whatever happens.
But you are in the moment, you know?
And at that moment, I think that's where we need to return.
And we're so distracted by so many things.
So tell me about gratitude and how you found that kind of realization within yourself.
This is my whole, this is like, my world, put one word on it, it's gratitude.
Genuinely, that is if I'm having a panic attack or feeling like I'm going to get there
or I'm just overwhelmed.
For me, I could just look at a single tree and say, I'm grateful that this exists, that
like, I could go into so much on the gratitude, but seriously, it always brings me back to
the present moment.
And that for me is really important because through everything we've gone through, it's
so easy to live in the past or to worry about the future.
But you really only have this one moment.
You really, this one moment where we're sitting here at this table, this is all we have.
We don't even have 10 minutes ago or 10 minutes from now.
We have right now.
So why be anywhere but here?
And I think gratitude does that for me every single day.
I start my morning and I sit outside in my backyard and I look at the trees and I look
at the lake and I say, I'm grateful to be here regardless of the struggles.
Yes, I'm still struggling with depression, but in that moment, I get what you're saying
that there's no way I could even be crying and say, you know what, I'm really grateful
that I have the ability to experience this emotion.
Like I'm human and this is an amazing moment to cry, to release this pain.
You know, I find gratitude in every single space that I can.
It is my life force.
Yeah.
Yes, literally.
That's everything to me.
And I found it through all of this pain, really, because losing my best friend, I always remind
myself every time I get sad that, oh, he's not here.
Oh, he's not here.
I say, but he was, but I did get to spend that time.
I had every second that I did and without that, I wouldn't be here.
So that is always, that's it, gratitude.
And it's so powerful as well because I was talking to a friend of mine the other day,
interviewing him, and there's another friend of mine who lost his son as an infant.
You got pediatric cancer and passed away.
There's another friend of mine that I interviewed that had a similar thing.
I think his son was three when he passed, if I've got that right.
I still can see their faces.
I know their names.
I knew who they are because they lived on past the organic matter that we are.
I know Joaquin's name because of the story that happened after, you know, so.
And even with the crying, when I went through my divorce, I was a single dad.
It was, you know, I didn't experience what you did, but as we have to be careful,
we can't compare traumas.
I remember leaning into the crying.
I would deliberately turn on those songs because I knew once I was done crying,
you can only cry for so long.
I challenge anyone out there, try crying for a month.
It ain't gonna happen at a certain point where you're just done.
So yeah, even like you said, the experience of that release,
once you were done with that moment of grief, there was that kind of uptick again that you could
kind of take a deep breath and be like, all right, I see you.
I feel it now.
That's an entirely different conversation that I have a lot is how important it is to
express.
Like so many people are afraid of crying or afraid of being angry.
And it's so necessary as a human being to appreciate the range of emotions that we have
to allow that because where else is it going to go?
If you're happy all the time, you're really not.
You're really not.
Yeah.
And there's no contrast to it.
I mean, it sounds, you know, the cliche thing, what there's no light without darkness,
but it's true as an artist, you know, that better than anyone.
Yes.
How can we see shade if we don't know what dark is?
Yep.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, Anthony, I want to get to the preparation, the prior, the, you know, what Coral Springs
did well, the interaction between FD and PD, because I think it's an important thing.
Before we do, pre-Valentine's Day, tell me about Joaquin.
Tell me about what an amazing man.
Tell me about how you fell in love through face paint.
Oh, gosh.
He fell on me first.
He did love you.
Actually, just, I read a poem to my friend yesterday about this, but the second that
I met this kid, it was like, there's something in you that's in me.
Like we just, we saw each other as reflections.
Really, like, I don't want to get too otherworldly, but literally, me and Joaquin,
meeting him made me question my existence on this planet.
And I remember getting visions of like, do people come from stars?
Do certain people come from this star and they're meant to meet?
And it was like, I'm 15 years old and I'm sitting here thinking about, this is my soulmate.
Before I even knew that I had those feelings for him, I just knew that he was my person.
I knew that this is someone that's going to be here.
This is someone that's supposed to be here.
And I never had that feeling before where it was like, this is meant to happen right now.
And it was, it was instant.
It was like, I see you, I know who you are.
You in your eyes, I can see me.
And it was, it was a very crazy experience.
Unreal.
And he knew that too.
It was like, we just, we didn't even have to say it.
So when we actually did get together, I remember him saying, well, I was sitting
trying to have the conversation, like, I don't like the word boyfriend, girlfriend.
Those are, that's gross to me.
I don't want to say that.
And I didn't know how to say that to him without offending him.
And there was one day he's just sitting there.
He's like, you're not my girlfriend.
And I was like, thank you.
Yeah.
He's like, he's like, you're my soulmate.
And I said, okay, you know, like we're on the same page.
But really, there are really no words for it.
I forgot I had mentioned the poem.
So before we got together, a while before we got together, I remember writing this whole poem
about life after death and life between death and rebirth and all these things that I had never
even thought about. I'm 15 years old and I'm writing about living in stars and these crazy
things that I couldn't even understand what I was putting on paper.
So I know that there was something kind of channeled through that.
But moral of that story is I know we were meant to meet and there are no true words for the
connection. There is not a label that I could put on it other than soulmate if that's going to,
what's going to connect to people.
But I feel like we're the same person split into showing each other whether it's the good
things or the dark things that we need to see. Even now I see him in me, new things that show up.
I'm like, he gifted that to me. There really are no words for the connection that we have,
still have 100%. I see him all the time and he's there.
So.
Beautiful. Well, you met my wife before. That was, that's my second marriage.
I had the same thing. First date, we didn't meet at a bar, but we met at a bar, like
going through match.com and then decided to meet there. Kind of awkward because she said she was
just going to see a band, I assume with her friends. So I brought a friend along. She was on her own.
So the three of us went on a first date. But yeah, I mean, we lived together from day two onwards.
It was the same thing. So I can absolutely understand what you're talking about.
Well, I forgot to mention that we didn't get together like as a couple, I guess, quotations, couple,
until less than a year before Valentine's Day. We were best friends though for years.
And I remember him telling one of our close friends, you know, I'm just waiting till after
high school. I'm just waiting because I don't want anything to get in the way. And I'm like,
I don't want anything to get in the way here. You know, I know that I'm going to spend my life with
her, so I'm going to wait. I'm going to wait it out. And then something, one day we just kissed
and we're like, what? Like what? We were trying to hide this this whole time. Like it was really
funny. But I'm also gratitude that that just slipped up because I don't know. We don't know
what would have happened otherwise. So best friend before anything else. That's what it is.
The footage in After Parkland of you doing the face paint on him. You guys were already friends.
Was that right before the kiss then? No, no, no. But we were already friends. There was no kissing
then. We were not together then. But I was just ooey gooey inside still. I was going to say you
could see the... Yeah. You saw it in his eyes too. I remember. And yours? Well, yes. But he was like
just somewhere else. He was somewhere else. And he was recording it. And I was like, he wanted to
capture that so badly. We had special moments like that all the time. But I'm so, so, so grateful
again that we have a lot actually captured. I have so many pictures, videos, audio messages,
text messages. Yeah. Irreplaceable. Absolutely. Well, and you can see through the little snapshots
that we got of the outside looking in. Of the love of your group, whether it was Joaquin,
whether it was his team. I mean, there was just so much. So you guys are in high school. So tell me
about the preparation from a responder's point of view. God forbid something like that happens.
Well, our city was, I don't say aggressive. We started doing active killer slash shooter training
years prior to this. We were kind of a... I don't know if we had an insight on it or whatnot,
but I remember distinctively doing some training on more of on our end is the trauma side of it,
patient care or PD. And we kind of do some joint stuff prior to this, but it wasn't crazy,
but we were a little bit more advanced, I would say, than some of the other departments in the
area. But I think leading up to that day, did it help? Maybe it did for us because our city
and some of our cops were a little bit more prepared to do what was needed. And I don't want
to say the wrong thing, but you can just... If you follow the media and you pay attention to some of
the things that were said, it seems to be not too far off. Some people, maybe it was just a prepared
level, money, finances, whatever it was, was a reasoning for it. You could see the difference
between people being prepared and then people that weren't. Were you doing the safe training
back then? Which one was it? The safe training. That's what we did up in my department. It was
the ones where a couple of medics lock onto PD. They clear a room, you go in, supposedly drag out
or tourniquet, whatever you need to do. We have SWAT medics that work for the fire department that
work with PD. So they'll team up together. And then if they need a... Forgive me, the name is
skipping my mind, but we'll have a special assignment group of a couple of medics that
we'll tag on with the SWAT medic and officers to go ahead and treat as they would say, still clear
a building, if you will, treat and then maybe extract type of thing. Right. And then what about
purely from a tactical medicine point of view, tourniquets in a bleeding control,
had you had more of a tactical medicine training at that point? We have what they call an active
killer bag that has the tourniquets, that has the stop the bleed, that has the gauze, the packing
gauze and that kind of stuff to go ahead and treat search injuries related to that type of trauma.
Right. Okay. We all have all those now. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt, but we have that on
every unit now, after the fact, but we've had that stuff even prior to. Yeah. And that's what
I got. So obviously, like I said, redoing the conversation with Chris and Frank, I had the
honor of listening to them the first time. And, you know, I know Chris from the collaborative,
so I know that he's been, you know, aggressive in the mental health side and the definitely
for sure. You do a great job. Yeah. With the, with the, with the law enforcement officers that we
trust with our children's lives, and actually, it's a big good place to kind of put in my little
personal story. So I had a couple of incidents at the kids school. So when my son was in elementary,
school, like I said, I was at a doctor's office appointment, went to drop him off. Right when I
got there, alarm started going off. They were told Mr. Gearing, sorry, you have to stay in here now.
They locked the doors behind me. In all the code red training that I'd done, this was the first time
they thought they had a legitimate incident. I was in the kind of copy room, I guess you call it,
you know, and looking at the paper guillotine thinking, all right, I could cut this off and
make a blade. And I realized at that point, how vulnerable our children are, how vulnerable our
teachers are. And the only person I believe that at that moment in that school that had communication
with anyone on the outside was the principal. So everyone else was just clueless, you know.
So that was a terrifying insight about three weeks later, I think it was for the timeline,
right? This was after 2018. After what you guys went through. We had a shoot in Ocala.
I think it was a very, very different dynamic. Personally, I think it was a cry for help.
Wasn't the same intent. I don't think it was one shot fire that I think at the ground as well.
Weapon was placed down, kid gave up, you know, thank goodness. But our town got to kind of see
a snapshot from the SRO perspective. I had an incident where my son was, as we talked about,
was going through some depression, you know, was sad. And through some horrible choices by
his principal in the SRO, he ended up being Baker active for three days, locked in a psych
facility because he was crying at his desk. So I saw firsthand what the wrong person in that job
can do. And as a tactical athlete myself, and someone who does martial arts and shoots and
keeps in shape, I know what that police officer needs to look like too. And I don't see that in
my son's school. So again, not blaming I wasn't there. But I think a very important tangent is,
I see that sometimes the schools get the overtime guy, the retiree, and I think it needs to be the
complete opposite. I don't know what you have your thoughts on that. I think that the school would be
the last place that people would think something would happen. So from their perspective is maybe
that's it. Maybe the guy's riding out retirement, and it's the easy gig. You know, that very well
could have been the mindset pre-Valentine's Day. I'm fine if he's a retiree badass, but...
Yeah, it changed now because you know, you have, from what I'm seeing, you have officers now that
want to be in the schools for the right reasons. So they want to protect the kids. And, you know,
with our particular school, we have a lot of experience with that school. All my kids went
there. So I've had an opportunity to see a lot of officers come and go. And I can't speak for all of
them other than the last one. And that's my, you know, I can voice my personal opinion about what
he didn't do and tie it into training. The word I don't, the word I was going to use is, shit the bed.
When it came time for him to do what he needed to do and he didn't do it. But this is my, those are
my feelings and nothing else is influenced by it. And I don't want anybody to take it because of
what I do. But, you know, it's, they're sworn that they're taking an oath just like I take an oath
to protect. You know, so I believe in that oath. And I'll do everything I can to protect, even if
it is laying down my life, I'll do that, just as I expect him to do the same. So I'm not sure if I
answered your question because I get a little bit of a little off track when we talk about an in
particular person that his only job is to protect the kids in the school and have their best interests
and help them, mentor them, you know, they look up to us, whether it's police or fire to an extent. I
mean, nowadays it's a little bit different for certain things, but those kids, you could really
set them straight and put them down the right road just by being a, you know, lay down the law, but be
a good officer and, you know, and actually care for people. And that just, you know, do the job for
the right reasons, I guess, I don't know if I'm going off beat, but yeah, you know, well, and I
think that's, that's just it again, not picking on that one individual solely, obviously he's a
product of his environment and everything else, hiring practices, training standards, all these
things. But it's an important conversation we have to have. And it's not even, let's forget him, about
him for a second. It's something I hold myself to. Like I always talk about, there's a phrase, John
Spiro says, you know, would you want you rescuing you? Great question. I prefer to go even further.
How would you feel if your family died because the rescuer hadn't trained or wasn't in shape?
You know, that's the real thing. So if we're not putting the best, you know, firefighters, the best,
you know, school nurses, the psychologists in the schools that know what they're doing, then, you
know, we're, we're setting our kids up for failure. And obviously, you know, the ripple effect of that.
Yeah, when you, when you talk about your son crying and being sent away and how wrong of a
situation that is, that brings me to not only the resource officer, but everyone in administration,
there was not one person who did their job pre even pre Valentine's day with the shooter himself
was always in something at school and nobody wanted to take care of him. Nobody wanted to say,
Hey kid, like, what can we do for you? It was someone else is going to take care of you, someone.
And it was down the line, down the line, down the line. Nobody wanted to do their job. So it's
beyond that. Of course, he was one person who could have done their job, but nobody did their job. So
that's where it's really frustrating. That's where mental health is a huge conversation where
if there's a kid that's misbehaved, it's not because he wants to terrorize someone. It's because he is
he's having inner turmoil that needs to be addressed. Sorry. Yes. Well, I'm thinking about
they need to be addressed as a human being. And that's something I struggle with a lot is that
nobody just wanted to care for that person. And that that was the simple thing that could have
been done a long time before that. Yeah, I think one of the one of the best questions I've heard
recently, and I think this is spot on, people say, Oh, what's wrong with you? So saying what
happened to you? Or how can I help you? Or what do you need? Or anything?
I'm not like a quick one. It's what's wrong with you. That's the oral response, if you will, when
somebody is not behaving a certain way. It's a good point. Yeah, because I mean, when I see these
events, of course, it's absolutely heartbroken, breaking, unacceptable. You know, there's no other
you know, there's no other emotion to have but anger and grief. However, the answer is to reverse
engineer how did this toddler get to point X? You know what I mean? And if we're talking, and we'll
get into this, you know, but that's what I saw post Parkland was this polarizing gun issue.
And in the meantime, nothing's getting fixed. And you guys, you know, 14 days later, going back to
school with nothing resolved, somehow, you know, it's Yeah, so we'll talk about that. But, but one
of the big things I talk about on here is reverse engineering solutes, issues that we have, and also
countries that are doing it better, you know, and I think that as long as we focus on the mind,
not the minutia, it's the wrong, wrong choice of words, but one singular element of a of a bigger
picture, that we're never going to find the solution. You know, I think I had done a guy
Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman on who's an army ranger psychologist. And he talked about the impact
of video games. And I was absolutely handled my heart. One of the people that rolled my eyes when
I first that violent video games, that's not doing it. When you look into how the army condition the
soldiers, and you have reward system and operant conditioning, and you understand the psychology
behind it. Absolutely, it contributes, then you add sleep deprivation, how many gamers sleep,
you know, play through the night. Now you add psychosis, now you add in psych meds,
you know, and so there's all these and if we're just talking about one thing,
we're not getting to the root at all. So I would love to kind of talk about that day,
as in depth or as not in depth as you want, I don't want to drag, you know, use any way you
don't want to go. But then we can obviously talk about, you know, the things that we should be
doing the conversations that should have happened, the things that the adults of the world should have
been discussing instead of, you know, what were so Valentine's Day 2018, kind of in your, you know,
your own pace, wherever you want to go lead me through that day. Well, it started off very
beautifully. I will say that bunch of gratitude for the morning. I always say that. Because I remember
the day before that, I was like, you know what, I think I'm going to say that Valentine's Day is my
favorite holiday. I remember because I was like, I'm all about love and it doesn't matter. It could
be your friend, it could be your mom, it could be whoever, but express yourself on that day.
And I showed up to school and Joaquin's sitting there on the bench waiting with some flowers in
his hand, just waiting anxiously, like, like get out of the car, get out of the car, get out of the
car. I'm ready to give this to you. He's a hopeless romantic. Oh my gosh, more than that.
And we were late to school, we're late to class, just walking through the hallway, like
going through each other's bags, like where did we get each other? It was, you know, silly high school
stuff. I remember that clearly. And then there was a fire alarm second period. And you know, that's
okay, normal, whatever. We go outside, we go back inside. And then there's another fire alarm fourth
period. And we're like, okay, this is weird. And I remember not, I wasn't aware of anything going on
where I was just like, okay, this is weird. We're having another drill. And then there's chatter,
there's chatter about there being a false drill. And then there's more chatter, there's more chatter.
And then we're moving further away from our normal space for the fire alarm. And I'm like,
okay, this is weird. And then there's a cop car sitting there. And then we're like, okay,
this is weird. And then there's a cop car sitting by the softball field. I'm like, okay, that's
weirder. And then there's helicopters. And I'm just, I'm pointing out the triggers that I remember,
because that's how I'm going chronological. And then before I know it, I'm out at Walmart, hearing
that it's what it is, getting calls from my family saying this is on the news, you know, this is
serious. And I just remember yelling, like, stop calling me. I can't find Joaquin. That was like,
like, stop calling me. I'm trying to call him. Everyone, I'm fine. I'm good. Stop bothering me,
because I also didn't see the something in me saw the the weight of it and understood the
truth behind it. But of course, there's also that huge shock blanket, where it's like,
I'm focused on this one thing. I don't even know that I'm focused on. But yeah, that was,
I evacuated, I was safe, found Joaquin's best friend. And we stuck together
to Walmart, then to Publix, because it was just too crowded. My mom picked us up.
I remember seeing going home seeing stuff on the news. For me, this is all like very surface level.
Because I can't even I still haven't processed a lot of actual feelings from that actual day.
I don't remember a lot. I'm telling you what I remember.
Went home. And then when it became time that I couldn't just sit at home anymore, I met Joaquin's
family at a different Marriott, where families of missing children were. And for me, that was
already not great. Even watching the news. I remember seeing someone from his class come out
and was being interviewed. And I was like, Okay, if she's in his class, and she's okay,
and he's not answering. That was like, that was immediately when it clicked, because she was also
on the news saying, and I was me, I was with him, and he was making valentines for his girlfriend.
And then she described that she saw him dead. So for me, that was like the moment,
didn't want to admit it to myself, but admitted it to myself subconsciously.
And I remember spending the next 10 hours shaking my leg and staring at the floor,
I can remember the pattern of the carpet in that conference room.
Because all I was thinking about was either, am I going to have a, you know, a reunion?
Is this is this what I'm preparing for? Or am I preparing for the rest of my life,
dealing with this loss? Like that was already that was, I was very aware of that. And that was all
for 10 hours, we didn't get news until 2am. I got there, don't even know, 2am. And I'm just,
I remember sitting on the floor, a group of his friends had showed up, quite a few,
you know, friendly guy, lots of friends. And someone's mom had come back in. And all I remember
is her saying that he didn't make it. I remember going home, my sister and my mom laying in my bed
with me. And I don't know how I slept, but I did. And then it was a different world that I woke up to.
And then it was a different world that I woke up to. Just awful. Well, I want to take the focus to
your dad, because the lens that I understand is your father's. Now, when the shooting happened in
Ocala, my bonus boy, my stepson's school, thought they had a shooting too. There was miscommunication.
And I had texts. There's someone shooting the school. I'm hiding in the library. Don't call me
now. He might hear us kind of thing. So I'm blessed that that was wrong. It was a false alarm.
So tell me about that day for you. Not only were you, Tory's father, seeing that happen in the
high school, but you were also on the rig that day as a responder. Well, for me that day, it was
for me that day, it was actually a step up battalion chief that day at the time.
For me, the story is some things come and go. So I may jump around a little bit because it's
kind of hard to piecemeal some of the stuff together. Piecemeal, piecemeal, whatever it is.
But for us, it was our life scan day. So I had gotten my physical in the morning
and I literally had just finished, got my results black. Everything was good that I remember anyway.
And put my pants on actually, because I wear a radio strap. So I had just put the radio on
and I don't know, probably within two or three minutes, the call went out and I,
you know, you did that one other thing. Did I just hear what I hear or heard?
And it's shooting a Douglas, I'm saying in the back of my mind.
They rang out, you know, it rang out again. So and where the life scan was, it was literally took me
about three minutes to get to the school. I was the second chief that arrived on that school. So
from the life scan, I just got in the truck and I drove, you know, I have a hard time remembering.
I believe I reflected and thought about Tory for a second, but it was a snapshot.
I was instant focused, first respond to mode, because it wasn't too long after getting the
second dispatch, if you will, or repeated information that it became a little bit more
apparent that this was a real deal. And so I was just trying to keep my cool and, you know,
and drive the truck because I was by myself. So I was driving the truck and I'm just listening
to the radio traffic and making sure I get there safely. I felt like I got there literally like a
snap of a finger, that's how fast I got there. And we pretty much went right into establishing
our perimeter or whatnot. Obviously we couldn't commit to the scene when I was,
it's not our wheelhouse at that point. And it was on the corner, which became the casualty
collection point, is where everybody was starting to come out. So it, some people were evacuating,
closing down the roads. And I don't know, it's hard to say as far as how long the timeframe was,
but it felt like a couple of minutes that I stopped myself in the middle of the intersection.
And I grabbed my phone and said, holy shit, my daughter. So I started going through my phone.
By that time, the mood media was all over the place and I had people texting me from all over.
My buddies back home in New York were texting me and is everything okay? I hope you're doing okay.
You know, all the thoughts and prayers were already coming out. And I was just like,
you know, scroll down to Tracy and I texted her, I says, where's Tori? Is she okay? Or something along
those lines and put the phone back in my pocket. It was going right back to work. Like I said,
people were coming, parents were coming up to us. And I don't want to say for lack of a better word,
a little bit of a shit show because there was people coming at us from all angles.
Oh, and every scene is a shit show.
Yeah, I like that. So obviously units are coming in, you're trying to point to people and whatnot.
So I go back to my phone. She responds to me, says Tori's okay. And then followed back,
she says she can't find Joaquin. So at that point, I'm like, and at that point,
people were something to be brought out. The cops were bringing people out. So I'm putting,
trying to put eyes on people. I was actually assigned accountability on the scene, which
really wasn't like accountability. That was by no means a true MCI type run incident whatsoever. So
I was a little bit all over the place. I tell everybody that if at some point,
what's like the first 10 minutes into the scene or something like that, where if you see them,
when you watch a movie and they focus on the individual and everything else around you spins
and that kind of blurry type look, I said, that's how it felt for a little while. For a little while,
I was just going through the motions. I didn't know what the hell I was doing. Trying to gear
people in, trying to be a leader as a chief on the scene or acting chief, trying to give the crews
some confidence and people coming over. I was consoling kids that were crying and asking why.
I said, again, you dealing with people coming at us from all different angles. So again, at the same
time as people are being brought out, I'm trying to put eyes on her. That's where I think there's a
little bit of, I don't say survivor's guilt that I have where I think that there is some guilt there
where I didn't, her thought was a snapshot and it went right to mode. Maybe there was something
subconsciously that I knew she was okay. You just can't describe what that was or why I did what I
did, but that's a little bit of survivor's guilt that I think that I have is just knowing that
I didn't have, because I had the ability. I was in a truck by myself. I could have drove my damn
truck right into that building had I known or stopped it. That's where the, I don't say the
hero act comes in where you start, here we are three years later, shoulda, woulda, coulda,
what could I have done tying the whole thing together? It's just, your mind, it just goes in
a lot of different directions too. So I know that may not be the best explanation. I mean, there's
there are little things that I can remember, but there's some things I just don't. People will tell
me, they said I was doing everything very well. And I just, I remember it was a cloudy, it was
cloudy for a while. Well, firstly with the, with the guilt of knowing, knowing Tory was okay.
It's something I talk about a bit, quite a bit now. I think a lot of us go in the flow state when
it's an acute, really serious event. You have no choice, but to have that myopic focus, because at
that point, you know, it wasn't just your daughter's life that rested on the actions of you and the men
and women on scene. It was an entire high school for the kids. Yeah. So you shouldn't feel guilty.
You have that snapshot, she's okay. All right, well then I got to go back in. It's after that we have
the adrenal dump, the processing, the survivor's guilt, you know, whatever it looks like. But I
think it's, it's important if we stayed in that emotional state would be terrible firefighters,
police officers, dispatchers, you know, so that's what makes us who we are. And was the driving force
behind your colleagues looking from the outside in and seeing you do a good job, because if you took
that emotional element and brought it within you, you wouldn't be able to function as a BC or an IC.
Well, I could see that. I mean, it's, I was going to mention something, the
crap. I lost my train of thought, maybe I will circle back to it. I just, that's what it was.
It was the emotional side of it for me. It really didn't come out until we started doing
this documentary or the documentary came out. I mean, I would have some moments, but even that,
even that day, we did the big therapy session afterwards, the debriefing, if you will,
after the incident. And, you know, some of the people that I, that I was seeing, you know,
obviously people crying and my fellow coworkers were crying. And I didn't kind of feel,
I don't know what I felt, but I wasn't feeling the sorrow or any of the overwhelming aspect.
Maybe I was still jacked up at that time, but even afterwards, because I had met her at the hotel
afterwards, once the debriefing was gone, I hold that to the, to the hotel where they were doing
the notifications, if you will, or whatnot. And I come in and it's just, you know, that eerie silence.
So I would, people asked me why I subjected myself to that misery because they, and to put that in
perspective is hearing a parent scream when they've been notified that their child is, you know,
is no longer with us. That's something that resonates. That's what's with me forever.
That's not, that scream is just something you, I don't know, you'll never get rid of it.
You know, I can still hear it to this day and I even know the family, and I won't mention the name,
but I know the family of the notification that's still stuck in my head. So,
but part of me felt drawn to be there, but it wasn't to after the, like I said,
we had the documentaries where they want to talk about it, but it's seen the documentary
brought it fresh. I couldn't even have a discussion on stage. You would ask me certain questions and I
would have a hard time really conveying any kind of thought, getting it out. I would just lose my
shit. I would just start crying and, you know, have a hard time conveying anything of support.
Cause people are asking, you know, they want to, they want them to, I guess, learn or try to
understand and just try to give them some, you know, some kind of, you know, some kind of
some perspective and maybe give a little guidance, help, whatever it was. And I just couldn't do it.
Yeah. Well, I'm trying to make sense of something that you're not going to,
like we were talking about before. You have to reverse engineer back to
birth of the individual to really find the foundation of that. A friend of mine made entry
on that scene. He was there with a, from a mental health perspective, ended up kind of being grabbed
and asked, Hey, can you help with this? Horrific scene, you know, I don't have to paint any picture
for anyone. I certainly don't need to get you guys to relive that, but it's such an important point.
Some of the most haunting things that I've had as a firefighter and a medic are the voices of the
people left behind, which is, you know, another huge thing. I think what's, I really got from
the documentary, cause it's all James Gearing that was nowhere near got to really see inside.
And it was a very well made piece was these children went through these horrendous things.
You're sitting in front of me now. And again, thank you so much for, for sitting here, but
you guys had to live that you had to carry that. And yet it immediately became politicized. And
there's all these children who had their world turned upside down. All these parents that had
their world turned upside down, these teachers and responders who had their world turned upside down
and immediately it became a four against weapons, you know, and it nauseated me being, you know,
a few hours north of you guys, seeing this unfold myself in the documentary. And you have to forgive
me. I forget the gentleman's name, but one of your classmates was asked to go to the white house six
days later and talk to a press conference. President gave him a thumbs up, you know,
one of the parents, a thumbs up like, yeah, we got this. I'm not left or right. I just can't stand
a lack of compassion, whatever tie you're wearing blue, red, whatever. So kind of talk me through
the next few days. You're grieving everyone that you lost, you know, again, from your perspective
as well, what there should have been was space, compassion, kindness, love. What, and I'm not kind
of trying to sway away this question, but what, what did you as children of Parkland, what did
you actually experience the next couple of weeks after that? I think that for me, thinking back to
that, it feels like there was absolutely no choice in what was, what the movement was, who was aware,
even if someone disagreed or not disagreed, but if someone was four weapons, the way that it was
portrayed and shoved down these kids throats, everyone was now okay, anti-gun. We didn't even
have a second to make our own opinions either, or grieve for a second. We did not even have a second.
Now's not a time to legislate. No. Now's a time to grieve and process. I can remember
that, I can remember saying, people would ask me about this, about guns. People were asking me,
okay. But I remember saying, what about mental health? I remember even from the beginning,
I was like, my first priority is mental health because I knew from the get-go,
this kid is not well. Okay. A well person with a gun is not going to do that. So the question is
not guns. The question is the person and their mental health. That's the question. But I think
that, I mean, personally, I was swayed. I mean, we were all, that's what I'm saying. We didn't have
a choice. We were all very swayed into that because I also think that it was
somewhat of a coping mechanism for a lot of people to just throw themselves into something.
Just channel up. Just say, what am I going to do? I'm going to do something. For me, I was swayed a
lot, not in a bad way, but definitely influenced by Watkins family themselves. I mean, they took
their time, not took their time, more time, I would say, to grieve, more time, meaning like a couple
days than the media. But then they were right on to creating their own organization. And I think
they were creating their own organization about that specifically. So they're still working on,
change the ref. Yeah, change the ref, excuse me. Yeah. So then I felt also obligated to do that.
I didn't even realize in myself that this isn't really me. This is just what I feel like I have
to do. And I think that's where a lot of kids were. And which is why the movement might have
slowed down a little now is because people were just so amped up on all of this emotion. And
we were forced to channel it that way. Could be helpful for some people. For me, I'm,
I have a different standpoint now. So I look back and I don't regret anything that I did. But I know
that if I were to have made my own decisions, I wouldn't have done what I did. But I do know that
talk is good. But it needs to be about the right thing, like we were saying. I think that there
still hasn't been the correct conversation about what happened. I do plan to when I'm ready,
speak out about mental health and specifically without treading on anything, but specifically
this individual and my thoughts, because I think that they're very different than a lot of people
who went through this, because I'm able to see it from, I guess, a third point perspective,
which is healthy and I, I don't know, difficult, but necessary in my world to find some kind of
acceptance, some kind of not forgiveness, but that's what I'll call it to understand.
Yeah, mental health is my conversation. So let me change that question now. So what,
and I'll ask Anthony the same thing too. That's what happened. What should have happened in the
ideal world, knowing everyone that was on there, whether they were adults or school kids, what
should those first few weeks have looked like? Therapists everywhere, support groups,
just meetings of people. Like just, we only needed each other. There were therapists,
but I will say that there was no effort in getting the proper therapists at school.
They were trained in three days, trauma trained in three days before coming into our school
and trying to tell us what we need to do. I remember being taken out of my class by a therapist
and him saying, you know, I know a lot about you. Like that someone else that he heard something
from someone else. And I was like, that's the first thing you're going to say to me is, you know about
me and you know that I'm having a hard time or I don't even know what he was saying. And he's like,
the second thing was, well, what are your triggers? Like he had absolutely no boundaries. He had
absolutely no knowledge of how to handle a traumatized child, a child that was 17.
I just, what should have happened? Let's go. I'm going back. I was,
No, go tangent away, please. Seriously, just I can see like, in my head, I'm seeing what should have
happened and it's circles of people, hugs and there were a lot of hugs and there was a lot of talk.
I just, more compassion really. And there was an overflow of love from the entire world. I can't
deny that, that people from Australia and Germany and wherever are reaching out to me, finding my
page specifically to tell me that they're proud of me or that they send me thoughts and prayers and
whatnot. But I don't even know, man. It really just shouldn't have been what it was because
it also forced a lot of people to grow up. Of course, the situation itself forced all of these
kids out of innocence and purity, I would say, but to then force them to actually, okay, you're going
to be a leader now. You're not going to take care of yourself. You're going to go and take care of
an entire community. It felt like a huge responsibility when really there just should have been a huge pause
because there was no, I understand time doesn't wait for anyone and life goes on,
but for an entire community to be affected and for there not to be any
moment of silence, they're okay. There were like minutes, but there should have been a pause.
There should have been, hey, let's regroup for a second. We all just know what happened and
how can we help each other instead of, oh, now we have to change the entire world. First, we have
to start small. We have to start with ourselves before we, there's no handing a cup over to someone
without filling it for yourself first. So it really just sort of started with one person at a time.
Like what do you need? What can we do for you? Not what can you do with this? That comes later on.
That is necessary. I understand everyone has their purpose afterwards in what they want to do with
this pain, but first you have to process the pain. You have to, because now there are people,
a friend of mine three years later is finally saying, which I understand it's going to take
years for a lot of people, but she's like, you know what? There's a lot of things that
I think I need therapy for. I'm like, great, let's do it. Let's talk about it. Let's do it.
But people thought that just talking about weapons was going to help them and
it's actually talking about your feelings that are going to help you. So yeah, more love.
That's the moral of the story.
Well, and thank you for that perspective because that's not what happened and it's not blaming,
especially, your jurisdiction, but I saw an opportunity, a political opportunity that was
swooped upon the same way as this last 12 months. We've seen that multiple times, whether it's race,
law enforcement, COVID, and in the meantime, people are dying on the streets. People are dying
of not only COVID, but obesity and everything else. And we talked about it before we were
recording. The human and compassionate element is lost by the polarization of some of these
narratives. So Anthony, from your perspective, so you were not only a father, you responded that day.
What should those following few weeks look like, not only for Tory, but for the responders as well?
Well, the responders, we'll start with the responders. We were, we were, were and are
pretty good about mental health. We were definitely staying on top of it
mental health. We were definitely staying on top of it. 2018 was actually a tough year for me,
actually for our department, but to get back to it as we were prepared, we had clinicians
that came out in full force afterwards, but we were, we were pretty good about that. Chief
Padmik at the time was, you know, always worried, I say always, definitely worried about
mental health for the members. So that was, while it wasn't an issue to implement that for us,
it was there, you know, it gets to a point where there was so much of it that people didn't want to
have that conversation. So it's, they had that we made it, they had to sit in the room. They didn't
have to have a conversation, but they had to be in the room and take part in the event. But,
but there was, that was just too much. I'm saying that's how well prepared that we were for it. We
had a plenty, at least for that we smothered the people and they're still there and they're great
people. And, you know, my kind hats off to Bader and the chief at the time for getting us where we
are with that. They're still doing great, but as far as the community goes, it's,
it was definitely a hurry up and something needs to be done in which push people in
into different groups, I think. It was already divided.
It was already divided. Yeah.
You know, you split people for gun violence or anti-gun violence and gun reform, and then
there's a mourning and then there's march for our lives and all these political, it seemed like the
political aspect of the event overran everything, if you can kind of think of it that way. I mean,
trying to take a look at it, cause I'm not, I'm not a political person by any means.
I'm not a gun person, but again, I understand both sides of it, that there are some kinds of
changes that need to be, but the overall event, it didn't have to happen so quickly.
You know, maybe a tragic event for us is when you have something like that, it's a different
perspective for the community to say, well, what do we do? But there were other events that took
place that we could have learned from, but to my knowledge, and I can't back this up a hundred
percent, but to my knowledge that people didn't ask, this is what happened to us. What could we
do to help the people, you know? And even to this day, there's not even a memorial. I mean, there is
a memorial, but thanks to Tori and Ms. Ryova and one of the teachers, they created the garden.
It's not official.
Not official, but the garden on the corner of the school is the only place that on Valentine's Day,
that people can go and pay their respects.
And that was where you, when they were doing the walkout, initially you didn't go, but that was
the garden they walked to, where you did show up in the documentary?
I don't know if it was-
They were doing the walkout.
No, the walkout went to Pine Trails at the time.
The garden was created Christmas Eve of 2018.
Okay. So it probably wasn't the same one.
Just a teacher. Well, just a teacher. One of the teachers-
Just a teacher.
No, sorry. Sorry. She's a good friend of mine. She's my neighbor. She was in the second classroom
that was attacked. And so she has that experience and I have mine and we connected very deeply
after that. But she just called me Christmas Eve, I'm sitting with the family and she's like,
there's nothing there. There's nothing that we have. Let's just go put like fake flowers down.
And she's poking them into the ground. And I'm like, what the hell? Why don't we just
dig up the ground and like plant something? Let's actually put it here so it can grow.
Let's invite everyone out and do it. We didn't have any permission whatsoever. I just said,
fuck it. I'm going to do it.
Permission's overrated.
To show you before she gets into it, but to show you the mindset of the community was the principal
was giving him a hard time. But who's going to take care of it?
He literally said it would be an eyesore. He told me it would be an eyesore.
Just to go to show you that the mindset, and this is, I mean, it's a few months later, but still,
I was dumbfounded by some of the responses of whatnot. And still to this day, there's still
nothing. I don't say nothing. I keep saying nothing, but there's, if you go to Sandy Hook
and they have certain areas that are dedicated, and we still don't have that yet. We still got
to look at the damn building that's still up because they won't take it down yet because it's
a freaking crime scene and they need it for evidence. Even now?
It's still up. It's needed for evidence. We'll get into that in a second.
But sorry, finish up with projects. I totally derailed that.
Well, just go and get to that. So I want to hear about the garden. But again,
the opposition to that, we talked about finding yourself jumping into a cause and that cause ends
up being politicized. Actually, I just finished interviewing a friend yesterday. He has a garden
that looks like this, this jungle behind us, beautiful piping music. I don't know where the
speakers were. It's like being on a resort somewhere, but that's his happy place. So why not
give the kids the garden, the memorial to be that focus rather than-
It doesn't have to be at the school. I mean, it's there. It's tough to find a nice and be at
peace and pay respects. And then you look up and you see the building there.
It's literally right in front of it. But that's the only place that I have.
Because we've got there, we go there, we maintain it. I found some healing there myself going,
project grow love and try to spread and do all that good stuff. So I'm sealing your thunder.
Sorry, babe. Sorry, your dad was rudely interrupted.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. For the folks listening, I apologize. I get a little excited about it too.
I'm sorry. Yeah, it was actually something that
really motivated me. That was something that helped me a lot knowing that I was inviting
the community out to do it also. It was like an uproar of support at that point. Like, oh,
finally we have somewhere to go and we have something to actually do to take part in it.
And was it therapeutic doing that too?
Yeah, digging in the dirt and there's so many symbols to it as well.
Life after death or life itself and growth and all the colors and beauty of life and all these things.
But I saw the impact that it had on every kid that showed up there. They felt so,
it was a release. It was almost like an accomplishment. They felt like they were
giving back. It was purposeful while also creating something with an even bigger purpose.
Like there were so many little purposes in the big one. We called it project grow love
because literally that's what we're doing there. I wanted to wrap the whole school in it. And
that's where I was told that's going to be an eyesore. That's actually not going to be good.
That's not going to be great. And I was like, I think we just need more love. Like let's grow it.
Let's do it. I still kind of want to go little by little and extend it as I go.
But do one at a time. They're not going to notice. One day they're going to be completely surrounded.
Yeah. What can they do?
You need more of that to go back to the original question is you need, the community needed more
stuff like that before it went to the route that it did.
But people were very happy with what we did. So there's that.
Exactly. The people were happy, but sadly, bureaucracy kind of got in the way.
Yeah. The media didn't help. They pushed people into certain things. I mean, I know
that's a whole conversation. You can have an hour conversation on that particular topic, but it's
maybe part of it. And I don't want to, not this credit that I was going to mention,
the magnitude of the incident, 34 people total, 17 and 17. I never want to forget the injured
because that's another dynamic that has to be not, shouldn't be forgotten.
Excuse me. And some of those people are a little upset, but what I'm worried about is that the
magnitude of the tragic event was so massive that I don't think people, they needed, like maybe you
said it before, is for something to latch onto to help themselves get through the process or to heal
or to deal with the situation. Maybe that was a factor too. I'm not really sure, but there was a
couple of failures, I think. And I think just going back to what you said before, just some love and
compassion and just taking everybody's time to console and deal with what just happened.
Well, I think an important thing, and when my friend was telling me about going into the scene,
where law enforcement and fire are different and law enforcement are going into
an incident knowing there's a possibility that they might take a life and or lose a life.
Usually fire EMS, we get there and some catastrophes happen and it's nothing to do with us. We didn't
shoot the person, you know what I mean? It's very different. In military, in war, they go into it
as traumatic as it is in understanding I might kill or be killed. A high school
a high school where you're thinking about how much math sucks or whatever you're thinking about.
Yeah. And then you're in that event. If we can create these memorials and all these programs for
our veterans, and rightly so, especially our combat veterans, we sure as hell need to focus on the
children that survive these incidents. So absolutely, if red tape and bureaucracy gets in the way,
you know, we're totally wrong in that. You know, what some of these people have been through,
the children, the teachers, you know, the custodians, everyone that was there,
you know, we need to bend over backwards to give outlets. And if a healing garden,
and I'll give you a funny story, Oregon State Penitentiary, I had the Governor on,
they allowed them to start like a Zen garden. And they found like, you know,
the attrition, not attrition, but you know, the violent crime in the prison has gone down. Some
of the reoffending levels have gone down purely because they allowed these men and women are
focused to simply garden. So to put a roadblock up, you know, and even if they don't like the
original plan, then say, well, look, hey, we can't go all the way around the school, but we're going
to give you this place. And, you know, here's a little extra acreage that the city's given us,
you can kind of extend into. So yeah, I think that's the problem again, when you lose that
compassion, that human side is, you know, the emotional toll that it took you guys, you know,
took from you guys that has to be applied positively. And I think a lot of that politics
that we talk about just compounds the trauma again, instead of healing, you completely negate the healing.
No, but some of it might be a choice that they made to, I mean, I don't want to discredit that.
Some people that was their defining moment that was going to maybe steer them down their career
path or something that they, maybe they weren't ready to go there. And it kind of, maybe you
mentioned earlier, as far as being forced into a spot that maybe you're going to go down there,
down the road. And now it's here now, and now you're going to go ahead and maybe the political
route is where I'm, I guess where I'm going. I hate to keep bringing that up into it because it's
it seems to be the stem of a lot of, I don't want to say failures, but a lot of certain situations.
You're preaching to the choir though. And that's something I talk about. Like I'm not demonizing
all, I hate the word all. It's not all politicians. No, it's not. You know, we see our profession,
we see a lot of that. I mean, you know, the parallels between what Tori went through at
school and what a lot of our men and women go through on the job are very similar. The lack
of support sometimes are very similar. The politics that gets in the way and something I talk about a
lot of the work week that our first responders are working themselves to death, you know, is a lot of
politics too. You touched on the media and even though technically right now I am the media,
because we're doing an interview and it's going to go, you know, public. One of the biggest lacks
of compassion that I've seen a lot of times is there'll be an event and immediately someone's
sticking a microphone into the mother, hey, your son just got shot. How do you feel? And it just
is jaw dropping because you are more concerned about your career path and what that person's
just been through. Who's going to get the better story? Who's going to be, you know, have the better
footage or whatnot? Zero compassion. I was literally going to do the same thing. Oh my God.
Zero compassion for the mother that's grieving and not to get off topic or anything, but in our
profession you have, and I convey this to people when I can have the conversation,
good how good and healthy it is to discuss certain topics and especially somebody in your field that
she touched on a little bit earlier with one of the girls who wants to start having some therapy
and was in the school and having that relationship with somebody that was in the same instant,
a little bit more of an understanding than your regular therapist and crap, I totally had to.
Yeah, where were you going? It was the media originally. No, it was the, oh, it was how,
you know, obviously we're compassionate, we can pull up and it probably has nothing to do with the
conversation because it was going down how they're too worried about the story. They don't care about
compassion where we see a lot of trauma. So it's easier for us to pass along that compassion and I
convey that to people. That's where I was going is that we witnessed it on a regular basis, so it's
easier for us to blow crap off and say, hey, you know what, that's not really important. Focus on
some of the positive things in life because we see people at their worst. Yes. And so it's a
different perspective as opposed to the person with the microphone. He just, like we said before,
I'm repeating myself, is the only cares about the story because as you said, it's the career path
that they're worried about. They don't care. Zero feelings that I guess you could say at that point.
Yeah. So from your perspective, Tori, what that element did you, because I saw, you know,
beginning we got a snapshot of David Hogg who kind of became the poster child for,
you know, the media, if it's a lack of a better word, without again loading the question,
those first few weeks, what was that like the media element for you? I mean, you saw also a
snapshot in the documentary of the sidewalk full of cameras. Like there was not even room to walk
and that was the first day back. That was the first day back and every sidewalk is lined up
with hundreds, hundreds of people just holding microphones out, waiting for someone, for someone,
anything. Come here, come here, kid, get over here, whatever. It was... Who were they going to get to
talk to? Atrocious. I don't use that word. Atrocious. I remember directing some anger.
Obviously I didn't know where to put it at the time, but it was, it had come out towards them
towards them in a lot of ways because of the insensitivity and just disrespect. I mean,
for us, one, to be going back to school two weeks later, 14 days later. And what was the decision
just to interject? What, why, why so soon? It seemed like soon to me who someone, you know,
not someone, an entire school. We were all confused. We were all confused. But we just took 12 months
off school. Yeah. More virtual because of a virus. And yet you have a mass shoot in the, as you
mentioned, killed 17, injured 17, or wounded 17, excuse me. And two weeks later you're going back
to school. Do you know the root of that? I have no idea. A lot of my anger was also
mainly directed at administration, which I think honestly, side note, might've been my healthiest
decision at that time. But I didn't understand a lot of the decisions that they made, but I just
did what was good for me. The only reason that I went back to school that day was to convince one
of my buddies to go. I said, you could do it. You know, if I can do it, let's go. Like, let's do it.
I really was not going to, and it was kind of a team effort. We really acted as backbones for each
other. But yeah, the media was the worst part. Really. Just watching the kids from, I mean,
not much, might give them a little two cents, sorry. For me, just sitting back looking at all that,
I mean, it's, I don't say intimidating, but I... There was no privacy to even... Yeah. There was
no time to grieve. One, there was no privacy anywhere to just have a moment. If I wanted to cry,
it was like, okay, every lens is going to be on me now. Or... Because that'd be a great shot for a 6
PM. Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. So for me, that was just uncomfortable. And it's something
that I feel like I can't even really process to this day, how people can lack that level of
compassion. Like if you're human, how do you... I understand that's your job, but there's a way to
go about it. And I remember meeting Jake and Emily, who directed the movie, the documentary.
This is just tying into what you're talking about. What is it?
Let me see. How are you talking about the moment? Literally, that was...
Anthony just showed me a picture of... Yeah.
NBC is this particular one, of you guys grieving and it makes a great show. And how many likes
did it get? I don't even know. Let me look at it. I don't have my glasses. 1854 at the time.
Oh, shit. It was worth it then. That's a lot of likes. Apparently. But I just...
Well, I just saw it. I tied it. I don't want to...
But no, it's exactly that. It's so pertinent. Because sadly, and I will get back to you,
Tor, but what irks me is there are some great news agencies out there, but there are a lot
that are selling advertising space. And that is the focus. And so when you have something like this
and ratings is more important than feelings, shame on you.
That was a lot of what was happening. But I was about to put a little bit of a positive spin on
it because I remember meeting the people who directed the documentary that I started. And I
hate... That's not what I wanted to say, but I took part in. And how much of a different approach
that they had. They were genuine journalists who...
Very nice people. Very nice.
Who had heart to heart with us that actually sat down and said, whatever you're comfortable with,
let's do. They came into our homes at the hardest points, at the milestones,
at literally the hardest days. And for some reason, I still was willing to do it. But it
was definitely their energy. A lot different than just newscasters who were in your face.
Yeah. I think that there are people who know how to do their job and there are people who are just
wanting to get paid maybe. I don't know. Very insensitive though.
It just goes back to who's got the better picture.
Yeah.
You know, the better story.
But I think that it just... The invasion, that's what I can call it. It was quite literally an
invasion on our life. And that's something that I still struggle with now is how
people feel like they have a right to give me their two cents on the most personal parts of my
existence because of how broadcasted my life was at that point. Because Joaquin's face was everywhere
and everyone wanted to know about him. And then it's like, okay, well, where is his family? And
how much pain is his girlfriend in? And all of these things. And people wanted so much to know.
And people still feel the right to come up to me. There was a woman who came up to me asking,
well, what do you think he's going to feel when you move on? Or whatever, like crazy questions
that I'm like, lady, I don't even know you. Who are you? But because of the way that my life was
shown to the world, people feel that they have special permission to dig deeper. And I think
that's why I struggle doing things like this. But I do trust you and I appreciate your authenticity.
I can feel it. But there are people who scare me because they're going to ask me awful things that
they just want to see me cry or they want the worst things. Or they just want to know information
that should just be mine. Like there's a lot of things that are out there that I would never want
out there. And so it's really difficult. It was definitely an invasion of space, of privacy,
complete disrespect. And I can just make the best of it now. I mean, I have created my own
platform with that and have turned a positive spin on it as well with my art. And I post a lot of
positive messages and people are very inspired by my ability to shape shift the situation and to say,
you know, I can choose to sit in a corner all day. I very well could be doing that right now.
But all we have is this moment. So what am I going to really do with it? And I definitely,
everything happens for a reason. And I don't regret what happened. As far as media, I do wish
that it went on differently, but I was able to really, really make the best of it. So there's
that.
Yeah. Well, I want to close with one more kind of thought process. Actually, two things. First,
we'll talk about, you know, the kind of journey mentally, you know, what did work for you. I mean,
I'm gonna say work, not like it's fixed now, but you know, some things that were healing. But before
we do that, from both of you, and I'll ask you one at a time, what should we do to make the school
safer? So with the arguments that were thrown around, like I said, for me, there are so many
layers through my eyes. If someone asked me this question, it would be the mental health element,
it would be parenting, it would be, it amazes me that people will go home and relax after a work
day and watch Saw. A bunch of people being mutilated and tortured and finally, you know,
some steam and watch 12 people die. I feel better now. So that, you know, we have to question
ourselves, why do we like that, you know, grand theft and all these things. But there's also,
you know, with the gun thing, I'm British, I grew up where I grew up on a farm, I was allowed to
have shotguns. And that was about it. So I had guns, not anti gun. But then I was amazed when I
went to Gander Mountain in the UK in the US, and watched, you know, like five year olds playing
with semi automatic weapons and 50 cows up on the wall. There's a there's a middle ground where the
average person, you know, maybe shouldn't be able to get the entire spectrum of military grade
weapons. So it's not black or white, there's a there's a there's a happy medium to me personally.
And then for me, again, with the SRO, the right person at all, I think that's a great deterrent,
I think a lot of, you know, school murderers would be deterred by the right person in the
right uniform at the right door. So starting with you, Tori,
politics aside, if if you could, King for Queen for a day, excuse me, what should we do to make
our schools safer?
I think it does start with mental health. I think it needs to be taken more seriously. And I think
it needs to be taken more seriously in school. That someone who's behaving, let's say, quote,
unquote, wrongly, I don't know what else to call it behaving, misbehaving, all right, misbehaving.
I think that there should be people, teachers who can see that as an opportunity to help someone
rather than to push them further down. I think that that's huge in school. I always saw that as
like, the loud kid or or the goofball is made to feel worse and is to be punished rather than,
well, what's making you act this way? Why do you feel this way? Why do you feel the need to
be the loudest in the room? Are you neglected at home? Like, there are so many things that go into
that that's that are very quickly overlooked. I think that it really starts with that.
Because even at school, there were at my school, there were programs for what like the promise
program and different things that kids were thrown into. But there was no real support.
It's just I'm going to put you in this group, I'm going to label you. And now you're in a box,
and you can't do anything else. And you can't be anything else. And I think just mental health is
a huge conversation that needs to keep going. But it does start with the adults that are working at
school. There are so many things that you can do simply to look out for your students to look out
for your colleagues to just be kind. Really, that's, that's my main thing. I don't I don't think
about yes, security is a thing. That's not the top of my brain. I do think that when I think about
specific things that went wrong, there were security guards who dismissed the kid himself,
said I'm going to go the other way. I'm going to go get someone else. I'm not going to approach
him myself. I'm going to let even though I know he's holding a rifle bag, and I know he's walking
into that building, I'm going to go the other way. Like that's something like you need to be people
who are prepared who have the mindset that they need to have, who have the strength needed.
There are so many things that were simply solvable. But it starts with mindset. So
mental health really is the top. I don't think about like fences or doors or I don't think about
that stuff because I think it starts way before that. That's my spiel. Yeah. No, I agree with you
completely. It's it's the conversation of the militarization of police. Well, right now,
our police have been executed left, right and center. So if you're a cop, wouldn't you want to
wear a jacket and a helmet and, you know, all that stuff. So, you know, what's next, then the
bad guys get armor penetrating. You know, you know, I mean, it just gets worse and worse and worse.
You see that with the Mexican border. The answer is to go back to the beginning. You know, like you
said, a gun is just a gun if a psychopath isn't holding it. You know. So yeah, I couldn't agree
more. And I had a guy, Pasi Solberg on who's originally from Finland, which we hold as one of
the best education systems. And one of the big difference wasn't the Finnish boys and girls were
just so much more intelligent. It was the teachers were basically looking at the child as a whole
human being and gave more support to kids that maybe didn't have the best home life and had the
mental health element and had shorter days and more playtime and, you know, rather than FSAs and
it seems so simple, GPAs and all this stuff. So. Yeah, it seems simple. Absolutely. Well, thank you.
Sorry. No, no, no. Don't apologize. To think of someone as a human being is like outrageous
at the in this day and age. Like we're all just human and that's what it is. I like that you're
saying that to see someone as a whole human being shouldn't be that difficult. For me, I even look
at the shooter himself. I see him as a human being. Like that's where I was going before. And like,
I don't think that people have the same outlook as me because it's very difficult to come to that
conclusion of yes, he's a human being just like any of us. He made decisions that maybe we don't
agree with, but he's still a human being and that's what it is. So I think we should see everyone
as they are. Yeah. Human. Yeah. I agree 100%. I think it's a very mature decision that shows
that, you know, you've processed a lot of what you went through. Yeah. And I want to get to that in
just a moment, but Anthony, same thing. If you were king for a day, I got the sex right on this one.
Especially through a responder's lens, you know, would it be the same thing? Have you got things
to add? How do we make our children safer in 2021? Mental health obviously is a huge component,
but there's other areas that could be focused on. It's not just the child or something like that.
It is the teachers making sure they're involved with their kids and they're not tuned out.
Engage with, I mean, it's hard. I'm an instructor on the fire academy side of it,
so it's a little bit different obviously than the public school system, but I try to apply the
engage with the student where I can so I can teach them the best that I can and
understand a little bit of that person. So if there's something that's not right, which might
tie into mental health where I can recognize, okay, this person's not acting right, something's going
on. Actually care, you know, caring. So as far as kind of understanding that and just treat it as
another day, okay, we're going to go with social studies today and, you know, check out or just go
through your routine or your plan or whatever it is and not really buy in and engage. Maybe that
has to do with you not liking your job. I don't want to not label it saying teachers don't like
their job, but that's a factor because if you don't really enjoy what you're doing, you know,
you're not going to put out a good quality product. You're not going to pay attention to the kids and
make sure they're literally learning the material you're trying to do and create that bond because
there's some teachers that can create bonds with kids from many, many years, you know, through
their whole school career where, you know, she would go back to elementary school because there's
certain teachers that left an impact. You know, that kind of stuff is simple, I think. So from
internally and externally, if you would look at it, you know, externally continue. Unfortunately,
you know, day and age, we're in the mindset of having to pay attention to who's coming and going
in the schools. We're going to have to continue to do that until we get the mindset that people feel
safe. It's, I don't know if it's good or if it's bad, it's probably, I don't want the kids to feel
like a prison because then it's, that's going to have an adverse effect too, but they still need to
pay attention to who's coming and going because not to get off topic, we'll come back to it, but
the individual that saw this guy coming in is the sole person that could have stopped this whole day.
He was well within his rights to stop the individual, but being alert and that maybe that
ties into this too is not being afraid to engage somebody that maybe doesn't belong on the property
or again, just even for security or the cops, you try to build a relationship. I mean, and today,
it's obviously it's a little bit hard, but pay attention to your people. Maybe, I don't know,
this might be a stretch, but an undercover individual hanging out in the classrooms,
you know, just to engage and get on their level. So you might see something, say something may
play out internally amongst the kids. I think they're doing a better job of that now and this
goes for the kids too. They see something, don't be afraid to say something and if the littlest
thing, bring it to somebody's attention. I mean, I know I kind of went around a little bit a couple
of different ways, but I don't know if I have a really good
solution or suggestion for a solution or my thoughts. I mean, I'm kind of, it's so involved,
it's so big, so many things can be done, but simple things. I mean, yes, like the mental health
aspect of it is huge. You know, we're just going to pay a little bit more attention to our youth,
I guess. I mean, you can't stop the individual that maybe doesn't like school for whatever reason.
I mean, I don't totally reach in here with that, but I don't know, I'm just kind of off the beaten
path there. No, but it's a very powerful perspective from the two of you and again, I thank you for
this. But absolutely, I mean, the number of incidents that have been stopped because someone
challenged someone in a school because they weren't in their mind, it didn't pay out like that.
They were the powerful one, they had the weapon and it really sickens me to think that had he
challenged him, he may well have just crumpled and that would be it, you know. And instead, he was
able to do what he did, you know, pretty much unchallenged. You know, the coach lost his
life and you know, some other people I'm sure tried to but he'd already had the power move by
that point. So yeah, and I think the creating environment like firefighters, our teachers aren't
well paid, you know, they a lot of, you know, I know my son's teachers were supplying school supplies
themselves and things. So again, you have to hire the right people, we have to give them the
environment to thrive, not fail. And it's exactly the same in the first responder professions.
Yeah, I was gonna say that you only get out of this stuff, what you put into it and that could be
applied anywhere, you know. God, I hate when I do that, I lose my thought, I had a lot of thought I
wanted to mention and maybe it'll come back to me later, but it was to tie into that whole thing.
Dang it.
Well, let me ask, I'll ask Tori one more thing and then see if it comes back to you. So,
to close, you went through this horrific thing, you lost your soulmate, plus, you know, a bunch of
other, you know, members of your school and or friends. Of course, the dark side of that is just
fucking awful, for lack of a better word. What has worked, what has helped the last few years
from you get, for you to get from that dark place to where you are today? Not saying today is perfect,
but you're better, you've grown, you're driven now, you have your art.
That's what I was gonna start with. I remember those days after sitting in my backyard for
hours on end, like it would start to get dark out and I didn't realize that I had been there
since the morning. All I'm doing outside is painting for hours. And I was like,
um, I got into a lot of different projects. Um, I was finally, that's when I was able to call
myself an artist. I was doing it every day and I was like, why, why, you don't have to have a special
certification to, I'm creating and this is what I'm doing. And that gave me some guidance,
just calling myself that, like allowing myself to step into that role. Um,
I started yoga, um, and I didn't even, I don't even know what brought me to that first class.
I mean, spirit, something, because I remember feeling the feeling,
what's the word I was looking for? The potential, not potential, the capability that I had inside
of me for anything. I mean, yes, it's yoga, you're just stretching and, and doing this and that, but
it's so much of a spiritual practice as well, where it challenges your brain, it challenges your body,
it challenges everything. If you let it, um, I felt the strength in my body and then I related
that to the strength in my heart. And it just, it really changed me and I didn't have the thought
to teach at that point. I was just like, you know what, this is something that I really love to do
and I'm going to keep doing it. Um, so here I am painting, doing yoga. Um, it sent me on honestly,
just a very spiritual journey and it's spirituality that saved me understanding that
I'm more than this body, that I'm more than the experience that happened to me, um, that I have
the power to change other lives by knowing that I have a choice in how I want to react to something.
That I don't have to crumble, that I can when I need to. And that's also something huge is
learning acceptance and I have not accepted the situation yet, but accepting the emotions that
come with it. Um, accepting my humanness, embracing my humanness, while also honoring that
this is not all that I am. Um, and the experience is not all that I am. So
it's really it. Like spirituality was everything. I got a bunch of crystals, I was doing
just random stuff, um, connecting to the earth. That's something that's helped me a lot is just
being in nature, um, remembering gratitude, remembering the miracle of that one tree that's
allowing you to breathe and, and that there's just so much more than that one experience. And as much
as it haunts me or as, as present as it is in my life, it is not the present moment. So I can live
with it, but I'm not there. And I think that my self-awareness has, has really helped me in this
journey. Um, yeah, I could go into a lot more, but that's, that's really, yep. I don't know.
No, and you know, what's, what's amazing is it parallels so many other people have been on here,
many of whom were soldiers, police officers, firefighters, but the same thing, family, tribe,
nature, art. I mean, you know, gratitude is a huge one. So yeah, I mean, we're seeing these common
denominators, whether you're a 50 year old retired seal, or, you know, we just came out of high
school and it's, it's very powerful to see that these same things are, you know, resonating.
I think art is absolutely huge. You're able to focus that energy rather than some polarizing
political thing. Now you can focus your emotion same way as Joaquin does, excuse me, Joaquin's
dad does. So yeah, beautiful. And my, just one more thing, my creations with my, my art helps me
because I send it to other people around the world and they're motivated by it and they want to start
their healing journey. And I, I get by by helping others get by. That's from the first day. I
remember the day after everyone was like, why are you here? I went, I showed up to the vigil.
I don't even know how I did it. And everyone's like, why are you here? How are you hugging
everyone? How are you not crying? How are you? I'm sitting there talking to all of his friends,
kind of giving them closers, if you will, like, like don't hold onto any fight that you had and,
and, and really just give some kind of closure of some kind of, that was also, I felt being channeled,
but helping others my whole life, we started with this conversation that my whole life is about
helping other people and realizing my purpose came from this tragedy. And I was like, I'm
like, I'm going to do this tragedy knowing that that drive to help other people wasn't just like
an idea, a thought, like it is my entire purpose on this earth to give back and to have processed
all the pain and do something with it. So now I'm done. Which is beautiful because you're a
miracle baby from a man who has the same purpose. So yes, thank you. So Anthony, same thing for you,
only that event, but I mean, 20 plus years in the fire service. I, I sometimes have to step back and
ask myself how I, how I do it. Because I mentioned earlier is that, you know, we see a lot of stuff
that the general public don't see and sometimes on a regular basis, you know, the tragedy was
obviously in a scale by itself, but, you know, in 25 years, 27 years, I've included all my time
to this day and I still have about 11 more to go before I retire.
You're glotton for punishment.
But I think the love for the job and, and the genuine want to help and do things for
for other people is what keeps me going in the job aspect of it. But the tragedy and dealing
with some people wanting to be strong from that was, that's, it's still hard. I mean, I find myself
a little, I get lost in my thoughts because I kind of, not kind of, I think I feel a lot of pain of
everybody that's involved and people that we're close with because it's just, you know, it wasn't
just Tori and I and Joaquin, it's everybody else that we knew. I live in the city. I work for the
city. I see a lot of people. So, you know, we know the parents of several of the victims and
it's kind of hard to,
to deal with that kind of stuff going forward. But I think what's helped me a lot through that is
Tori is, has been amazing as far as, and if you've seen any of the interviews and
whatnot, especially after the documentary releases, the way they describe how harsh inner
strength, her poise, pose, poise, however you say that word, or whatnot has given other people
strength to do certain things. And, you know, we bounced a couple of things off of each other
because of our obviously unique connection to this. And, and I think that's what's helped me a lot.
And I still have my moments. So, we live two blocks from the school. So, and I work obviously
in the same city. So, those constant triggers, those constant reminders are going to be there
until the day we are able to leave this area when the time is right and put that page behind you.
But I know I got off track a little bit, but it was kind of just, I think the love for the job.
And I still love what I do and being there for the community. And, you know, it's just,
not too many people still like this job. You know, they're not in it for the right reasons.
I think when I finally got into it, you know, it's just what I wanted to do. And,
and I do it for the right reason. I think that just keeps me driving, keeps me strong.
So, I don't, I still haven't had that moment to where, you know, I was kind of maybe the first
year or so maybe numb to it to where the second or third year, I was just kind of waiting for the
bottom to fall out. But it hasn't, it hasn't come. And other than those moments that I've
mentioned earlier, where we're after the documentary and you asked me specific questions,
I wouldn't have this conversation or this wouldn't happen right now. If I had watched the
documentary and we try to have a conversation, it just wouldn't. Because I just, that pain that I
feel, not hers, but everybody's, you know, you know, I don't want to put it all on her. My wife is
definitely the rest of the family. And I want them to beef that they've forgotten. I mean,
it's obviously that's what family is all about. And maybe there's a hidden strength there that's
guided us through, that's kept us strong as well. Beautiful. Well, I think that's the perfect place
to end. I just want to thank you both. You know, it's been such a powerful conversation. It's such
an important perspective. I mean, the dynamic of the both of you, the value that it has for everyone
else, whether it's related to an event in a school, a first responder, a civilian that only got the
Fox CNN version of Columbine, Parkland, you know, Sandy Hook. It's important and completely, you
know, it's not subjective. Yeah, you can't forget. No, you gotta. And that's all I was going to
mention earlier is just continue on years down the road. Don't forget these people, you know,
especially the survivors. Well, and let's fucking fix this thing too. Excuse my language, but
I mean, I get so angry, you know, was it people as Einstein said, insanity is doing the same thing,
expecting different results. You know, you've done your little protests about pro and anti guns.
It hasn't done a damn thing. Our children are still dying in the schools, you know, amongst,
you know, everything else. So it's time that we step up, get uncomfortable, have these kind of
conversations and honor the ones that we lost by fixing this. Yeah, absolutely. I agree 100%.
So well, thank you both. I mean, Tori, you know, I hate
pulling people through what they went through, but the number of people, the thousands of people
that are going to hear this, the ripple effect of your story today, I'm very selfish because I
didn't have to relive anything really you guys did, but I just appreciate your courage. I
appreciate your trust and just thank you for being so generous in telling your story today.
No problem. Like I said, I believe it's healthy to have the conversation. I don't,
you know, don't, don't, don't bottle up. And that's kind of my thing to everybody is don't
be afraid to have that conversation a little bit. You know, you got to, that's that compassion that
we talked about right in the very beginning. It has to stay there. So I'll leave it at that.
Thank you. Thank you.