Anna Crean, a freshman who survived Wednesday's shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School, penned an emotional open letter about the tragedy that killed 17 people in Parkland, Florida. Read it in full below.
Editor's Note: The following letter has not been altered or edited to preserve and ensure authenticity.
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Text version:
"hello. i’m anna crean and i’m in 9th grade. i was in the freshman building during the marjory stoneman douglas shooting. here are my thoughts...
i am sick and i am tired of the thoughts and prayers. people around the world are thinking and are praying for my city and my school but how is that going to change anything? you aren’t going to bring my friends back from the dead and you aren’t going to change what i saw on wednesday. after the cameras leave, and the senators go home and we go back to school we are going to be forgotten. marjory stoneman douglas is going to be forgotten.
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my school is going to become another statistic and my friends are going to be added to a growing list of unmemorable names that have been shot and killed for no reason except that they went to school to get an education. this needs to end. i saw too much that day. what person in there right mind thinks that owning a gun THE SAME GUN that shot my friends, my classmates and my teachers should be acceptable. i saw the gun myself. it was on the third floor stair case that i ran down and it was HUGE!! for anyone who believes that owning guns like that is okay, i would like YOUR own children to walk down a hallway, crying with their hands up and seeing their friends dead around them. this shouldn’t be a damn debate at this point. how many of america’s OWN children need to die before this ends. but no. send us your thoughts and prayers for the next week and move on. because the news companies have gotten their pay checks and the government has said their condolences and the people will move on to the next news story. this is going to happen again. next time in new hampshire or in tennessee or in washington. and you can send your little pity thoughts and prayers to them too, for a week. and then it’ll happen again and again and again after that. i saw my own friend dead on the floor. i went to my 14 year old friends funeral and when i came home, the fbi came to question me. did i see the gunman? did he shoot anyone in my classroom? what did you hear? what did you smell? i’m 15! i bet a lot of your sons and daughters can’t say that can they? but no, by all means, stand up for your damn rights and go shoot another dear with your machine gun and let another person come into another school with the same gun and shoot your child. do any of you know how loud a gun is? because it’s pretty loud. it’s louder than the screams of my classmates as we run back into our classrooms just barely a missing bullet in our backs. it’s louder than my classmates crying in my classroom as he shoots through the window on my door it’s louder than the glass shattering and falling all along the tile that we walk on everyday to learn and laugh and to make memories. this needs to change. these students, my classmates, we have a voice. and dc? you’ve got something coming for you because for once, we aren’t going to be silenced and we arent going to be forgotten. we are here and we are loud and we will not stop until we get justice for schools that had to endure this tragedy in the passed and with those to come."
