FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Parkland families have become spokespeople for a cause they didn’t sign up for.
As Day 16 of the sentencing trial for the confessed Marjory Stoneman Douglas gunman began on Wednesday, parents of one of the Parkland victims stopped for a moment in the hallway of the Broward County Courthouse to talk about Tuesday’s mass shooting at a Texas elementary school.
“I’m in physical pain with what they’re going through,” Tom Hoyer said, tearing up. “It’s terrible. I’m so sorry it happened to them.”
Hoyer’s son Luke was killed in the Feb. 14, 2018, mass shooting in Parkland. He and his wife, Gena, have frequently attended the jury selection process for the Parkland shooter.
How do you sit in the courtroom, Hoyer was asked.
“I cope by knowing that this is a chapter of my life that will soon be closed. I don’t know what the outcome is going to be. But I’d like to see the chapter closed,” Hoyer said.
Inside the courtroom, the trial went on, with occasional references to the Texas elementary school shooting on Tuesday afternoon, where at least 19 students died as well as two teachers.
“There was a shooting yesterday. And there will be more,” Assistant State Attorney Carolyn McCann said. “The defendant is not special. He is not unique. He is not extraordinary. This is a crime that has happened before and it will happen again. And we cannot break every time something terrible happens.”
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