‘He left 75 percent of his students in the hallway to be slaughtered’: Parkland high school junior hits out at ‘coward’ teacher who ‘closed the door on him and others’ during the Florida massacre
Parkland high school massacre survivor accused his teacher of locking him and over a dozen others out in the hallway as the gunman went on his shooting spree
Josh Gallagher, a junior, posted a scathing message on social media accusing his math teacher, Jim Gard of Pompano Beach, of being a coward
Gallagher says that he and 15 other students were locked out of their classroom by Gard for four minutes while the shooting was taking place
Gard says that he didn’t see the students in the hall and that he locked the door because that was the rule during an emergency
Gallagher’s claims appeared to be corroborated by Connor Dietrich, another student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School
By ARIEL ZILBER
DAILYMAIL.COM
3 March 2018
A student who survived the Parkland high school massacre has accused one of his teachers of locking him and more than a dozen other students in the hallway as the gunman opened fire.
Josh Gallagher, a junior from Coral Springs, Florida, posted a scathing message on social media accusing his math teacher, Jim Gard of Pompano Beach, of being a coward during the February 14 massacre.
Gard defended himself, telling the South Florida Sun-Sentinel that he was simply following the rules and that he didn’t see any students in the hall.
‘I’m a victim of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting,’ Gallagher wrote in a Twitter post on Wednesday.
‘Before the shooting took place I was located in the 700 building which is right next to the freshmen building facing it in my Math class with my Teacher Jim Gard,’ he writes.
‘It was around the time of 2:20 when we had a fire alarm go off, everyone in my class was confused because we had one take place previously in the day.’
As the class evacuated for the fire drill, gunshots were heard.
‘At this point we all ducked and shock kicked in for half a second of what is happening,’ he writes.
That’s when Gallagher says he and his classmates sprinted back to their room.
‘As we made it to the door we found out the door was locked,’ he writes.
‘Which then left me and 15 other students in the hallways ducking as the screams of classmates and gunshots took over the noise around me.’
Gallagher writes that he and the others were ‘ducking and in fear for our lives’ a full four minutes.
‘I called my dad [who is a high-ranking officer in the Coral Springs Police Department] up on the phone thinking this could be the last time I speak to him,’ he writes.
‘As I was on the phone with him as he tried to calm me down, a teacher I never seen before opened [sic] the door for me and 14 other classmates to flee danger.
‘When I got into the classroom I told my dad I loved him, he then said it back to me and he hung up because he was a first responder running into the freshmen building.’
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