It’s been five years since Ryan Deitsch filmed the student evacuation from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. It seems like a substantial amount of time, but just mention that day, and it still gets to him.
“What had happened, uh, at my high school, sorry, I just…” Deitsch said as his voice trailed off.
You might remember him as one of the founders of March For Our Lives. Deitsch says what he experienced the day of the shooting, and the overwhelming sadness, outrage and confusion that followed, spurred him to get involved in the fight against gun violence.
“I just felt I had to do something, I felt I had to honor the legacy of those who had lost their lives, I felt I had to do something using my experience, just taking the tragedy and trying to insure that others would not have to experience such horrors,” Deitsch said.
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He’s proud that he played a small part in the push for red flag law in Florida. Five years ago he walked right past the first responders as they treated the injured, and he still thinks about what may have motivated the killer.
“The shooter was a white supremacist, aligned with Nazi ideology, who shot up specifically and deliberately a Holocaust studies classroom; we’ve seen anti-semitism, anti-Jewish violence rise alongside other forms of hate-based violence in this country and especially in the state of Florida, I’m deeply concerned,” Deitsch said.
Parkland School Tragedy
Having just graduated from the American University in Washington, Deitsch says he plans to continue his activism.
“I want people to be safe in this country, I want kids not to be shot, I want people to be able to live their lives free from the fear that if they’re in a crowd, where’s the nearest exit, gotta be ready at any moment, because that’s how I have to live,” Deitsch explained.
