I was walking to my last class of the day when the blaring sirens went off. It was March 2024. The words “get to a safe space immediately” rang through the hallways as we went into a Level 3 lockdown, the highest. My friends and I looked at each other. My heart pounded against my chest.
A lockdown drill usually comes with a warning. But this wasn’t a drill.
A 16-year-old student had been killed in a shooting at Bush’s Pasture Park — three short blocks away — during South Salem High School’s lunch period. Two more local high schoolers were injured and hospitalized…