We Should All Watch the School Shooting Video That Newscasters Warn Is “Disturbing” and “Upsetting”

Keep Reading ↓

In the hours after the devastating shooting at a Florida high school — which took the lives of at least 17 people and marks the 18th school shooting in 2018, for which we’ve I’m sure we’ve all watched dozens of news clips to try to piece together what happened.

Every video I saw was more or less the same. A newscaster explained what happened while footage played of students fleeing the campus.

Arial shots of SWAT team members circling the building and officers putting the alleged shooter into the back of a police car.

But then, nearly every reporter announced that there was a video filmed from within a classroom during the active shooting. A video that was taken by a student who posted it to Snapchat.

A very rare glimpse at what it was really like inside.

Before playing this video, the newscasters — carefully warned viewers of the graphic nature of what they were about to see. Some called it “deeply upsetting,” others said it was “disturbing” and “hard to watch.”

After seeing it, I agree – it was all those things.

It is upsetting and disturbing. But the last thing we deserve anymore is a warning. The last thing I want anymore is for someone to give me “viewer discretion” or to be concerned with my feelings, with how best to prepare me for the now-normal tragic news that more children have lost their lives senselessly.

The last thing that we should ever allow is for this to be seen as ordinary. But we have.

You may argue that these newscasters have to do it and that it’s simply the appropriate thing to do when dealing with such R-rated content.

You wouldn’t necessarily want to accidentally see this on the 6-o’-clock news while your family was just trying to eat their meal at the dinner table.

It’s to protect parents and their children.

Should they be warning us though or should they play that footage when we least expect it?

It’s become part of a cruel reality that we are faced with too often than we’d like. And it looks like this video has served as a very important warning to all.

What’s your thoughts?