A journalist and the father of a Florida shooting survivor discuss hard questions in the aftermath of tragedy, and how soon is too soon to talk about gun control

On Wednesday evening, just hours after the Parkland school shooting had claimed the lives of 17 people, students who had evacuated were sent to a nearby hotel to reunite with their families.

In the immediate aftermath, numerous traumatised children and their families were too disturbed to talk to the public.

As a steady stream left the building some volunteered to come and talk with the group of around 50 or so journalists congregated outside, including the Guardian.



But even for those who did volunteer to speak with the media, how far to push questions and who is able to offer consent is a grey area.



These media scrums are always frantic, with blinding camera lights and reporters hurling questions. They are a necessary part of telling the story, but in moments of high intensity they can be jarring, both for interviewees and concerned reporters.



I was struck by one family’s powerful case in particular. Sarah Crescitelli, who is 15 year old, had been in the high school’s drama building at the time the rampage began. Though still visibly shaken she spoke about hearing loud gunshots and texting her mother during the shooting.

“If I don’t make it I love you and I appreciated everything you did for me,” she wrote.

Crescitelli was accompanied by her parents as she gave interviews. Her father John, a family physician, spoke of the hours of sheer terror he experienced not knowing if his daughter had made it out alive. It reminded him, he said, of 9/11, when he waited anxiously to hear that his brother, an NYPD sergeant, had survived the attack. “These school shootings have to stop,” he said.

He also made the point that his son had told him the shooter, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, had experienced mental health issues.

As a result, I asked John if he thought now marked the appropriate moment for a debate on stricter gun control for those with mental health issues. His answer was striking.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest An aerial view of Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school following the mass shooting. Photograph: Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters

“I don’t want to get into a gun debate. I really don’t. What are you going to do? Confiscate everybody’s guns? We have millions and millions of weapons … I’m a gun owner. I don’t want the government taking my gun.”

After we published an article including these comments, which drew some criticism online, John contacted me to say that while our quotes were accurate they did not really reflect his position on the issue and he was concerned about his daughter ever seeing the article. His views are far more nuanced, he said, and he had written a statement to clarify them.

The statement (published in full here) makes clear that John believed that those with “serious mental health issues” should “under no circumstances” be allowed to purchase a firearm. He also urged Congress to legislate to make it harder to purchase high powered military-style rifles, like the one used in the attack on his daughter’s school.

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His views on curbing access to guns for the mentally ill are supported by the majority of both gun owning and non-gun owning Americans, recent research found, while curbing access to military-style rifles is an issue that divides more cleanly on partisan political lines.

John Crescitelli told me in a phone interview last Friday that the Sandy Hook school massacre in 2012 had a profound impact on him, “[It] really changed me, deep down inside to my inner core,” he said, adding he had been neutral on the subject of reform before hand.

Nonetheless, he still believed passionately in a right to own a firearm for self-defense. He had taken classes to teach competency with a weapon and kept his gun locked away.

“I don’t want to surrender my right to own a weapon. However, I believe that many Americans collect guns as Europeans would collect stamps or coins,” he said.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A candlelight vigil held to remember victims. Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

He added: “I really wish I was able to articulate that to you a little better on that evening.”

As a journalist covering such a distressing event, it is sometimes difficult to know the right questions to ask, and at what point to ask them. To assess whether someone, be they a teenager or an adult, is in the right state of mind to engage.

What was it like to be confronted by the media pack after such trauma? “I was in a state of shock,” Crescitelli said. “It was just intense pressure.”

It had been difficult for him to articulate views because of this intensity, and the hovering helicopters and sirens also made it difficult to even hear my questions. Although I was wearing my press badge that marked the publication I work for, he also worried about who I was.

“This country is so polarized, I didn’t know if you were just in your corner, coming at me. I didn’t know who you were.”

I asked him if my questions had been inappropriate for that particular moment, given his state of mind?

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“I think that was more of a time for healing, than a time to have a discussion on policy. However, I think the policy discussion is very important,” he said. “I just think at that time, and I’m not criticizing you at all, I just think at the time you have a right to ask a question, and I have a right to decline to answer.

“Probably I should of [declined], because definitely I was in a very emotional frame of mind.”

Since we first spoke last week many of the students at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school have made impassioned calls for gun control, rejuvenating a national movement.

“I’m so proud of our students,” Crescitelli said.