As a 14-year-old gunman opened fire at his Georgia high school on Wednesday, another student frantically sent his mother a barrage of texts, telling her he was afraid. Erin Clark told CNN that she was at work when her 17-year-old son Ethan’s messages began flying in: “school shooting rn,” “i’m scared,” “pls,” and “i’m not joking.” She said he heard eight or nine gunshots before his classroom door was slammed shut and barricaded with chairs and tables. “I’m leaving work,” she texted him back. “i love you,” Ethan wrote, with Clark responding, “Love you too baby.” He later texted her “someone’s dead.” Clark told CNN that she and other parents were directed to Apalachee High School’s football field, where she later found Ethan safe by the bleachers. She’d been “absolutely terrified” when she read her son’s texts, she said, adding that she was “in complete shock that this was actually happening.”
