U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Corrigan took the unusual step Friday of opening court with an extended acknowledgment of the tragedy that struck a Broward County high school.
Corrigan, who was appointed to the United States Middle District of Florida’s court in 2002, has handled some of Jacksonville’s most high-profile federal cases in recent years, including last year’s conviction and sentencing of former U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, the handling of Jacksonville firefighters’ decades-long discrimination battle and he was handling a key civil rights case on Friday that has been brought by a transgender teen seeking to use the bathroom of his gender identity at school.
But on Friday, before Corrigan began hearing oral arguments in that case, he spoke about the killing of 14 students and three adults at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, the nation’s deadliest school shooting since 2012, when 28 people died at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.
Back in 2013, Corrigan himself was also the target of a would-be assassin, a defendant who had been convicted in his court who then bought a .30-06 rifle from a sporting goods store. The man fired a single shot into Corrigan’s home, missing the judge by less than two inches.
As he spoke his 350-word statement, Corrigan’s voice seemed to waver with emotion.
Corrigan’s remarks:
Good morning, before we tend to the matter at hand today, I want to make a statement.
And it is not usually appropriate for a judge to speak from the bench about a matter of public interest unrelated to the case before the court. However, there are exceptions, and this is one of those times.
I think it particularly appropriate given that the case that is before the court involves a school district which is tasked with educating 40,000 students, young persons who are the future of our community and nation.
While words are inadequate, they are all that I have.
I join all Americans in feeling a profound sense of sadness and anger over the senseless deaths of 14 students and 3 heroic adults in Broward County.
These young people cut down just as they were finding themselves and transitioning into becoming responsible adults our society so desperately needs have been robbed of their potential to live full and long lives.
I grieve for them and their families now deprived of a loved one who helped define their very existence.
As a soon-to-be first-time grandfather, I think how these young people will never have the opportunity to have children, and their parents will never get to know the grandchildren they would have had. As an American, I find this entirely unacceptable.
No parent should have to worry when they send their child to school that they child will be murdered in a random spasm of violence.
No student should have to worry about their safety while they are in school.
No teacher or administrator should ever have to explain to a parent how their child was lost to a hateful or evil act while under their care.
A society cannot call itself civilized if it cannot protect its children.
We Americans have to do better than this. We just have to.
God bless those who are lost and their families, those who are wounded that they may recover. And God bless the United States of America.
I’ll ask you to observe a moment of silence, please.