Mother and Daughter Endure Lockdowns in Separate Schools After Georgia Shooting
Anetra Pattman was teaching class when her daughter texted: “Mom, I heard gunshots. I’m scared. Please come get me.”
By Richard Fausset
Reporting from Winder, Ga.
Anetra Pattman, 43, was teaching social sciences at the alternative school in Barrow County, Ga., when she received a text on Wednesday at 10:24 a.m.
It was from her 14-year-old daughter, Macey Wright, at Apalachee High. It said, “Mom, I heard gunshots. I’m scared. Please come get me.”
Dr. Pattman knew that she could not hurry to her daughter. She had to stay with her own students, and keep calm.
“At that moment, the primary thing was continuing this communication with my daughter, but now I’m also responsible for keeping my other children safe,” she said of her students.
Then her own school went into hard lockdown mode. Her students hid in the corner. Lights out. Quiet. They stayed that way from 11 a.m. to about 1:30 p.m.
The reunion of mother and daughter finally came about an hour later. A friend had picked Macey up from Apalachee and taken her to a convenience store, where her mother was waiting. They hugged each other and cried.
Two students and two teachers were killed at Apalachee, the authorities said, and at least nine other people were injured.
Macey’s friend, a fellow freshman, had been shot in the shoulder, and Macey was worried about her. She told her mother she did not want to go back to school and get shot.
It was difficult for Dr. Pattman, an educator for 22 years, to accept that so many students have to live with such a possibility every day that they set foot on an American high school campus. But she said that she and her daughter would find a way to soldier on. She spoke on Wednesday afternoon with a resolve that seemed laced with resignation.
“I think most of it just comes from not living in fear, knowing that things like this happen,” she said. “Not just in schools, but in grocery stores, in churches. I’m almost to the point where I feel that no place is exempt.”
Richard Fausset, based in Atlanta, writes about the American South, focusing on politics, culture, race, poverty and criminal justice. More about Richard Fausset