Forest High School students were supposed to walk out in calm protest.
Instead, they ran out flanked by armed police officers.
The students had planned to walk out of their classes at 10:20 a.m., along with other schools across the country, in honor of the 19-year anniversary of the shooting at Columbine High School. However, minutes after school started Friday, Sky Bouche, a 19-year-old former student, shot a 17-year-old student in the ankle, putting the second-largest high school in Marion County on lockdown, according to Marion County Sheriff’s Office.
Police were called at about 8:40 a.m. when the sound of Bouche’s shotgun rang out, according to the sheriff’s office. School resource officer Jim Long, who was assigned to the high school, ran toward the shot, found Bouche and stopped him, Sheriff Billy Woods said.
“I want to assure Marion County residents that today, they should be proud of their first responders,” Woods said.
Deputies, Ocala Police and Florida Highway Patrol responded to the school.
Bouche was arrested on charges including terrorism, aggravated assault with a firearm, possession of a firearm on school property and possession of a short-barreled shotgun.
MCSO deputies escorted Bouche in a white jumpsuit out of the school, according to a video posted on the MCSO’s Facebook page. Media who swarmed him as he was taken to a patrol car asked if he had anything to say.
“Sorry,” he said, pausing. “It doesn’t make it better anyways.”
After his arrest, Bouche told deputies he drove nearly an hour from his home in Crystal River, Florida, with a 17.5-inch barreled shotgun hidden in a guitar case. He said he didn’t want to hurt anyone, just scare students, according to an arrest report.
He had planned to conduct a shooting April 13 but changed his mind, according to the report. He told police he had researched shootings and knew a school shooting would gain more public attention.
Before the shooting, Bouche put on a tactical vest and gloves in a school bathroom, according to the report. When he came out of the bathroom, a female student walked passed him without noticing him, so he fired the shotgun at a door, deputies said.
He dropped the gun and surrendered to a teacher, MCSO said. He was taken to the Marion County Jail where he remains without bond.
Forest High School has 2,350 students and 125 teachers, according to its website.
All Marion County middle and high schools were put on code yellow, which closes campuses to outsiders, as a precaution Friday.
Not even five minutes into Fletcher Reece’s first period reading class at 8:30 a.m., the 17-year-old heard the sound of one gunshot echo through his classroom in Building 1, D Hallway.
“It sounded like a bomb went off,” the Forest High School junior said. “It was echoing off of everything. It was kind of like a sonic boom.”
His teacher, Ms. Williams, rushed everyone from the class in the hallway into the classroom, turned off the lights and made everyone get away from the door. Fletcher quietly sat down with his classmates who whispered to each other, trying to figure out what was going on. A woman came onto the announcements and said there was a code red.
Across the school, his sister Katie Reece, 15, was listening to the same announcement with her teacher and 14 other students. The class, locked behind a thick wooden door, turned off the lights and huddled together, nervous and whispering. She told herself she would be OK.
“I knew I was going to be fine and that nothing was going to hurt me in the moment,” she said. “I knew God was going to protect me no matter what.”
Fletcher texted his mom as soon as the shooting happened and told her about the gunshot he heard.
Fletcher and Katie’s mother, Amber Reece, texted them to stay safe and use their best judgement.
“She told me she loved me a whole bunch,” Katie said.
At about 10:30 a.m., two SWAT officers and three police officers checked her classroom, erupting the students to tears and Katie into a panic attack. It took her a couple of minutes to calm down. She was hyperventilating and thought she was going to pass out. She saw the SWAT car outside the window she was standing by, took a video and calmed down.
“I realized that everything was under control,” she said.
About 10 minutes later, a police officer told the students to walk out of the school with their hands up. She boarded a bus for a five-minute drive to the First Baptist Church in Ocala, where parents were picking up their kids.
Katie was reunited with her brother and then their mother.
“I could tell she had been crying,” she said. “It was just a happy moment to realize that I could’ve died today, I could’ve been shot and never have seen my mom again, so I was lucky that I was able to see her again.”
Forest High School students console one another after a school shooting at Forest High School Friday, April 20, 2018 in Ocala, Fla. One student shot another in the ankle at the high school and a suspect is in custody, authorities said Friday. The injured student was taken to a local hospital for treatment.
