An off-duty police officer who was on the baseball field at Florida’s Parkland high school during the 2018 massacre testified Thursday that he mistook gunshots for fireworks before he realized what was happening and approached the school unarmed.
Coral Springs Sgt. Jeffrey Heinrich, testifying a second day in the trial of a deputy accused of not stopping the shooter, said he first thought the shots were coming from in or near the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High classroom building where the 17 killings occurred. But it wasn’t until he interviewed a wounded student minutes after the shooting started that he knew for certain.
