Who is Jackie Matthews? Michigan State University shooting survivor also escaped Sandy Hook massacre in 2012
EAST LANSING, MICHIGAN: A student of Michigan State University who survived the fatal shooting that killed three students on Monday night, February 13 also endured the deadly shooting in Sandy Hook in 2012. “I am 21 years old, and this is the second mass shooting that I have now lived through,” said Jackie Matthews, the survivor of both shootings who shared her experiences in a TikTok video posted on Tuesday, February 14.
Three victims of the deadly shooting were identified as Arielle Diamond Anderson, Alexandria Verner, and Brian Fraser. The students were shot dead after gunman Anthony Dwayne McRae opened fire at the university at 8.18 pm. Following the shooting which also left five others wounded and in critical condition, the shooter who was caught by police officers in an industrial area, around five miles away from the university, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, reported the Daily Mail.
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Who is Jackie Matthews?
Jackie Matthews is currently a senior at Michigan State University. She was a student at Newtown, Connecticut's Sandy Hook Elementary School where the horrifying massacre of 20 students and six teachers and staff took place on December 14, 2012, after shooter Adam Lanza opened fire at the school.
Matthews opened up about her harrowing experience from the school shooting while she sat and spoke from a room situated across the university road where gunman McRae killed the students and critically wounded several others. The media outlet reported that she said 10 years after the Newtown school massacre, Matthews still suffers from a “full-blown PTSD fracture.” Matthews also revealed that she is still suffering from pain in her lower back as she had to spend hours in the Sandy Hook classroom crouching in during the shooting. She said, “The fact that this is the second mass shooting that I have now lived through is incomprehensible.”
'It’s not okay'
In the TikTok video that was reshared by Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, Matthews mourned the loss of the three students killed in the deadly shooting. Demanding "legislation" and "action" in such incidents, she said, "My heart goes out to all the families and the friends of the Michigan State shooting. But we can no longer just provide love and prayers. It needs to be legislation, it needs to be action. It’s not okay. We can no longer allow this to happen. We can no longer be complacent."
A survivor of the Sandy Hook School mass shooting in 2012 is a student at Michigan State University: “I am 21-years-old and this is the second mass shooting I’ve lived through. We can no longer allow this to happen. We can no longer be complacent.” pic.twitter.com/Jcafl57tmZ
— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) February 14, 2023
The New York Post reported that Matthews is not the only survivor who has lived through a school shooting. Another MSU freshman whose name has not been disclosed endured the 2021 shooting at Oxford High School.
Following the gunman's rampage, the distraught mother of the student said, “I can’t believe this is happening again,” in her talk with the Detroit Free Press. The fatal shooting coincided with the fifth anniversary of the mass shooting at Parkland, Florida's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.