A teacher told her students that the shelter-in-place order was just a drill. Just hours before the shooting at the subway station, Tan, a teacher at the elementary school in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, passed through the station. She said the students thought the drill was long. She told her students that the trains were not running because of a police investigation.
A student asked if it was a shooting, and she told them that no one was killed.
Tan says he is not sure what he will say tomorrow.
Many New Yorkers thought the shooting was a terrorist attack. At least 29 people were injured in the attack, but no one had life-threatening injuries. Local schools were forced to put in place shelter-in-place orders because the shooter remained at large.
In interviews, New York parents described a day of dread that ping-ponged between the heightened fear in the aftermath of 9/11, the logistical anxiety of COVID-19, the renewed alarm about subway crime after years of relative safety, and the stomach-dropping terror of school shootings. Most schools outside the immediate vicinity lifted the shelter-in-place order by the afternoon.
When she heard about the shooting, Lynn Harris knew that her family was all right, her husband was already on his bike ride to Manhattan, her teenage kids were accounted for, and the family's housekeeper was in touch. Tuesday morning's shooting at a subway station not far from her Brooklyn home had rattled her more than she expected.
Harris, the founder of a comedy company, said that everyone is scared when New York is scared. The sound of the sirens and the sound of the helicopter reminded her of other times when New York has been in crisis. We hate this mode.
It has been pretty scary and unnerving to say the least, says a project manager for an interior-design firm. She was grateful that her kids were in a safe place at school, but the teachers didn't fully explain what was happening. Their after-school programs were canceled, so they hosted their classmates at her home until their parents could pick them up.
She said it was scary to get the letter from the DOE that the kids are safe.
She has never had concerns about riding the subway, but recently she has been rethinking that stance. As someone who lived through 9/11, the fear of terrorism was frightening.
Other parents said they were upset that they hadn't heard from their children's schools. The mother of a Coney Island high school student got a recorded call from her daughter at 2 p.m. She said her daughter didn't hear about the shooting until she sent her a text. We have to rely on our own common sense.
Since the subways were closed, Tan took the ferry home. They haven't heard about the shooting in NYC, but they have heard about other shootings.
Charlotte Alter is at charlotte.alter@time.com.
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