Heroic teacher in Florida school shooting grew up in Roseville

Three weeks before a 19-year-old masked gunman burst into a Florida high school and killed 17 people, teacher Ernie Rospierski cautioned on Facebook that gun violence in America's schools was escalating.

"So we are 23 days into the new year in that short time we have had 11 shootings on a school campus. Eleven... please let that sink in," wrote Rospierski, who works at the school where the massacre took place. "School is supposed to be a safe place for students not the scene of a first person shooter game."

Rospierski, who grew up in Roseville in Macomb County, urged the government on his Jan. 23 Facebook post to "figure a better way to secure our schools."

"I know my own school plan is sit tight and hope they don’t come does not inspire but it is all we have. More needs to be done without making schools into prisons," the post continued. " ... we need to fix this now, not tomorrow now."

Then came Valentine's Day.

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On a day when students nationwide were exchanging chocolates, cards and love notes, a deranged gunman burst into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., about 45 miles north of Miami, with an AR15 semiautomatic rifle and fired away.

In the end, 17 people were killed and many others injured, though it could have been worse if not for the selfless acts of Rospierski, a onetime Catholic schoolboy who grew up in Macomb County and ended up putting himself in the line of fire to protect his students.

Rospierski is being hailed a hero as he escorted many students to safety, coming under fire himself in a hallway and having his cheek grazed by a bullet while shoving kids into an alcove and stairwells to keep them out of the line of fire. 

The Free Press was unable to reach Rospierski for comment Thursday, but his acts drew praise from several Michiganders, including childhood and high school friends and a nun known as Sister Rita.

"I'm not surprised at all. Ernie — he's so selfless. He's a salt-of-the-earth, down to his bare bones kind of person, and so is Andrea," said Sr. Rita Rinaldi, I.H.M., who taught Rospierski and his wife Andrea theology at St. Clement Catholic School in Centerline. 

Sr. Rita remembers Rospierski as being gutsy and mature in high school, passionate about his views and not afraid to show it.

"He had the courage to say things others didn't ... even if it would make him look unpopular," Sr. Rita recalled.

Sr. Rita said that she's proud of both Rospierski and his wife, who have kept in touch with her over the years and visited her classroom in 2014  at Cristo Rey Catholic School in Southwest Detroit. 

"They were wonderful then and they are more remarkable now," Sr. Rita said of the Rospierskis, who both work at the Florida high school where the mass shooting took place. Rospierski's cheek was grazed by a bullet. His wife was not injured.

For John Magee, a friend of the Rospierskis, the mass shooting triggered anger and frustration about what he describes as an "ongoing carnage with assault rifles."

"People need to know that these shootings are real and happen to people we know and love," said Magee of Wolverine Lake, who played rugby with Rospierski on Detroit Old Guys Select -- an old-boys squad for the Detroit Rugby Football Club.

Childhood friend Doug DeCoster described Rospierski as a kind and empathetic kid who was nice to everyone.

 "This act that he did — it just doesn't surprise me at all," said De Coster, 37, of Troy, who attended Holy Innocents elementary school in Roseville with Rospierski. The two played on the school basketball team together.

"He seemed to always care about everybody. I know his family was that way, too," DeCoster said. "He always had a smile and kind words to say about people."

DeCoster learned about his friend's heroic deeds through a Miami Herald article,  which had a detailed account of Rospierski's run-in with the masked shooter in the hallway, and what he did to protect his kids.

"I thought, 'Oh my gosh! This is amazing. Ernie — Oh my Lord, what a guy!' "  DeCoster said.

A woman named Susan Grillo was equally proud to learn about her old classmate's action. She wrote on Rospierski's Facebook Page: "Went to high school with you guys at SC! Just read this article! And was shocked ...  You are very heroic and so glad you both are ok."

According to the Miami Herald, here is what went down on the third floor of the high school, where Rospierski sat at his desk at the end of the school day when all hell broke loose:

It was 2:25 p.m. when a fire alarm rang. Students were leaving his class and venturing into the hallways when Rospierski heard the gunfire.

“Turn around, go to your classrooms!” he yelled to the students, who started running back toward Rospierski.

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He tried to steer them into open classrooms when the gunman appeared at the end of the hallway. .Rospierski himself was locked out of his classroom, but pushed several  kids into an alcove to protect them. When the gunman stopped to reload, Rospierski pushed the students toward a stairway and they escaped.

He told the Miami Herald he saw a girl lying by the stairs, checked her pulse but found nothing.

After the shooting started back up again, Rospierski hid inside a bathroom for about 20-25 minutes before police showed up.

The whole time, he thought about his wife, Andrea Kowalski-Rospierski, who also teaches at the school but escaped unharmed.

“My biggest concern wasn’t for me, it was for my wife more than anything else,” he told the Miami Herald.

About a half hour after the shooting began, Rospierski took to Facebook, posting at 3:06 p.m: "We are physically fine."

Rospierski would eventually learn that the shooter was one of his former students: Nikolas Cruz,  who was in Rospierski's World Geography class five years ago, and had been expelled from the school for disciplinary reasons. He was arrested by police on the day of the shooting and is locked up without bond.