All the Empty Rooms
School shootings in the US make headlines so often that they leave behind only a numbness in their wake. After a flurry of ‘thoughts and prayers’ on social media, all is forgotten. But CBS news correspondent Steve Hartman didn’t forget. Over the last seven years, Hartman and photographer Lou Bopp visited the bedrooms of eight school shooting victims. Some of their stories feature in ‘All the Empty Rooms’, a tenderly told story of loss, consciously avoiding perpetrator points of view.
In 2019, 14-year-old Dominic Blackwell lost his life in a California school shooting. The camera zooms into a basket of his laundry, still preserved in his room. Hartman and Bopp visit the family of Hallie Scruggs who died in a 2023 school shooting in Nashville. “I wanted her smell back. I wanted to touch her, and I wanted to feel her sweaty hair,” the dad tells the duo.
All through, the camera pans to the children’s personal effects — stuffed animals, posters on the wall, a tilted bucket of crayons, and clothes on hangers. A letter from school shooting victim Gracie Muehlberger to her future self is perhaps one of the most touching scenes. “OMG, it’s high school. I have been waiting for this forever,” the father reads, choking through his tears.
At no point does the short make you feel like a voyeur, and therein lies its strength. A minor quibble: some more perspectives from neighbours, teachers and school mates may have added more depth. That aside, in under 35 minutes, the documentary makes for an important watch.