While we continued looking into what happened before, during, and after the shooting, and the heart-wrenching death of our only daughter, we kept saying the same thing:

“Why didn’t the murderer speak up? Why didn’t his mom ask for help? Why didn’t someone at the school that morning notice how strange the murderer was acting and SPEAK THE F#$K UP!? Why didn’t he SPEAK THE F#$K UP!? Why didn’t anyone SPEAK THE F#$K UP!?”

Publicly, the boy who took our daughter’s life seemed like a normal student. He had good grades, took AP classes, participated in sports, and was even a boy scout.

Privately, his life was a disaster. He had a troubled family life, was incredibly depressed, and even turned to self-harm to cope with his situation. While he journaled about his negative thoughts, he and the people around him never had the courage to SPEAK THE F#$K UP.

While looking through Gracie’s texts with friends, we kept noticing an acronym in many of their messages. It was usually written after a funny comment, or a “can you believe that” sort of quote.

The acronym was “tf,” an even shorter form of the popular “wtf.”

The SPEAK(TF)UP!™ movement was born.