Father of Florida School Shooting Victim: 'Top Priority Should Be School Safety'

Andrew Pollack is on a mission to keep students in America's schools safe. Sadly, that was not something he was able to do for his own daughter.

Eighteen-year-old Meadow Pollack was one of 17 people killed when a gunman opened fire on Feb. 14 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.

After being shot four times, Pollack says a detective told him that Meadow still tried to protect another student.

"She covered the freshman and this animal went down the hallway and shot my daughter another five times at point blank and it went through her and killed the girl beneath her," he said in an interview with CBN News.

During a televised listening session at the White House days after the shooting, Pollack spoke passionately about the need to protect schools.

With his two sons by his side, an emotional Pollack said, "It should have been one school shooting and we should have fixed it and I'm pissed 'cause my daughter, I'm not going to see again."

Last weekend, students across America took to the streets urging lawmakers to enact stricter gun laws.

Pollack said that while he is encouraged by the March for Our Lives movement, he believes at the moment, school security is more attainable.

"It's not a waste of time because they're kids," he said.  They're making noise.  They're bringing awareness to schools so I applaud them for that. But I think if they focused on school safety first and then got all the schools safe in the country and then focused on gun control, that would be something that is achievable right now."

Pollack also said that his son was not allowed to speak during the March for Our Lives rally because his speech didn't focus on gun control.

"They denied him to speak with a couple of other boys too that had different agendas," he explained. "They wanted to talk mostly about school safety."

Pollack also helped push for newly passed gun laws in Florida, which include raising the age to purchase a firearm from 18 to 21, a ban on the sale or possession of bump stocks, and funding for armed school resource officers.

He plans to build a playground, complete with water features, to honor Meadow, who was set to graduate from high school this Spring, and the 16 others who lost their lives in the tragic school shooting.

This weekend he's holding an event called "Ride for Meadow." Motorcycle enthusiasts are encouraged to sign up to help raise money for the project.

"I had this idea to build this playground in the community in Coral Springs," he said.  It's gonna be built and everyone in the community is gonna be able to enjoy it and I'm gonna build a memorial there for the other 16 victims."

He added, "The playground can't be just a regular playground cause it's for my daughter, so it has to be spectacular."

"I wouldn't settle for anything less.  That's the way she's been her whole life. never average.  My kid was never average," Pollack said.