What If Parkland’s Shooter Owned His Own Story?

In a Broward County courtroom in 2018, a teenager who could barely walk without pain made a quiet, strange kind of history.

Anthony Borges, shot five times while using his body to shield classmates during the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, did something few victims of mass violence have ever done. Through a legal filing, he claimed the commercial rights to the shooter’s name and story. In practical terms, that meant the gunman could not sell his name or life story to book publishers, filmmakers, or interviewers without Borges’ permission.

That move fascinated people online because it felt like a reversal. In American mass shootings, the killer usually ends up with the media spotlight and the potential to profit from infamy. Here, a survivor took control of the narrative.

So what if that had not happened? What if the Parkland shooter had kept full control of his name and story, free to sign deals and grant interviews? Looking at that counterfactual forces a hard look at how media, law, and trauma collide.

Owning someone’s “name and likeness” means controlling how their identity is used commercially. In the Parkland case, that legal tactic was used to block the shooter from cashing in on his own notoriety.

How did Borges end up owning the shooter’s name?

First, the real-world baseline. On February 14, 2018, a former student opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, killing 17 people and wounding 17 more. Among the wounded was 15-year-old soccer player Anthony Borges, who held a classroom door shut with his body so classmates could hide. He was hit five times and survived after multiple surgeries.

While the criminal case moved forward, civil lawyers for victims and survivors looked for ways to protect them from a second wave of harm: the media circus and potential profiteering around the shooter’s identity. In American law, a person’s “right of publicity” is the right to control commercial use of their name, image, and likeness. It is usually used by celebrities to stop unauthorized ads or merchandise.

In 2018, Borges’ lawyer filed a civil claim that effectively said: the shooter’s name and story had value, and that value should belong to the victim whose body was used as a shield, not to the person who pulled the trigger. The shooter, facing the possibility of the death penalty and a mountain of civil liability, did not fight it. Through a settlement, Borges acquired those rights.

That meant any paid interview, book, film, or dramatization that relied on the shooter’s cooperation would run into a legal wall unless Borges agreed. It did not erase the crime, but it shifted who could profit from it.

Victims taking control of an offender’s publicity rights flips the usual script of crime and fame, turning infamy into a potential asset for survivors instead of perpetrators. That is the starting point for any “what if” about Parkland and media.

Scenario 1: The shooter sells his story to media and publishers

In the counterfactual world where Borges never claims those rights, the shooter’s name and story remain his to sell. He is convicted and given life in prison, as happened in reality. He has no real income, no future, and a lot of time.

Journalists and true-crime producers start knocking. They always do. High-profile mass shooters attract documentary makers, podcasters, and authors looking for “exclusive access.” Without the name-rights roadblock, the shooter can sign contracts.

What could he actually do from prison? Quite a lot, within limits:

• He could authorize a ghostwritten memoir, with profits directed to a trust or to family members.
• He could grant paid interviews to television networks or streaming platforms, especially if producers framed it as a “deep psychological profile.”
• He could cooperate with a docuseries, giving letters, drawings, and recorded phone calls to build a narrative around his life and motives.

There are constraints. Many U.S. states have so-called “Son of Sam” laws, named after the 1970s serial killer David Berkowitz. These laws are meant to stop criminals from profiting from their crimes. Florida’s versions have been challenged and rewritten over time, and they usually do not outright ban speech. They tend to redirect profits to victims through restitution or compensation funds.

So the shooter might not personally pocket much money. But the deals could still happen, with publishers and producers making their usual profits. The shooter could still gain something less tangible and arguably more dangerous: attention, a platform, and a warped kind of legacy.

Victims and families would watch trailers and see the shooter’s face and hear his voice, framed as a “complex figure” or “troubled young man.” Students who hid in closets would see their trauma turned into content, with the person who caused it narrating the story.

There would be backlash. Parkland families were already outspoken and politically active. They would pressure networks, boycott advertisers, and push for tighter laws against profiting from mass shootings. Some outlets would back off. Others would not.

In this scenario, the shooter’s narrative becomes one more commodity in the true-crime economy, and survivors spend years fighting not just gun laws but media deals.

So what? If the shooter kept his name rights, the most immediate change is a higher risk of high-profile interviews and projects built around his perspective, forcing victims to fight a second battle in the arena of public narrative.

Scenario 2: The shooter trades his story for plea deals and influence

There is another way a criminal’s story has value. Not as entertainment, but as a bargaining chip.

In reality, the Parkland shooter eventually pleaded guilty to 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder. A jury later recommended life in prison instead of the death penalty, a decision that enraged many families. Before that point, prosecutors and defense lawyers spent years maneuvering over evidence, mental health evaluations, and the shooter’s background.

In a world where he clearly owns his story and can sell it, that story becomes something else: leverage. His legal team could argue that his life story, if told in detail, might be worth millions in books and films. They might hint that cooperation with prosecutors, detailed confessions, or participation in studies about mass shooters could be part of a package that includes controlled media access later.

There are limits here too. Prosecutors are not supposed to trade sentencing outcomes for future media deals. Judges do not sign off on “you get life instead of death if Netflix gets a series.” But in practice, everyone in a high-profile case is aware of the media value orbiting it.

Without Borges’ legal claim, the shooter’s team could:

• Use the potential value of his story to attract high-powered defense lawyers who see a future book or documentary as part of their own brand.
• Offer exclusive access to certain journalists in exchange for sympathetic coverage of his mental health issues or upbringing.
• Position him as a “case study” in school shootings, giving interviews to researchers and think tanks that then feed into public debates.

That does not mean he walks free. The facts of the crime are too stark, the political pressure too intense. But the tone of coverage could shift. Instead of a near-total focus on victims and policy, more attention might go to the shooter’s childhood, his grievances, his online activity, his feelings about the attack.

Every minute spent on his interior life is a minute not spent on the people he killed or the systems that failed. That is not a moral argument so much as a simple allocation of airtime.

In this scenario, the shooter’s story becomes a bargaining chip in the court of public opinion, even if it does not change the formal sentence. He gains influence over how history remembers Parkland.

So what? Without the name-rights transfer, the shooter’s life story could be used as soft leverage in legal and media negotiations, pulling attention toward his motives and away from the people he harmed.

Scenario 3: A media bidding war and a backlash-driven law

There is a third path, where the shooter’s control over his name does not just affect Parkland. It changes national law.

Imagine a few years after the shooting, a major streaming platform announces a multi-part docuseries built around exclusive prison interviews with the gunman. The trailer drops. His face fills the screen. He speaks calmly about the day of the attack. The series is marketed as “the definitive inside story of Parkland.”

The reaction is volcanic. Parents of murdered students hold press conferences outside the school. Students who became activists after the shooting call for boycotts. Hashtags trend. Advertisers get nervous.

Lawmakers, especially in Florida, see an opportunity. They propose a tougher version of a Son of Sam law, one that specifically targets mass shooters and school attacks. The bill might say:

• Any contract that allows a mass shooter to profit from their name, likeness, or story is void.
• All proceeds from such works must go to a victims’ compensation fund.
• Victims and families have standing to sue producers who knowingly enter into deals with offenders.

There would be constitutional fights. The Supreme Court has already struck down some earlier Son of Sam laws as too broad and as violations of the First Amendment. So legislators would try to craft narrower rules that attack the money, not the speech.

In this scenario, Parkland becomes the case that pushes a new wave of victim-centered publicity laws across several states. Media companies adjust. They still make documentaries, but they avoid direct payments to shooters. They rely on court records, investigators, and third-party sources instead of prison interviews.

The shooter still gets talked about. He still appears in films and books. But he has less direct control and no legal way to cash in. The backlash against one high-profile deal reshapes the legal environment for all future mass shootings.

So what? If the shooter’s name rights had led to a major media deal, the public backlash could have driven stricter, more targeted laws against profiting from mass killings, changing how true-crime media is made nationwide.

Which scenario is most plausible, and why did Borges’ move matter?

Of the three counterfactuals, the first is the most realistic: a world where the shooter cooperates with some media and publishing projects, but is hemmed in by existing Son of Sam style laws and public outrage.

There are precedents. Serial killers and mass murderers have tried to publish books or sell artwork from prison. Often, the money gets redirected or blocked, but the works still appear. They generate attention, if not wealth. The same pattern would likely apply to Parkland without Borges’ legal claim.

The second scenario, where the shooter’s story meaningfully shifts legal outcomes, is less likely. Prosecutors in a case that public and political would be extremely cautious. Any hint that a death penalty decision was influenced by media prospects would be toxic. Still, the softer influence on coverage and public memory is very plausible. High-profile defense teams do think about narrative.

The third scenario, a sweeping new law triggered by a single media deal, is possible but would run into constitutional headwinds. Courts have already narrowed what states can do to strip criminals of speech-related income. A Parkland-inspired law might pass, then get partly gutted on First Amendment grounds.

That brings us back to the real-world move by Anthony Borges.

By acquiring the shooter’s name and story rights, Borges and his lawyers did not erase the crime or silence every mention of the gunman. Journalists can still report his name. Filmmakers can still tell the story using public records and fair use. What changed was the shooter’s ability to be an active, paid participant in his own myth-making.

Instead of relying on broad, vulnerable laws that target all criminals, Borges used a targeted civil tactic against one. He turned a tool usually used by celebrities into a shield for a victim. It was legally creative and symbolically blunt: the person who tried to kill him would not get to own the story of that day.

In a media environment where mass shooters often become household names while their victims blur together, that choice matters. It did not stop all attention from flowing to the gunman, but it set a precedent that other victims and lawyers have noticed.

So what? Borges’ decision to claim the shooter’s name rights did not rewrite the First Amendment, but it quietly shifted power in one of the most watched crimes of the 21st century, limiting the shooter’s ability to profit from or control his own infamy and offering a model for future victims who refuse to let perpetrators own the narrative.