Tag Archives: Mass Shooting

Urged to ‘do something,’ Ohio governor backs ‘red flag’ law

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine reacts as vigil attendees shout “Do Something” while he was speaking at a vigil at the scene after a mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio, U.S. August 4, 2019. REUTERS/Bryan Woolston

By Matthew Lavietes

(Reuters) – Ohio Governor Mike DeWine proposed a “red flag” law that would allow authorities to take guns away from people who may harm themselves or others, responding to pressure for him to “do something” after a mass shooting in Dayton that killed nine people.

The Republican governor said he supported legislation that would allow judges to temporarily confiscate guns from individuals believed by police or their relatives to be a danger, and to provide them with mental health treatment.

“We have an obligation to each other,” DeWine said at a news briefing. “If someone is showing signs of trouble or problems, we must help and we must not turn away.”

DeWine spoke three days after a gunman wearing body armor and a mask opened fire in a crowded Dayton, Ohio, neighborhood known for its nightlife early on Sunday. It was the second deadly U.S. mass shooting in less than a day.

The governor was heckled on Sunday night as he spoke at a vigil for the victims of the rampage. Protesters repeatedly chanted “Do something!,” a reference to perceived state and federal inaction to curb U.S. gun violence.

“Some chanted ‘Do something!’ and they’re absolutely right,” DeWine said on Tuesday. “We must do something, and that is exactly what we’re going to do.”

Gun control is one of the most divisive issues in American politics. Supporters of tighter restrictions say they are necessary to staunch a U.S. epidemic of gun violence, while opponents believe more controls would violate gun ownership rights under the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment.

In an address to the nation on Monday, President Donald Trump also backed “red flag” laws to allow guns to be taken away from dangerous individuals. Seventeen states and the District of Columbia currently have such laws in place, according to the Giffords gun-control group.

The president proposed tighter monitoring of the internet, mental health reform and wider use of the death penalty in response to the two mass shootings over the weekend that left 32 people dead in Texas and Ohio.

Police named the Ohio gunman as Connor Betts, a 24-year-old white male from Bellbrook, Ohio, and said he was armed with an assault-style rifle fitted with an extended drum magazine that could hold 100 rounds.

The killings in Dayton began at around 1 a.m. on Sunday in the city’s Oregon District and ended rapidly when nearby police moved in and shot Betts dead. At least 14 people were wounded by gunfire, while others were injured as they fled. Six of the nine people killed were black.

The gunman shot at least 41 bullets in the seconds before he was killed, Dayton Police Chief Richard Biehl told reporters on Monday. Police officers ended the rampage in about 30 seconds, Biehl said on Sunday.

Investigators were still trying to determine a motive, Biehl said. FBI agents were helping police.

The shooting in Dayton, a riverfront city of about 140,000 people in southwestern Ohio, took place just 13 hours after a mass shooting at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, where 22 people were killed. The 21-year-old suspect in that shooting was arrested.

Sunday’s massacre occurred a week after a teenager killed three people with an assault rifle at a food festival in Northern California before taking his own life.

(Reporting by Matthew Lavietes in New York; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Teen victim of Texas mass shooting straddled bi-national culture, other victims identified

Two Horizon High School students mourn at a vigil in honor of Javier Rodriguez, who was killed while shopping at Walmart, two days after a mass shooting at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, U.S. August 5, 2019. REUTERS/Callaghan O'Hare

By Julio-Cesar Chavez

HORIZON, Texas (Reuters) – Several hundred students, teachers and relatives filled a high school athletic stadium in Texas on Monday to honor a teenager of U.S.-Mexican citizenship who was the youngest of 22 killed in a shooting rampage police suspect was driven by racism.

Javier Rodriguez, 15, was one week into his sophomore year at Horizon High School, where he played on the soccer team, when he was cut down by gunfire at a Walmart store on Saturday in the west Texas border city of El Paso.

“Javier was just a young man full of life, running in this same stadium we’re in now,” Juan Martinez, superintendent of the Clint Independent School District outside El Paso, told the crowd. “He didn’t deserve to die in a tragedy like this.”

The hour-long memorial service in the El Paso suburb of Horizon opened around twilight with the school principal welcoming Javier’s parents and sister onto a stage, where they released a white dove into the clear evening sky.

A group of teachers simultaneously released 21 more doves, one for each of the other victims, ranging in age from 23 to 90, most of them with Hispanic surnames.

A 21-year-old white man who police said drove more than 600 miles (956 km) from suburban Dallas to El Paso to carry out the shooting spree and surrendered to police at the scene has been charged with capital murder.

Authorities have said they are investigating the rampage as a hate crime, citing a racist, anti-immigrant manifesto posted online shortly before the shooting, which they attributed to the suspect, Patrick Crusius.

In it, the author called the Walmart attack “a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas”.

Martinez said, “Apparently, Javier was a target because of the color of his skin. Javier did not choose the color of his skin, nor did I, nor did you.”

As the superintendent spoke, a member of the high school band, overcome by emotion, was escorted away sobbing.

Not only was Javier the youngest killed on Saturday, he perhaps as much as anyone represented the mixed heritage and culture of El Paso, which together with Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, just across the Rio Grande and the neighboring New Mexico city of Las Cruces, forms the largest bi-national, bilingual metropolitan area in North America.

Friends said Javier held dual U.S. and Mexican citizenship. Police identified seven others killed in the attack as Mexican nationals, and one as German. The rest were U.S. citizens, police said.

Former Texas congressman Beto O’Rourke, an El Paso native seeking the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, also spoke, mentioning that Javier’s uncle was among the wounded, describing the nephew’s life as “an expression of the hope we now have in one another.”

O’Rourke added, “Please understand that this violence, this hatred will not define this community, nor will it define the Rodriguez family.”

The 21 others killed on Saturday were identified by police as: Andre Pablo Anchondo, 23; Jordon Anchondo, 24; Arturo Benavidez, 60; Leonard Cipeda Campos, 41, Maria Flores, 77; Raul Flores, 77; Jorge Calvillo Garcia, 61; Adolfo Cerros Hernandez, 68; Alexander Gerhard Hoffman, 66; David Alvah Johnson, 63; Luis Alfonzo Juarez, 90; Maria Eugenia Legarrega Rothe, 58; Elsa Libera Marquez, 57; Marie Loyal, 56; Ivan Hilierto Manzano, 46; Gloria Irma Marquez, 61; Margie Reckard, 63; Sarah Esther Regaldo Moriel, 66; Teresa Sanchez, 82; Angelina Sliva-Elisbee, 86; and Juan Velazquez, 77.

(Reporting by Julio-Cesar Chavez in Horizon; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

His cross to bear: carpenter creates memorial for yet another shooting

FILE PHOTO: People pray next to a row of crosses representing each of the victims at a growing memorial site two days after a mass shooting at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, U.S. August 5, 2019. REUTERS/Callaghan O'Hare/File Photo

By Daniel Trotta

EL PASO, Texas (Reuters) – Volunteers on Monday planted crosses, each representing a fatality in Saturday’s mass shooting at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, at a shrine to the victims that included “El Paso strong” signs, flowers, candles, bible verses and U.S. and Mexican flags.

Police have not released the names of the victims of the attack, which authorities have called an act of domestic terrorism that appeared to target Hispanics. Hours later, a separate mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio, killed nine people. The attacks injured dozens more.

Greg Zanis of Crosses for Losses, who has been making white, waist-high wooden crosses for victims of tragedies since 1986, provided them for the shrine to the victims near the Walmart store.

“Today is the worst day. I’m going to have to go to Dayton, Ohio, right now. I don’t know how I can handle this day,” Zanis told reporters at the shrine.

Zanis said he has made more than 26,000 crosses since the master carpenter began his one-man mission after finding the body of his father-in-law, who had been shot to death.

In 1999, he erected 13 crosses in Colorado in honor of the victims of the shooting rampage at Columbine High School. Last year he went to Pittsburgh to deliver 11 Stars of David in remembrance of the worshippers shot dead on Oct. 27 at the Tree of Life synagogue, and barely two weeks later to Thousand Oaks, Calif., for the 12 victims of a shooting there, and then to Paradise, Calif., the following month after a wildfire destroyed the town, killing at least 85.

He was even forced into action for a workplace shooting on Feb. 15 in his home town of Aurora, Illinois that killed six.

“These people all don’t think it will happen in their towns, and I was dumb enough to think it wouldn’t happen in mine,” Zanis said.

MEXICAN NATIONALS

At least eight of the victims in the border city of El Paso were Mexican nationals. One funeral home is offering free cremation services for the victims as the city mourned.

At the Walmart shrine, Tony Basco, 61, planted a cross for his partner of 22 years, Margie Reckard, 67, according to the name and age on the cross.

“I’ve been lost. I’m like a puppy run away from its momma. She took care of me,” Basco said. “But my wife, she’d say get up off your rear end and grow up. Because now I’ve got to take care of the bills, take care of the cat.”

Basco was unaware Zanis would be presenting her cross. He just happened to be visiting the site for the first time since the massacre.

“I just wanted to go where she died,” Basco said.

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta; writing by Bill Tarrant; editing by Bill Berkrot)

Two Texas shooting victims die in hospital, raising death toll to 22

People pray during a vigil a day after a mass shooting at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, U.S. August 4, 2019. REUTERS/Callaghan O'Hare

By Julio-Cesar Chavez

EL PASO, Texas (Reuters) – The death toll rose to 22 people on Monday in a mass shooting at a Walmart store in El Paso, increasing with two deaths in a hospital days after a spate of shooting sprees, El Paso Police said on Twitter.

Two weekend gun massacres prompted U.S. President Donald Trump to condemn white supremacy.

Texas prosecutors charged a man with capital murder for the massacre in the heavily Hispanic border city that initially had claimed 20 lives.

Two victims died in the hospital on Monday morning, raising the grim total rose to 22, El Paso Police said on Twitter.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott said Saturday’s rampage appeared to be a hate crime and federal prosecutors called it domestic terrorism. Police cited a racist, anti-immigrant manifesto posted online shortly before the shooting, which they attributed to the suspect, Patrick Crusius, as evidence that the bloodshed was racially motivated.

A Texas prosecutor said the state will seek the death penalty against Crusius if he is found guilty.

It was the second of three separate public shooting sprees carried out in the United States in the span of a week. The dense cluster of massacres prompted fresh cries of alarm in a country accustomed to reports of young men gunning down strangers.

“In one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacy,” Trump said from the White House, calling the gunman “wicked” and criticizing blaming the internet and violent video games for fostering violence.

“It is too easy today for troubled youth to surround themselves with a culture that celebrates violence,” Trump said, a day after Democratic candidates for next year’s presidential election called for stricter gun laws and accused the president of stoking racial tensions.

U.S. gun control advocates have noted that the internet and video games are popular in many other countries where mass shootings are virtually unknown, in part because it is much harder to get a gun than in the United States.

Trump also proposed making it easier and quicker to stop those deemed as having certain forms of mental illness or being a risk to public safety from having guns.

State prosecutors have charged Crusius, a 21-year-old white man, with capital murder, according to the County of El Paso’s state court website. The single murder charge is likely a legal place holder to keep Crusius in custody until further charges can be filed for each of the dead and the wounded.

His grandparents, with whom Crusius had recently been living, said they were devastated by the attack.

“He lived with us in our house in Allen, Texas, while he attended Collin College,” the statement said, read aloud by a family friend to reporters outside the home on Sunday. “He moved out of our house six weeks ago, and has spent a few nights here while we were out of town.”

It was unclear if Crusius has a lawyer or when a bond hearing or other court appearances will occur.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said in a statement on Sunday the attack “underscores the continued threat posed by domestic violent extremists and perpetrators of hate crimes.”

The agency said it remains concerned that more U.S.-based extremists could become inspired by these and previous high-profile attacks to engage in similar acts of violence.

The U.S. attorney for the western district of Texas, John Bash, said federal authorities were treating the El Paso massacre as a case of domestic terrorism.

“And we’re going to do what we do to terrorists in this country, which is to deliver swift and certain justice,” he told a news conference on Sunday. He said the attack appeared “to be designed to intimidate a civilian population, to say the least.”

FBI Director Christopher Wray told a congressional panel on July 23 that the bureau has recorded about 100 arrests of domestic terrorism suspects in the preceding nine months and that most investigations of that kind involve some form of white supremacy.

BACK-TO-BACK SHOOTINGS

The Texas rampage was followed just 13 hours later by another mass shooting, and came a week after a man shot dead three people at a California garlic festival before he was killed by police.

In Dayton, Ohio a gunman in body armor and a mask killed nine people in less than a minute and wounded 27 others in the downtown historic district before he was shot dead by police.

Trump has frequently derided many asylum seekers and other immigrants coming across the U.S. southern border as liars and criminals. At a political rally he held in May, after asking the crowd what could be done about immigrants coming in illegally, Trump smiled and joked after someone in the crowd yelled back: “Shoot them!”

El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen said the suspect was cooperating with investigators.

“He basically didn’t hold anything back,” Allen said at Sunday’s news conference, but declined to elaborate.

Police said the suspect opened fire with a rifle on shoppers, many of them bargain-hunting for back-to-school supplies, then surrendered to officers who confronted him outside the store.

Crusius comes from Allen, Texas, a Dallas suburb some 650 miles (1,046 km) east of El Paso, which lies along the Rio Grande across the U.S.-Mexico border from Ciudad Juarez.

A four-page statement posted on 8chan, an online message board often used by extremists and believed to have been written by the suspect, called the Walmart attack “a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas.”

It also expressed support for the gunman who killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March.

El Paso and Ciudad Juarez, together with the neighboring city of Las Cruces, New Mexico, form a metropolitan border area of some 2.5 million residents constituting the largest bilingual, bi-national population in North America.

(Reporting by Julio-Cesar Chavez in El Paso; Additional reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles, Jonathan Allen in New York, Keith Coffman in Denver, Tim Reid in Las Vegas, Mark Hosenball in London, Daina Beth Solomon in Mexico City, Daniel Trotta, Barbara Goldberg and Matthew Lavietes in New York and Rich McKay in Atlanta; Editing by Frances Kerry and Nick Zieminski)

Gunman kills 20 in rampage at Walmart store in Texas

Shoppers exit with their hands up after a mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, U.S. August 3, 2019. REUTERS/Jorge Salgado

By Julio-Cesar Chavez

EL PASO, Tx. (Reuters) – A gunman armed with a rifle killed 20 people at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, on Saturday and wounded more than two dozen before being arrested, authorities said, after the latest U.S. mass shooting sent panicked shoppers fleeing.

Many of those in the busy store were buying back-to-school supplies when they were caught up in the rampage, which came just six days after a teenage gunman killed three people at a food festival in Northern California.

“On a day that would have been a normal day for someone to leisurely go shopping, it turned into one of the most deadly days in the history of Texas,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott said at a news conference, announcing the death toll.

Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said three Mexicans were among the dead. Six Mexicans were wounded. It was the eighth-worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history, after the 1984 shooting in San Ysidro that killed 21 people.

The suspect was identified as a 21-year-old white male from Allen, Texas, a Dallas-area city some 650 miles (1,046 km) east of El Paso.

Asked during a CNN interview about reports of disturbing online posts made by the suspect, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said he would not be surprised in any way.

“I think those can help shed light on why he did it,” Paxton said. “They are still interviewing him.”

El Paso police chief Greg Allen said authorities had a manifesto from the suspect that indicates “there is a potential nexus to a hate crime.” Officials declined to elaborate and said the investigation was continuing.

The suspect was taken into custody without incident, according to authorities. Video posted on social media appeared to show him being handcuffed by police and placed in a squad car.

Citing a law enforcement source, El Paso television station KTSM published on its website what it said were two photos of the suspect taken by security cameras as he entered the Walmart.

The images showed a young white man wearing glasses, khaki trousers and a dark T-shirt, and pointing an assault-style rifle. He appears to be wearing headphones or ear defenders.

Reuters could not immediately verify the authenticity of the images.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Twitter that the reports from El Paso were “very bad, many killed.”

University Medical Center of El Paso received 13 patients, including one who died, hospital spokesman Ryan Mielke told CNN.

Some of the patients were in surgery while others were in stable condition, he added.

Two of the patients who arrived at the hospital were children with non-life threatening injuries who were transferred to El Paso Children’s Hospital, he said.

Local media said there was such an overwhelming response to an appeal by the police department for blood donations to help the wounded that long lines formed at medical centers, some of which had to tell would-be donors to come back on Sunday.

Some people handed out bottled water and slices of pizza to those still waiting in line.

‘PEOPLE WERE PANICKING’

Multiple law enforcement agencies raced to the scene at the Walmart and nearby Cielo Vista Mall, including police, state troopers, Homeland Security agents and border patrol.

Shoppers fled for their lives, including Kianna Long who was at the Walmart with her husband when they heard gunfire.

“People were panicking and running,” Long said. “They were running close to the floor, people were dropping on the floor.”

She and her husband sprinted through a stock room at the back of the store before sheltering with other customers in a steel container in a shipping area.

Graphic video from the scene posted on social media showed what appeared to be dead bodies and wounded victims. Tales of heroism also emerged.

Walmart said in a statement: “We’re in shock over the tragic events at Cielo Vista Mall… We’re praying for the victims, the community & our associates, as well as the first responders.”

Stores at the mall were also locked down as police officers cleared the shopping center in the east of the city, which lies on the southern U.S. border with Mexico.

Video posted on Twitter showed customers at one department store being evacuated with their hands up.

Mass shootings are common in the United States. On Sunday, a teenage gunman opened fire with an assault-style rifle on the crowd at a food festival in Northern California, killing three people before fatally shooting himself.

At a Democratic presidential candidate forum in Las Vegas a clearly emotional Beto O’Rourke, a former Texas congressman who is from El Paso, broke the news to the audience that he had just heard about the deadly mass shooting in his home city.

O’Rourke said he had spoken to his wife Amy, who was driving in the city with one of their children. Addressing reporters, he teared up and struggled to deliver a short statement.

“I am incredibly saddened and it’s very hard to think about this,” he said. “El Paso is the strongest place in the world. This community is going to come together. I’m going back there right now to be with my family, to be with my home town.”

(Reporting by Julio-Cesar Chavez in El Paso; Additional reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles and Tim Reid in Las Vegas; Writing by Daniel Wallis; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Susan Thomas)

Mass shooting at California food festival, gunman killed, police hunt for associate

People look on from near the scene of a mass shooting during the Gilroy Garlic Festival in Gilroy, California, U.S. July 28, 2019. REUTERS/Chris Smead.

By Chris Smead

GILROY, Calif. (Reuters) – California police were searching on Monday for a suspected accomplice of the gunman who killed three people, including a 6-year-old boy, in a mass shooting at a food festival south of San Francisco.

The gunman was shot dead by police officers within minutes of opening fire early on Sunday evening at the three-day Gilroy Garlic Festival, about 30 miles (48 km) southeast of the city of San Jose.

He was identified as Santino William Legan, 19, according to CBS News and NBC News, both citing unnamed law enforcement officials. The Gilroy police department declined to confirm the reports but planned to hold a news briefing later on Monday morning.

Among those killed was a 6-year-old boy, according to news reports. Fifteen people were injured, but it was unclear how many were shot or otherwise hurt in the crush of bystanders trying to flee, according to police. One person was in critical condition, a hospital spokeswoman said.

President Donald Trump described the gunman as a “wicked murderer” and asked people to pray for the victims during an event at the White House.

“We grieve for their families, and we ask that God will comfort them with his overflowing mercy and grace,” he said.

A second suspect “was involved in some way, we just don’t know in what way,” Gilroy Police Chief Scot Smithee said late on Sunday, without giving further details.

“We have no idea of a motive,” he said.

Police recovered a rifle at the scene, Smithee said.

The gunman cut through a fence to evade metal detectors and other security at the festival entrance, police said.

Legan, the teenager identified in news reports as the gunman, appeared to post a photograph from the festival on his Instagram account shortly before the shooting accompanied by disgruntled captions. The account only appeared to be a few days old, and was deactivated at some point on Monday morning.

“Ayyy garlic festival time,” he wrote in the caption to the picture of people walking through the festival grounds. “Come get wasted on overpriced shit.”

Another photograph posted on Sunday showed a sign warning of a high danger of forest fires. Its caption urged people to read “Might is Right,” a racist and sexist treatise written by the pseudonymous author Ragnar Redbeard in the late 19th century. “Why overcrowd towns and pave more open space to make room for hordes of mestizos and Silicon Valley white twats?” the caption continued.

Footage uploaded to social media showed festival attendees scattering in fear and confusion as loud popping sounds could be heard in the background.

“What’s going on?” a woman can be heard asking on one video. “Who’d shoot up a garlic festival?”

‘THROWING TABLES’ TO GET OUT

One of the victims was identified by his grandmother as Stephen Romero in an interview with ABC7 News. Maribel Romero described her 6-year-old grandson as “a really loving boy.”

Her daughter-in-law and the boy’s other grandmother were also being treated in a hospital for gunshot wounds, she said. “I want justice for my grandson,” she said.

Evenny Reyes, 13, told the San Jose Mercury News that at first, she thought the gunfire was fireworks but then saw someone with a wounded leg.

“We were just leaving and we saw a guy with a bandana wrapped around his leg because he got shot,” Reyes told the newspaper. “There was a little kid hurt on the ground. People were throwing tables and cutting fences to get out.”

Maximo Rocha, a volunteer with the Gilroy Browns youth football team, said he saw many people on the ground, but could not be sure how many were shot.

He told NBC Bay Area that “quite a few” were injured, “because I helped a few.”

One video posted on Twitter showed a blood-spattered woman sitting in the back of a semi-trailer and telling a man she had been shot in the hand.

Founded in 1979, the Gilroy Garlic Festival is an annual event run by volunteers and held outdoors at Christmas Hill Park.

Weapons of any kind are prohibited, according to the event’s website, which also said anyone wearing clothing or paraphernalia indicating membership in a gang, including a motorcycle club, would be refused entry.

“I want to express my extreme shock and sadness about what’s happened today,” Gilroy Mayor Roland Velasco said at a late-night news conference. “I would ask for the thoughts and prayers of the community as our Gilroy police officers continue to investigate this tragic and senseless crime.”

(Additional reporting by Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, California, Rich McKay in Atlanta, and Jonathan Allen in New York; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky, Nick Zieminski and Jonathan Oatis)

Florida’s gun debate persists a year after Parkland mass shooting

FILE PHOTO: A police officer Jamie Rubenstein stands guard in front of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, after the police security perimeter was removed, following a mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, U.S., February 18, 2018. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins/File Photo

By Daniel Trotta

(Reuters) – A year after Florida lawmakers rushed through far-reaching legislation on school safety and gun control in response to the deadliest high school shooting in U.S. history, the state is on the verge of reopening the heart-wrenching debate.

Gun control advocates vow to block a recommendation to arm teachers, while conservatives aim to rescind the new gun restrictions. The opposing viewpoints are likely to create some tension when the Florida legislative session begins next month.

“A lot of those nerves are still raw, and there are still a lot of debates about all of these things,” said Max Eden, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute who is working on a book about the shooting with a victim’s father.

Massive student protests across the country reshaped the U.S. debate on firearms after a former student of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, killed 17 people with a semiautomatic rifle in a five-and-a-half-minute shooting spree at the school on Feb. 14, 2018.

Twenty states passed some form of gun regulation last year, including nine states with a Republican governor, according to the gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety.

Florida, one of the most gun-friendly states in the country, quickly imposed a three-day waiting period for gun purchases and raised the age limit for buying rifles from 18 to 21.

The law also required schools to place at least one armed staff member or law enforcement officer at each campus and retrofit classrooms with “hard corners,” which give students a place to seek cover from gunfire.

Since then, the sheriff of Broward County was dismissed, a special commission issued a 458-page report to examine what happened as well as make recommendations and schools across Florida have had nearly a year to implement the law’s requirements.

Even so, some schools have yet to fully comply with law.

“Broward County schools are not safer today than they were last year,” said state Senator Lauren Book, a Democrat who sat on the special commission and whose district includes Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

DEBATE OVER ARMING TEACHERS

Book has been critical of schools for not complying with the requirement of posting one armed defender on each campus, for failing to enact emergency “code red” procedures and the underreporting crime committed by students.

She does not, however, support the commission’s recommendation to allow classroom teachers who pass a 148-hour course to carry concealed firearms. Last year’s law permits some school personnel to carry weapons, but not in the classroom.

Arming teachers would require new legislation, and a leading gun-control advocacy group has made stopping that proposal a top priority.

“We don’t want guns in our classrooms,” said Gay Valimont, volunteer leader of the Florida chapter of Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense In America, which is funded by billionaire and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Andrew Pollack, whose daughter Meadow was among those killed in Parkland, supports arming the teachers.

“Whoever’s against it, they didn’t have a daughter begging for life on the third floor, hoping that someone was there to save her,” said Pollack, a Republican member of the state school board who is co-authoring the book with Eden.

Emboldened by sweeping electoral victories in 2018, Democratic lawmakers are pushing for even more gun control laws in statehouses nationwide this year.

Families of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas victims are also pushing for a 2020 ballot initiative to ban semiautomatic rifles similar to the one used in the 2018 attack.

Marion Hammer, the National Rifle Association’s lobbyist for Florida, said the gun rights group has not taken a position on legislation proposed in the state this year.

But she chastised Second Amendment supporters in the statehouse who “turned their backs on gun owners,” and voted for last year’s measure.

State Representative Mike Hill, a Republican, is sponsoring a bill to repeal the 2018 law’s firearms provisions, saying they were not properly vetted.

“Emotions were running high,” Hill said. “Instead of relying on looking at the facts, (lawmakers) instead let emotional mob rule control the day, and they voted for that measure.”

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta; editing by Colleen Jenkins and G Crosse)

Connecticut school evacuated for bomb threat on sixth anniversary of massacre

FILE PHOTO: The sign for the new Sandy Hook Elementary School at the end of the drive leading to the school is pictured in Newtown, Connecticut, U.S. July 29, 2016. REUTERS/Michelle McLoughlin/File Photo

By Gabriella Borter

(Reuters) – A bomb threat prompted the evacuation of a Connecticut elementary school on the site of the deadliest public-school shooting in U.S. history on Friday, the sixth anniversary of the massacre, police said.

Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, where 26 children and educators were killed in 2012, received a threatening phone call around 9 a.m. EST, said police Lieutenant Aaron Bahamonde.

“It was a bomb threat over the phone,” Bahamonde said. About 400 people were evacuated, he said. No bomb was found.

Bahamonde said the threat was unrelated to a Thursday incident in which hundreds of schools, businesses and buildings across the United States and Canada receive email bomb threats demanding payment in cryptocurrency. Authorities dismissed those threats as a hoax.

On Dec. 14, 2012, a 21-year-old gunman killed 20 young children and six educators at Sandy Hook before taking his own life. The building where the massacre took place was torn down, and Sandy Hook students now attend classes in a new facility.

The mass shooting inflamed the long-running U.S. debate on gun rights, which are protected by the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The United States has experienced a string of deadly mass shootings since that attack, including one at a high school in Parkland, Florida, in February that left 17 people dead.

(Reporting by Gabriella Borter in New York; Editing by Scott Malone and Jonathan Oatis)

One year later, Las Vegas remembers mass shooting that killed 58

White crosses set up for the victims of the Route 91 Harvest music festival mass shooting are pictured in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., October 6, 2017. REUTERS/Chris Wattie

(Reuters) – White doves flew overhead, each tagged with a name of the 58 people killed one year ago in the largest mass shooting in modern American history, as loved ones gathered in Las Vegas at a sunrise service on Monday to remember them.

“On October 1st, our city was jolted into darkness,” said Mynda Smith, whose sister Neysa Tonks, a 46-year-old mother of three, was among those gunned down in the massacre that wounded more than 800 at an outdoor country music festival on the Las Vegas Strip.

“None of us will ever be the same after that night. However, none of us were alone,” she said, recalling the massive response of citizens donating blood, aiding the injured and feeding families stunned by the violence. “We found love that came from so many that were there to help us.”

Gunman Stephen Paddock, 64, fired more than 1,100 rounds from his 32nd-floor hotel suite at the Mandalay Bay on the evening of Oct. 1, 2017, and then killed himself before police stormed his room.

At the daybreak ceremony one year later, friends and family members bowed their heads for 58 seconds of silence before a choral group sang “You’ll Never Walk Alone” and the air was filled with the mournful strains of bagpipes.

MGM Resorts International, which owns the Mandalay Bay and drew criticism for countersuing victims to seek immunity from damage claims, expressed solidarity and sympathy on the first anniversary of the gun violence.

“One year ago, our community suffered an unforgettable act of terror,” MGM Resorts Chairman and Chief Executive Jim Murren said in a statement. “We share the sorrow of those who mourn and continue to search for meaning in events that lie beyond our understanding.”

Paddock used “bump stock” devices to accelerate the rate of fire from his semiautomatic rifles, effectively turning them into machine guns.

The use of bump stocks, which are legal under U.S. law, prompted calls from politicians and gun control activists to ban the devices.

Within days, National Rifle Association leaders urged the U.S. government to review whether bump stocks were legal. Drawing criticism from some NRA members who viewed that call as a betrayal of the powerful gun lobby’s principles, the NRA position also gave political cover to the Trump administration to consider regulating bump stocks.

On Monday, the U.S. Justice Department said it had submitted a proposed ban on bump stocks last week to the Office of Management and Budget for review, part of the legal process required for the regulation to take effect.

President Donald Trump, asked about bump stocks at a news conference on Monday, said his administration was scrambling to ensure the devices would be illegal within a matter of weeks.

“We’re knocking out bump stocks,” Trump said. “Bump stocks are done – I told the NRA.”

(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg, Dan Trotta and Peter Szekely in New York; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Factbox: Victims of mass shooting at Maryland newsroom

Emergency response vehicles drive near a shooting scene after a gunman opened fire at the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland, U.S., June 28, 2018. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

(Reuters) – Five newspaper employees, four of them journalists, were killed on Thursday in a Maryland newsroom when a gunman opened fire in what police said was a targeted attack on the offices of the Capital Gazette group in Annapolis, the state capital.

Here are brief profiles of the victims, identified by law enforcement hours after the shooting:

ROB HIAASEN

Hiassen, 59, brother of best-selling author Carl Hiaasen, joined The Capital, the group’s flagship title, in 2010 as assistant editor after working as a reporter at the Baltimore Sun for 15 years. Before that, he was a staff reporter at the Palm Beach Post and news anchor and reporter for radio stations across the South.

The Fort Lauderdale native was also a columnist for The Capital, and his pieces appeared in the paper’s Life section every Sunday. According to the Baltimore Sun, he and his wife Maria, with whom he had three children, had celebrated their 33rd anniversary just days before he was killed.

JOHN MCNAMARA

The editor of the Bowie Blade-News and Crofton-West Country Gazette newspapers, McNamara worked for the Capital Gazette organization for more than two decades. An avid sports fan, he wrote extensively about the topic and was the author of two books about his alma mater, the University of Maryland, the Baltimore Sun said. A married man, he loved local history and enjoyed rock and folk music.

WENDI WINTERS

A reporter and columnist for The Capital, Winters had worked at the paper since 2002, often providing her own photos and video to accompany her stories. The New York native had worked as a public relations consultant for many years in addition to her journalism, according to her social media postings.

Winters, 65, was a “Navy mom” and a volunteer with the Girl Scouts and the Red Cross, according to her Twitter and LinkedIn accounts.

On Facebook Winters described herself as having “Peter Pan DNA, blended with some extroverted introversion, sprinkled with proper punctuation marks and served half-baked with a Manhattan attitude.”

GERALD FISCHMAN

Fischman, 61, of Pasadena, Maryland, was the editor of the editorial page and worked at The Capital for over 25 years. According to the Baltimore Sun, Fischman was “the guardian against libel, the arbiter of taste and a peculiar and an endearing figure in a newsroom full of characters.”

Married to a Mongolian opera singer, Fischman graduated from the journalism school at the University of Maryland in 1979.

REBECCA SMITH

Smith, 34, recently joined the Capital Gazette as a sales assistant. She was described in a profile by the Baltimore Sun as being “thoughtful” and “kind and considerate.” A Baltimore native, she lived with her fiancé in east Baltimore County and worked in marketing before joining the Gazette.

(Reporting by Tea Kvetenadze in New York; Editing by Frank McGurty, Toni Reinhold)