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Tag: Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School

  • Memorializing the bedrooms of children killed in school shootings:

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    Since the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, 13 years ago, more than 160 children have been killed in school shootings across the U.S. They’ve left behind devastated families, and friends, and empty bedrooms they once filled with life. For many parents, these rooms have become sanctuaries: a tangible link to a child they can still feel but no longer hold. Steve Hartman, a veteran CBS News correspondent, and Lou Bopp, a photographer, have spent the last seven years asking parents whose children have been killed for permission to take pictures of the empty rooms they’ve left behind. No easy task; they are, after all, portraits of a child who is no longer there.

    Up a flight of stairs in their Nashville home, Chad and Jada Scruggs took us to see their daughter Hallie’s room. It remains as she left it one Monday morning two and a half years ago.

    Chad Scruggs: I don’t think anything’s changed.

    Hallie Scruggs loved Legos, Tennessee football, and hiding things in a toy safe from her three older brothers. The books she and her mom read together at night are still stacked by her bed. A school project, with important milestones in her life, a reminder Hallie was just 9 years old.

    Chad Scruggs: First tooth, first soccer game, first Tennessee game. 

    Anderson Cooper: That was a– that was a– a milestone. 

    Jada and Chad Scruggs: Yeah. 

    Chad Scruggs: This is the first time they held her.

    Jada Scruggs: I love that picture.

    Chad and Jada Scruggs with Anderson Cooper in Hallie’s room

    60 Minutes


    Jada Scruggs: I do wonder, sometimes, like, what will we do with this room, eventually. All these physical things are tangible ways of reminding me, like, she was real. She was here. She lived with us. In some ways, this room kinda holds the space for her.

    Chad Scruggs: Yeah.

    Jada Scruggs: And so–

    Anderson Cooper: And it still does.

    Jada and Chad Scruggs: Yeah. Yeah.

    Hallie was killed along with two classmates, Evelyn Dieckhaus and William Kinney, in a shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville in 2023.

    Anderson Cooper: What has grief been like, for you?

    Chad Scruggs: It felt like everything collapsed, everything, internally, pain that– I mean, gosh. It’s just hard to endure. And then, you know, you have to relearn how to do everything, like how to eat, how to sleep. And you just have a– new relationship with pain, and sadness, and anger. There’s been joy, too, but– the– the sadness– was– has been– was just, I mean, overwhelming.

    Chad is a pastor at the church that’s part of The Covenant School. He was drawn to Hallie’s room the day she was killed.

    Chad Scruggs: I went into her room to lay on her bed to smell. I knew that would go. And I wanted, you know–

    Anderson Cooper: You knew that– you knew the smell would dissipate?

    Chad Scruggs: Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And her blankie was there and everything was there.

    Anderson Cooper: And you could smell her, that day?

    Chad Scruggs: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. That was true probably, for a week or two after. So you’re trying to get her back. And it’s not possible. But you don’t believe that. And so anything that– that draws that possibility closer, I wanted to be there for that, so– yeah. I went in, just laid on her bed, and cried by myself.

    Chad and Jada Scruggs

    Chad and Jada Scruggs

    60 Minutes


    Anderson Cooper: Has your relationship to the room changed over time?

    Jada Scruggs: Maybe, it’s not as frequent that I go up there, but the feelings haven’t changed, when I go in the room. You know, it kind of captures all the feelings of sadness and joy, just because it’s– it’s a capsule of time.

    Chad Scruggs: I think initially, that room was for me, an indication of, like, presence. And now, it feels more of an indication of absence.

    Jada Scruggs: Absence, yeah.

    Chad Scruggs: You know. It feels more like a relic now. 

    Anderson Cooper: Like a relic?

    Chad Scruggs: A relic. 

    Anderson Cooper: Yeah. 

    Some 2,000 miles away, in Santa Clarita, California, another room, another child killed. 

    This is Gracie Muehlberger. She was 15. She adored her brothers and her Vans sneakers. She was killed six years ago in the Saugus High School shooting. Cindy and Bryan Muehlberger are her parents. 

    Anderson Cooper: Do you remember the first time you went into Gracie’s room after–

    Cindy Muehlberger: Right when we got home from the hospital.

    Anderson Cooper: You went right to her room?

    Cindy Muehlberger: Right to her room. And that’s where I spent, like, the next week or two. I slept in her bed. I just–it’s the closest I could feel to her, so. 

    Anderson Cooper: Did that feeling though of the room providing comfort, did that last for a long time?

    Cindy Muehlberger: Yes.

    Bryan Muehlberger: Oh yeah–

    Cindy Muehlberger: Always. Yeah.

    Bryan Muehlberger: Always.

    Gracie Muehlberger and Hallie Scruggs’ rooms are two of eight that were photographed as part of the project begun by Steve Hartman, who began covering these tragedies for CBS News 28 years ago. This was his first, a shooting at a high school in Pearl, Mississippi, two years before the massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. 

    Steve Hartman

    Steve Hartman

    60 Minutes


    Steve Hartman: It was news, at the time. A school shooting was actually big news.

    Anderson Cooper: As opposed to now?

    Steve Hartman: As opposed to now. It still gets coverage, but it’s usually a day or two. And people forget about them, I’d say, by the end of the week, many times.

    Anderson Cooper: Initially, in your mind, what was the idea?

    Steve Hartman: I wanted to shake people out of this numbness that I’ve– that I was feeling whenever there was a school shooting. Now, I was moving on quickly. I was forgetting the names of the children who were lost. And I knew the country was doing the same.

    So seven years ago, he began writing letters to parents asking to photograph their murdered children’s rooms. 

    Steve Hartman: Because when you go into a kid’s room, you go into my kid’s room, you see their whole history. You see every dream, every desire, everything they value. It’s all there on the walls and sitting on the shelves.

    Anderson Cooper: Or scattered on the floor.

    Steve Hartman: Or scattered on the floor, in some cases. It’s all there. And I don’t think there’s really a better way to get to know a kid and to remember a life than to look around that room, to stand in that space.

    Eight families whose children were killed in five different schools agreed to let photographer Lou Bopp into their kids’ rooms. At a recent exhibit in New York, he showed us some of the 10,000 photos he’s taken.

    Lou Bopp: You know I’m trying to take a picture of a– of a– of a child who’s not there.

    Dominic Blackwell’s room is still filled with Spongebob. He was killed, along with Gracie Muehlberger, at Saugus High School. Dominic was 14. A basket of his laundry still waits to be washed. A toothpaste tube remains uncapped in the bathroom of 14-year-old Alyssa Alhadeff, killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

    Charlotte Bacon loved pink. She was 6, killed at Sandy Hook. There’s a library book in her room that’s now 13 years overdue.

    Lou Bopp: If that’s not a little girl’s room, I don’t know what is. 

    Lou Bopp: And even this. This to me, it’s so poignant, the way the head is tilted down. 

    Anderson Cooper: It’s such a reminder– that while everybody else moves on– from what is a story to them the– the families never move on.

    Lou Bopp

    Lou Bopp took thousands of photos for the project.

    60 Minutes


    Steve Hartman: That’s part of the reason the families did agree because it’s very frustrating for them when the country moves on. And they certainly haven’t moved on and will never move on.

    Anderson Cooper: I think there’s such weight in– for these parents in being the holders of the memory, that they are the only ones who remember–excuse me–

    Steve Hartman: It’s okay. What are you thinking about?

    Anderson Cooper: Whew. I’ve been in a lot of these rooms, as well. And there’s such sadness in being the last ones left to remember everything about this child.

    Steve Hartman: And that’s why they can’t surrender the rooms, because you surrender the rooms and that’s just another piece of their kid that’s gone.

    Steve Hartman’s project is now the subject of an upcoming documentary on Netflix. It follows him and Lou Bopp as they travel across the country, visiting rooms, including Dominic Blackwell’s and Gracie Muehlberger’s.

    When Bryan and Cindy Muehlberger received Steve’s letter in 2024, they were considering moving — but didn’t know how they could leave their daughter’s room behind. 

    Anderson Cooper: How much of the discussion was about, “What do we do with the room?”

    Bryan Muehlberger: I would say that was the primary driver of– of us not moving sooner. I mean, after the– the shooting we– we wanted to get outta town.

    Anderson Cooper: But you didn’t want to leave that room.

    Cindy Muehlberger: Right–

    Bryan Muehlberger: But we didn’t want to leave that room, yeah. You know, it’s, like, do you take a lotta pictures of it and then try to recreate it somewhere else? We didn’t know what to do with it. And it really wasn’t until this opportunity to work with Steve on this film that we started feeling a peace about it.

    Earlier this year, the Muehlbergers felt ready. They sold their house and packed up Gracie’s room. They found mementos, artwork, and cards she made they hadn’t seen in years.

    For now, they’ve placed them in a storage unit, while they build a new home, and a new life in Georgia.

    Anderson Cooper: When you found this did you– did you know how you wanted to kind of incorporate Gracie?

    Bryan Muehlberger: Not initially.

    In September, they showed us the plot of land where they’ll live, and an area they are going to create called “Gracie’s Point.” 

    Anderson Cooper with the Muehlbergers at Gracie's Point

    Anderson Cooper with the Muehlbergers at Gracie’s Point

    60 Minutes


    Anderson Cooper: So this is going to be Gracie’s Point?

    Bryan Muehlberger: Yeah, this kinda area right here. Where when you’re out here you know all you’ve got is nature and the water.

    Anderson Cooper: And a place for a fire pit, a place where people can come together?

    Bryan Muehlberger: Yeah, come together. She loved doin’ s’mores and things like that.

    Anderson Cooper: It could not be a more beautiful spot.

    Cindy Muehlberger: So peaceful, which is what we were lookin’ for.

    Anderson Cooper: Is this project over for you? 

    Steve Hartman: No. If parents want us to, we’ll continue to document the rooms, just so they have the pictures. I wish this project would end, but I don’t anticipate it will.

    Back in Nashville, Chad and Jada Scruggs have no plans to change Hallie’s room but they did send some of her drawings and journals to an artist, Brenda Bogart, who created this collage portrait of her. 

     Jada Scruggs: Everything on this canvas is something that was made by Hallie’s hand. Brenda went through and noticed a theme of, “I am happy. I am happy. I am happy.”

    Anderson Cooper: Wow.

    Jada Scruggs: She pretty much ended every journal entry with, “I am happy.” She wanted to make sure that that got put on Hallie.

    Anderson Cooper: When people see the photos, of Hallie’s room, what would you like them to take away?

    Chad Scruggs: This is not a generic person, you know? It’s someone that uniquely bore God’s image in the world and–irreplaceable. And we just want you to know her, you know? She’s worth being known. We don’t have a lot of aspirations, beyond that. We want you to come step inside of our world for a moment, so.

    Anderson Cooper: Step inside the sadness?

    Chad Scruggs: Yeah.

    Jada Scruggs: And feel it. 

    Chad Scruggs: People can talk about solutions. But until they feel the weight of the problem, I don’t know how to really talk about solutions.

    If you or someone you know is struggling with the loss of a child, support networks are available.  

    Produced by Katie Brennan. Associate producer, Matthew Riley. Broadcast associate, Grace Conley. Edited by Matthew Lev.

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  • Parents share emotional look inside empty bedrooms of children killed in school shootings

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    Jada Scruggs sometimes wonders what she and her husband Chad will do with the empty room left behind by her daughter, 9-year-old Hallie, who was killed in a 2023 Nashville school shooting.

    Hallie’s room remains as she left it that Monday morning. For her parents, Hallie’s bedroom is a devastating reminder of what was taken from them, and of who their daughter was. There are Legos, Tennessee football memorabilia, and the books Hallie read together with her mom at night. 

    “All these physical things are tangible ways of reminding me, like, she was real. She was here. She lived with us,” Scruggs said. “In some ways, this room kinda holds the space for her.”

    Hallie’s bedroom is one of several documented by CBS News’ correspondent Steve Hartman and photographer Lou Bopp, who spent the last seven years asking parents whose children were killed in school shootings for permission to take pictures of all the empty rooms they’ve left behind.

    “Empty Rooms”

    Hallie was killed along with two classmates, Evelyn Dieckhaus and William Kinney, in a shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville on March 27, 2023. Hallie’s father, Chad Scruggs, was drawn to his daughter’s room the day she was killed.

    “I went into her room to lay on her bed to smell. I knew that would go,” he said. 

    Jada Scruggs said she visits her daughter’s room less frequently now, but her feelings when she goes in haven’t changed. To Chag Scruggs, the room now feels like an “indication of absence.” 

    “It feels more like a relic now,” he said.

    A photo of Hallie Scruggs

    60 Minutes


    Some 2,000 miles away, in Santa Clarita, California, Gracie Muehlberger’s bedroom serves as a reminder for her parents. The 15-year-old, killed six years ago in the Saugus High School shooting, adored her brothers and her Vans sneakers. 

    Parents Cindy and Bryan Muehlberger went to her room right after they got home from the hospital. 

    “That’s where I spent, like, the next week or two. I slept in her bed,” Cindy Muehlberger said.

    Dominic Blackwell, a 14-year-old killed alongside Gracie, left behind a room filled with SpongeBob stuffed animals. A basket of his laundry still waits to be washed. 

    A toothpaste tube remains uncapped in the bathroom of 14-year-old Alyssa Alhadeff, who was killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in 2018. 

    There’s a library book, 13 years overdue, in the bedroom of Charlotte Bacon, who was killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012. 

    Why it was important to document the rooms left behind 

    The rooms are among eight that were photographed as part of the project created by Hartman, who began covering these tragedies for CBS News 28 years ago. He first covered a shooting at a high school in Pearl, Mississippi, two years before the massacre at Columbine High School. 

    At the time, the shooting was big news, with ongoing coverage. Hartman said that’s often not the case for school shootings today. 

    “It still gets coverage, but it’s usually a day or two. And people forget about them, I’d say, by the end of the week, many times,” Hartman said. 

    That is what sparked the idea for his project.

    Click here to explore the interactive feature.

    So seven years ago, he began writing letters to parents asking to photograph their murdered children’s rooms. 

    “I don’t think there’s really a better way to get to know a kid and to remember a life than to look around that room, to stand in that space,” he said. 

    “I wanted to shake people out of this numbness that I was feeling whenever there was a school shooting,” Hartman said. “I was moving on quickly. I was forgetting the names of the children who were lost. And I knew the country was doing the same.”

    Eight families whose children were killed in five different schools agreed to let photographer Lou Bopp into their kids’ rooms. A recent exhibit in New York displayed some of the 10,000 photos he’s taken.

    “I’m trying to take a picture of a child who’s not there,” Bopp said.

    The photographs serve as a reminder that while the country moves on, the families left behind never do, Hartman said. 

    The project is now the subject of a documentary premiering on Netflix Dec. 1. It follows Hartman and Bopp as they travel across the country, visiting rooms.

    What’s next for parents and the project

    The Muehlbergers were considering moving when they got Hartman’s letter in 2024 but they didn’t know if they could leave Gracie’s room behind. 

    “It’s, like, do you take a lotta pictures of it and then try to recreate it somewhere else? We didn’t know what to do with it. And it really wasn’t until this opportunity to work with Steve on this film that we started feeling a peace about it,” Bryan Muehlberger said. 

    Earlier this year, the Muehlbergers sold their house and packed up Gracie’s room. They found mementos, artwork, and cards she had made that they hadn’t seen in years. For now, they’ve placed them in a storage unit, while they build a new life in Georgia.

    They’ve designated an outdoor area on the plot of land where they’re building a new home as “Gracie’s Point.” 

    “So peaceful, which is what we were looking for,” Cindy Muehlberger said. 

    Anderson Cooper with the Muehlbergers at Gracie's Point

    Anderson Cooper with the Muehlbergers at Gracie’s Point

    60 Minutes


    For Hartman, the project isn’t over. 

    “If parents want us to, we’ll continue to document the rooms, just so they have the pictures,” Hartman said. “I wish this project would end, but I don’t anticipate it will.”

    More than 160 children have been killed in school shootings across the U.S. since the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

    Back in Nashville, the Scruggs have no plans to change Hallie’s room but they did send some of her drawings and journals to an artist, Brenda Bogart, who created a collage portrait of her. 

    “Everything on this canvas is something that was made by Hallie’s hand,” Jada Scruggs said. “Brenda went through and noticed a theme of, ‘I am happy. I am happy. I am happy.’”

    Chad and Jada Scruggs hope the images of Hallie’s room will help people better understand the person she was. . 

    “This is not a generic person, you know? It’s someone that uniquely bore God’s image in the world and [was] irreplaceable,” Chad Scruggs said. “We just want you to know her, you know? She’s worth being known.”

    If you or someone you know is struggling with the loss of a child, support networks are available.  

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  • Parkland School Massacre Survivor Now Owns Shooter’s Name

    Parkland School Massacre Survivor Now Owns Shooter’s Name

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    FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — The most severely wounded survivor of the 2018 massacre at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School now owns shooter Nikolas Cruz’s name, and Cruz cannot give any interviews without his permission, under a settlement reached in a lawsuit.

    Under his recent settlement with Anthony Borges, Cruz must also turn over any money he might receive as a beneficiary of a relative’s life insurance policy, participate in any scientific studies of mass shooters and donate his body to science after his death.

    The agreement means that Cruz, 25, cannot benefit from or cooperate with any movies, TV shows, books or other media productions without Borges’ permission. Cruz is serving consecutive life sentences at an undisclosed prison for each of the 17 murders and 17 attempted murders he committed inside a three-story classroom building on Feb. 14, 2018.

    “We just wanted to shut him down so we never have to hear about him again,” Borges’ attorney, Alex Arreaza, said Thursday.

    Borges, now 21, was shot five times in the back and legs and collapsed in the middle of the third-floor hallway. Video shows that Cruz pointed his rifle at Borges as he lay on the floor, but unlike most of the other victims he walked past, did not shoot him a second time. Arreaza said he asked Cruz why he didn’t shoot Borges again, but he didn’t remember.

    A promising soccer player before the shooting, Borges has undergone more than a dozen surgeries and still lives in pain. He received donations, a $1.25 million settlement from the Broward County school district and an undisclosed settlement from the FBI for their failures in preventing the shooting. Arreaza said it is difficult to say whether Borges has received enough money to cover his future medical expenses.

    Several other families also sued Cruz, and a mini-trial had been scheduled for next month to assess damages against him. That trial has been canceled, Arreaza said. David Brill, the attorney representing the other families, did not return a phone call and two email messages seeking comment.

    Florida already has laws that prohibit inmates from keeping any proceeds related to their crimes, including any writings or artwork they might produce in prison. In addition, Judge Elizabeth Scherer, when she sentenced Cruz, ordered that any money placed in his prison commissary account be seized to pay restitution to the victims and their families and all court and investigation costs. In total, that would be millions of dollars.

    Arreaza said he feared that without the settlement, Cruz could find a way around the law and the judge’s order or assign any money he might receive to a relative or other person.

    Borges, the families of those Cruz murdered and other survivors are also suing former Broward County sheriff’s deputy Scot Peterson, the sheriff’s office and two former school security guards, alleging they failed to protect the students and staff. No trial date has been set. Peterson was acquitted of criminal charges last year.

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  • Parkland school shooting site demolition begins

    Parkland school shooting site demolition begins

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    Parkland school shooting site demolition begins – CBS News


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    Family members of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting victims watched as crews began demolishing the site of the 2018 massacre. CBS News Miami’s Ted Scouten reports from Parkland, Florida.

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  • Parkland Families, Students Watch As Demolition Begins At School Shooting Site

    Parkland Families, Students Watch As Demolition Begins At School Shooting Site

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    Demolition efforts began Friday at the site of the three-story classroom building in Parkland, Florida, where 17 people were fatally shot on Valentine’s Day 2018.

    The demolition at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, which had been postponed from Thursday due to rain and flooding, started with pieces of the structure’s top floor being pulled away by machinery. Family members of the victims were invited to watch, with school faculty, students and elected officials also in attendance.

    “This is the end to the story, the period at the end of it,” Dylan Persaud, a former student who was at the school on the day of the shooting, told the Miami Herald while watching the demolition. “But you can never forget something like this.”

    A woman walks past the site of the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida, that killed 17 people.

    South Florida Sun-Sentinel via Getty Images

    Officials have not yet said what will replace the building, whose demolition is expected to continue over the coming weeks while students are out for summer break.

    The building had been preserved as evidence in the shooter’s trial and has since sat closed off and boarded up, still riddled with bullet holes. It was only recently that long-abandoned objects, like textbooks, laptops, deflated Valentine’s Day balloons and wilted flowers, were cleared out ahead of the demolition, The Associated Press reported.

    Victims’ families, school and law enforcement officials, and politicians, including Vice President Kamala Harris, had all toured the building amid efforts to strengthen gun laws and school safety.

    Vice President Kamala Harris, seen in March 2024, views a memorial to the 17 people who were killed in 2018 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
    Vice President Kamala Harris, seen in March 2024, views a memorial to the 17 people who were killed in 2018 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

    DREW ANGERER via Getty Images

    “It’s important for that building to be taken down, so not only can I start to heal but also the community at large,” Lori Alhadeff — whose 14-year-old daughter, Alyssa, was killed in the shooting and who now chairs the Broward County School Board — told The New York Times.

    Aisha Hashmi, who graduated this month, was in sixth grade when the shooting happened. But she said her older siblings were on campus when the shooting happened, and students would still have to pass by the empty building in the years after.

    “Whenever I would walk past it, it was just kind of eerie,” she told The Associated Press.

    A fence surrounding the building helped block it from view, but students could peer into its windows when the wind blew back the fence’s screening, she said.

    “It is heartbreaking to see and then have to go sit in your English class,” said Hashmi.

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  • Local congressman Maxwell Frost honors Parkland victims, introduces new gun legislation

    Local congressman Maxwell Frost honors Parkland victims, introduces new gun legislation

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    Local congressman Maxwell Frost honors Parkland victims, introduces new gun legislation

    Feb. 14, 2024, marks six years since 17 people were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Local congressman Frost held a news conference and introduced a new bill alongside Reps. Jared Moskowitz to honor all the lives lost in Parkland and other gun violence attacks. The bill is called the Identify Gun Stores Act, which prevents states from prohibiting credit card companies from establishing and implementing codes that track suspicions gun and ammunition purchases. Frost said this could’ve prevented the mass shooting that occurred in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and the Orlando Pulse Club.”If we were able to allow credit card companies to flag these sorts of purchases and track them, we could have probably prevented the Pulse nightclub massacre. The Pulse nightclub shooter walked in there with an assault weapon and murdered and killed in cold blood, 49 angels due to armed bigotry and armed hate,” Frost said. “He spent $26,000 in the days leading up to the shooting to accumulate all of his ammo and weapons. Something like that would have been flagged by the credit card company using the merchant category code and could have potentially saved lives.”The bill would override state bills, like the one in Florida that currently prevents credit card companies from using a separate ‘merchant category code’ for sales at gun businesses. State Rep. Randy Fine (R)-Brevard County believes credit card companies shouldn’t have that power.”I don’t think it’s the role of credit card companies to oversee what Americans choose to spend their money on,” Fine said. “What you think is suspicious might be different than what I may think is suspicious, and in Florida we think credit card companies should stick to offering credit.”Rep. Frost said they are going to fight to get this passed on the house floor. Top headlines: School District: Student’s head injury ‘possibly caused by vape’ in brawl at Central Florida school Great Danes being investigated as dangerous after several attacks in St. Cloud Police: South Florida mall secure after reports of shots fired

    Feb. 14, 2024, marks six years since 17 people were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

    Local congressman Frost held a news conference and introduced a new bill alongside Reps. Jared Moskowitz to honor all the lives lost in Parkland and other gun violence attacks.

    The bill is called the _Identify_Gun_Stores_Act_FROSFL_024.pdf” target=”_blank”>Identify Gun Stores Act, which prevents states from prohibiting credit card companies from establishing and implementing codes that track suspicions gun and ammunition purchases.

    Frost said this could’ve prevented the mass shooting that occurred in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and the Orlando Pulse Club.

    “If we were able to allow credit card companies to flag these sorts of purchases and track them, we could have probably prevented the Pulse nightclub massacre. The Pulse nightclub shooter walked in there with an assault weapon and murdered and killed in cold blood, 49 angels due to armed bigotry and armed hate,” Frost said. “He spent $26,000 in the days leading up to the shooting to accumulate all of his ammo and weapons. Something like that would have been flagged by the credit card company using the merchant category code and could have potentially saved lives.”

    The bill would override state bills, like the one in Florida that currently prevents credit card companies from using a separate ‘merchant category code’ for sales at gun businesses.

    State Rep. Randy Fine (R)-Brevard County believes credit card companies shouldn’t have that power.

    “I don’t think it’s the role of credit card companies to oversee what Americans choose to spend their money on,” Fine said. “What you think is suspicious might be different than what I may think is suspicious, and in Florida we think credit card companies should stick to offering credit.”

    Rep. Frost said they are going to fight to get this passed on the house floor.

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  • Florida jury finds former deputy not guilty of inaction during 2018 Parkland massacre

    Florida jury finds former deputy not guilty of inaction during 2018 Parkland massacre

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    Florida jury finds former deputy not guilty of inaction during 2018 Parkland massacre – CBS News


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    Scot Peterson, a former Broward County Sheriff’s deputy who was at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, during the 2018 mass shooting was found not guilty of multiple counts, including child neglect and culpable negligence. Prosecutors said that Peterson had failed to confront the gunman during the shooting, in which 17 people were killed. Manuel Bojorquez has the latest.

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  • Parkland Deputy Would Have Seen Bodies If He Opened Door, Officer Testifies

    Parkland Deputy Would Have Seen Bodies If He Opened Door, Officer Testifies

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    FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A former Florida sheriff’s deputy who says he couldn’t pinpoint the shooter during the Parkland high school massacre would have seen bodies if he opened a building’s door instead of backing away, a police officer testified Tuesday at the deputy’s trial.

    Sunrise Police Lt. Craig Cardinale said when he arrived at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School from his nearby home, he immediately ran to the three-story 1200 building because that’s where his son was attending class, ignoring the direction of Broward County deputies who told him it was too dangerous.

    He said he and other officers went to the door that Deputy Scot Peterson had gotten within 10 yards (9 meters) of minutes earlier and could see and smell gunpowder smoke. They didn’t know that 14 students and three staff members were already dead or dying and that shooter Nikolas Cruz had fled.

    “I immediately opened the door,” Cardinale testified for the prosecution. “About 25 feet in front of me there were a couple bodies on the floor in clear sight.”

    Prosecutors allege that Peterson, the school’s assigned deputy, knew the shooter was inside the 1200 building but chose not to confront him during the six-minute attack on Feb. 14, 2018. Peterson insists that because of the gunshots’ echoes, he did not know the shooter’s location and took cover next to an adjoining building while he tried to pinpoint the sounds and summon help. Peterson stayed there for 40 minutes, long after the shots ended and other officers had stormed inside.

    Peterson, 60, could face almost 100 years in prison and lose his $104,000 annual pension if convicted of felony child neglect, the most serious charges he faces. He is the first law enforcement agent in U.S. history ever tried for an alleged failure to act during a school shooting. He retired shortly after the shooting before being retroactively fired.

    Earlier Tuesday, Kelvin Greenleaf, an unarmed school security supervisor, testified that he, Peterson and another unarmed guard had sped to the 1200 building in golf cart from the main office, arriving less than two minutes after the shots started.

    Greenleaf said that when he and Peterson got off the cart about 10 yards from the 1200 building, it was clear to him the shots from Cruz’s AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle were coming from inside because they were loud.

    Peterson drew his handgun, telling Greenleaf to back away. He said Peterson then took cover with him next to an adjoining building.

    “He just had a blank look on his face. It was so much going on and I could imagine the stress, the pressure he was on,” said Greenleaf, who has since retired.

    Cardinale said that when he spotted Peterson after it became clear the shooting was over, the deputy was pacing, his head down and muttering, “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe this.” When Cardinale asked Peterson who he was, he replied he was the school’s security deputy. Cardinale said he replied with an obscenity and told Peterson he should have been inside the building.

    “It’s a stressful time for everybody in that situation. It’s a bad day to be a police officer, but you go and do your job,” Cardinale said.

    Peterson sat with his arms crossed, shaking his head, during Cardinale’s testimony, sometimes passing notes to his attorney, Mark Eiglarsh.

    Under cross-examination by Eiglarsh, Greenleaf testified that in seven years working with Peterson he never showed cowardice, immediately breaking up student fights, and never failed to perform his duties.

    “He did a great job. Anytime I needed him for searches, fights, stolen cellphones — he was always there,” Greenleaf said.

    Another security guard, Elliot Bonner, under cross-examination agreed that he frequently had problems with echoes in that area of the school when students set off firecrackers or blasted air horns. The echoes made it difficult to locate those students, he said.

    Peterson is charged in connection with failing to confront Cruz before he reached the third floor, where six of the victims died. He is not charged in connection with the 11 people fatally shot on the first floor before he reached the building.

    Prosecutors intend to conclude their two-week presentation Wednesday. They have called to the witness stand students, teachers and law enforcement officers who have testified about the horror they experienced and how they knew where Cruz was. They also called a training supervisor who said Peterson failed to follow the protocols for confronting an active shooter.

    Eiglarsh has said he intends to call about two dozen witnesses who will testify they were also uncertain of where the shots were coming from. Because of scheduling conflicts, a few of them have already testified, including a deputy who arrived at the school during the shooting. He thought the shots were coming from the football field, more than 100 yards (90 meters) from the 1200 building.

    For Peterson to be convicted of child neglect, prosecutors must first show he was legally a caregiver to the juvenile students, defined by Florida law as “a parent, adult household member or other person responsible for a child’s welfare.”

    If jurors find Peterson was a caregiver, they must determine whether he made a “reasonable effort” to protect the children or failed to provide necessary care.

    Cruz, a 24-year-old former student, pleaded guilty and last year received a life sentence, avoiding a death sentence when his jury could not unanimously agree he deserved execution.

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  • Ex-Florida Deputy Charged With Failing To Confront Parkland Shooter Says He’s Eager For Trial

    Ex-Florida Deputy Charged With Failing To Confront Parkland Shooter Says He’s Eager For Trial

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    FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A fired Florida sheriff’s deputy charged with failing to confront the gunman who murdered 17 at a Parkland high school five years ago said Monday that he is “looking forward” to his trial, which is scheduled to start next week.

    Former Broward County sheriff’s deputy Scot Peterson told reporters after a court hearing that the public needs to know he did everything he could as Nikolas Cruz murdered 14 students and three staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018.

    Peterson, the deputy then assigned to the school, says he didn’t charge into the three-story classroom building during the six-minute massacre because he thought the dozens of shots fired were coming from outside. He was armed with a handgun at the time.

    Some victims’ parents have labeled Peterson “the coward of Broward.” Free on bail, he now lives in North Carolina and could face nearly a century in prison if convicted.

    “I want the truth to come out and if it is going to be through a trial, so be it. I’m eager,” Peterson said. “Not only the people in Florida, the country, most importantly the families, they need to know the truth about what happened, because unfortunately it has never been told.”

    Peterson, 60, is charged with seven counts of child neglect and three counts of culpable negligence for the 10 people Cruz shot on the third floor, six of them fatally, after Peterson arrived at the building. The former deputy is not charged in connection with the 11 killed and 13 wounded on the first floor before he got there.

    Prosecutors say Peterson’s actions show he knew the shots were coming from inside and that he could have prevented some of the shootings if he had confronted Cruz, who was armed with an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle.

    Peterson’s attorney, Mark Eiglarsh, said there are 22 defense witnesses who will testify that they also thought the shots were coming from somewhere other than inside the classroom building.

    “He’s not the only one who heard those shots and believe they were coming from a different location,” Eiglarsh said.

    Peterson retired shortly after the shooting, was fired retroactively and charged a year later.

    Jury selection is scheduled to start May 31 with opening statements in early June. The trial could last until August.

    During Monday’s hearing, Circuit Judge Martin Fein rejected Eiglarsh’s request to delay the trial until August. The attorney said some of his witnesses have vacations and other conflicts and say they won’t appear. Fein said if the witnesses are subpoenaed, they have no choice.

    The judge also expressed skepticism of the prosecution’s request to have jurors tour the classroom building’s blood-stained halls, something Cruz’s jury did during his penalty trial last year. The building has been maintained and sealed since days after the shooting and is expected to be torn down after Peterson’s trial.

    Prosecutor Steven Klinger told the judge that the jurors need to see the distances inside the building. But Fein seemed to agree with Eiglarsh, who says there is sufficient video and photo evidence to demonstrate the distances and that having jurors tour the building would only inflame their emotions. Fein said he would issue his ruling later.

    It is likely, however, that the jury will be be taken to the school to see the outside area where Peterson stood during most of the attack.

    To gain a conviction, prosecutors must convince jurors that Peterson knew the gunman was firing inside the building and that his actions and inaction exposed more victims to harm.

    Security videos show that 36 seconds after the attack began, Peterson left his office about 100 yards (92 meters) from the building and jumped into a cart with two unarmed civilian security guards, according to a state report. They arrived at the crime scene a minute later.

    Peterson got out of the cart near the classroom building’s eastern first-floor doorway to the first-floor hallway while the gunman was at the opposite end, firing numerous shots.

    Peterson, his handgun drawn, didn’t open the door. Instead, he took cover outside next to a neighboring building.

    “It was so loud and so close. I thought it was probably outside,” Peterson told investigators two days after the shooting.

    He said he heard “two, three” shots, though security guards told investigators they heard many more, clearly coming from inside the building.

    Inside, Cruz climbed to the building’s upper floors, firing approximately 75 more shots over nearly four minutes.

    Cruz pleaded guilty to the murders in 2021, but the jury in his penalty trial could not unanimously agree that he deserved a death sentence. The 24-year-old former Stoneman Douglas student was sentenced instead to life in prison.

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  • Mother of teen killed in Parkland shooting appeals to Congress for gun reform

    Mother of teen killed in Parkland shooting appeals to Congress for gun reform

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    Mother of teen killed in Parkland shooting appeals to Congress for gun reform – CBS News


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    Patricia Oliver’s teen son, Joaquin, was one of 17 people killed in the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. This week, Oliver and her husband walked the halls of Congress encouraging lawmakers to read their son’s story. Nikole Killion has their story.

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  • Jury hears closing arguments in sentencing trial for Parkland school shooter

    Jury hears closing arguments in sentencing trial for Parkland school shooter

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    Jury hears closing arguments in sentencing trial for Parkland school shooter – CBS News


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    A Florida jury will decide whether the convicted gunman in the Parkland school massacre should receive the death sentence after hearing closing arguments in his sentencing trial Tuesday. David Weinstein, a partner at Jones Walker LLP, and a former federal prosecutor, joined CBS News to discuss the trial.

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  • Watch Live: Closing arguments begin in the penalty trial of the Parkland school shooter

    Watch Live: Closing arguments begin in the penalty trial of the Parkland school shooter

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    Warning: This video may contain strong language and violent content that some may find disturbing.

    Closing arguments began Tuesday in the penalty trial of the man who has admitted to one of the nation’s deadliest school shootings. Seventeen people were killed and 17 others wounded in the Feb. 14, 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

    The seven-man, five-woman jury will have to decide if Nikolas Cruz, now 24, will get the death penalty or life without parole. He pleaded guilty in 2021. 

    The jury must be unanimous on at least one count for the admitted killer to get the death sentence.

    The trial started in July after months of delays because of the COVID-19 pandemic. During months of testimony, the defense has argued the shooter suffered from brain damage because his birth mother drank heavily during pregnancy. He was adopted at birth by a couple who later also adopted his half-brother. Witnesses, including his half-sister, testified to his birth mother’s substance abuse and to his history of violent behavior.

    Prosecutors argued he suffers from antisocial personality disorder and knew what he was doing. They focused their case on the shooting itself, including taking the jury to the largely untouched high school campus to retrace his steps.

    The jury also heard from the families of victims and from the shooter himself, via video of jailhouse interviews with a forensic psychiatrist and a neuropsychologist. He shared graphic details with the two experts, including about his preparations and memories of the massacre itself.

    Debbi Hixon, whose husband, athletic director Chris Hixon, was killed during the mass shooting, told CBS Miami she is glad the trial is “near an end.”

    “Having a death sentence will bring some justice and send a message this is intolerable,” she said. 

    Deliberations are expected to start Wednesday.

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  • Woman charged with setting fire at apartment that killed 4

    Woman charged with setting fire at apartment that killed 4

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    A former tenant is heading to court to face arson and murder charges in connection with a fire at a Massachusetts apartment building that claimed the lives of four people, including a man who had sued right-wing radio host Alex Jones’ Infowars website

    WORCESTER, Mass. — A former tenant is heading to court Friday to face arson and murder charges in connection with a fire at a Massachusetts apartment building last May that claimed the lives of four people, including a man who had sued right-wing radio host Alex Jones ‘ Infowars website.

    Yvonne Ngoiri, 36, faces four counts of second-degree murder and was also indicted on multiple assault charges, the office of Worcester District Attorney Joseph Early Jr. said in a statement late Thursday. It was not immediately clear if she had an attorney who could comment.

    The cause of the fire at the three-story, six-unit building in Worcester in the early morning hours of May 14 was determined to be “incendiary,” according to the district attorney’s office, but no motive was disclosed.

    The victims have previously been identified as Joseph Garchali, 47; Christopher Lozeau, 53; Vincent Page, 41; and Marcel Fontaine, 29. They died of smoke inhalation and thermal injuries, authorities said.

    In addition, several residents were injured, including one who jumped from a third-story window. The building had about 20 tenants.

    Fontaine sued Infowars in Texas in 2018. The complaint, seeking unspecified damages, said Infowars posted his photograph on its website the day of the shooting in Parkland, Florida, depicting him as the gunman at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where 17 people died.

    Lawyers for Infowars countered that Fontaine failed to show any evidence of malice or any injury because of his photo’s publication.

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  • Anonymous Alerts Program Fits the Bill for the Recently Passed STOP School Violence Act

    Anonymous Alerts Program Fits the Bill for the Recently Passed STOP School Violence Act

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    The STOP School Violence Act Prioritizes Funding for Anonymous Reporting Programs in Schools

    Press Release
    –


    updated: Mar 22, 2018


    WHITE PLAINS, N.Y., March 22, 2018 (Newswire.com)
    –
     The U.S. House of Representatives has overwhelmingly passed HR 4909 to authorize $50 million in federal funding that will bring programs like the Anonymous Alerts reporting system to schools across the country, so students and adults who “See Something, Can Do Something” by anonymously reporting warning signs of mental health issues, bullying and possible violence before a tragedy can occur.

    The Federal Act calls for schools to operate “anonymous reporting systems for threats of school violence, including mobile telephone applications, hotlines, and Internet websites”.

    Over the past 5+ years, our Anonymous Alerts anti-bullying and safety reporting system has rapidly expanded throughout the United States, Canada and abroad working with the largest school districts to the smallest school districts helping them to create safer school climates.

    T. Gregory Bender, President & CEO

    “Over the past 5-plus years, our Anonymous Alerts anti-bullying and safety reporting system has rapidly expanded throughout the United States, Canada and abroad working with the largest school districts to the smallest school districts helping them to create safer school climates,” said T. Gregory Bender, President and CEO.

    “With our free-to-download Anonymous Alerts reporting system, students, parents, and staff can anonymously send incident reports directly to school personnel for situations occurring on or off school grounds, or on social media. With high priority safety threats, reports are automatically sent to law enforcement for quick action.”

    Hundreds of thousands of students walked out of class on Wednesday, March 14, 2018 to demand action from Congress on school safety. The walkout was held on the one-month anniversary of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. On that same day, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the STOP School Violence Act of 2018 in a bipartisan vote of 407 to 10.

    To learn more about Anonymous Alerts, please visit www.anonymousalerts.com.

    About Anonymous Alerts
    The Anonymous Alerts® award-winning and patented mobile applications platform was developed to encourage students to quickly report bullying, mental health concerns, drug use/dealing, campus safety threats, and more directly to school and college officials, who can take quick action. The mobile apps and systems are completely customizable for each client and include intuitive Incident Management® tools built for any level user. Anonymous Alerts® is Patented (U.S. Patent No. 9,071,579) with additional patents pending. Anonymous Alerts, LLC is based in White Plains, New York and is rapidly growing throughout the United States and abroad. For more information, please visit www.anonymousalerts.com or call 914-220-8326.

    Contact
    Public Relations
    Anonymous Alerts
    relations@anonymousalerts.com
    914.220.8326

    Source: Anonymous Alerts

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