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進入《TAIPEI TIMES》 Grief and anger as Florida prepares to bury victims of school massacre
Suspected school shooter Nikolas Cruz, left, stands with assistant public defender Melisa McNeill, as he makes a video appearance in Broward County court before Judge Kim Theresa Mollica, not pictured, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Thursday. Photo: EPA
/ Reuters, PARKLAND, Florida
As families yesterday prepared to bury victims of another US mass shooting, grief mixed with anger amid signs of possible lapses in school security and indications that law enforcement might have missed clues about the suspected gunman’s plans.
One distraught mother who said she had just spent two hours making funeral preparations for her 14-year-old child expressed disbelief that a gunman could just stroll into school and open fire, and she appealed to US President Donald Trump to take action.
Nikolas Cruz, 19, identified as a former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, who had been expelled for disciplinary problems, walked into the school on Wednesday and opened fire with an assault rifle, killing 17 students and faculty members, and injuring 15 others, police said.
The shooting has raised questions among anguished parents about the adequacy of school security measures and renewed a national debate on Capitol Hill and elsewhere about the epidemic of gun violence in US schools.
“How do we allow a gunman to come into our children’s school? How did they get through security? What security is there?” Lori Alhadeff shouted into the camera in an emotionally raw appearance on CNN.
“The gunman, the crazy person, just walks right into the school, knocks down the window to my child’s door and starts shooting, shooting herm,” cried Alhadeff, whose daughter Alyssa was among the dead.
Cruz, charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder, made a brief initial court appearance on Thursday, in which he was ordered held without bond.
“He’s a broken human being,” his lawyer, public defender Melissa McNeill, told reporters. “He’s sad, he’s mournful, he’s remorseful.”
Cruz may have foreshadowed the attack in a comment on YouTube, investigated by the FBI. The bureau said it received a tip in September last year about the message that read: “I’m going to be a professional school shooter,” by a user named Nikolas Cruz.
However, FBI agents had no information pointing to the “time, location or true identity” of the person behind the message, Robert Lasky, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Jacksonville office, told reporters.
YouTube ultimately removed the material in question, and the FBI’s inquiry was dropped until the name Nikolas Cruz surfaced again in connection with Wednesday’s massacre.
Wednesday’s shooting ranks as the greatest loss of life from school gun violence after the 2012 shooting rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, that left 20 first-graders and six adult educators dead.
“It is not enough to simply take actions that make us feel like we are making a difference,” Trump said at the White House in a speech that emphasized school safety and mental health, while avoiding any mention of gun policy. “We must actually make that difference.”
Democrats in the US House of Representatives criticized the Republican leadership for refusing to take up legislation on tightening background checks for prospective gun buyers.
新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES
Seventeen angels representing the lives lost line the stage before a candlelight vigil honoring the victims of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, on Thursday.
