Kamala Harris came face to face with the grim aftermath of the notorious Parkland High School massacre on Saturday when parents showed her the “time capsule” where their children were shot to death.
The school building in South Florida remains as it was on Valentine’s Day 2018, when former student Nikolas Cruz, 19, went on a rampage with an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle, killing 14 students and three members of the staff.
The vice president appeared close to tears as she walked past parents holding photographs of their dead children to give a speech promoting “red flag laws” introduced after the massacre.
“She understands how important gun violence prevention is to us,” said Beigel Schulman, whose son Scott, 35, was killed while trying to lead students to safety from his geography class.
“But when you walk into the actual building and see what really happened, it doesn’t matter if it was six years later, it really affects you.”
Vice President Kamala Harris walked past grieving parents holding photos of their children to deliver her speech at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
PARKLAND SCHOOL SHOOTING VICTIMS: Front row from left: Jaime Guttenberg, Nicholas Dworet, Martin Duque, Meadow Pollack, Cara Loughran — Second row from left: Alyssa Alhadeff, Luke Hoyer, Joaquín Oliver, Gina Montalto — Third row from left: Alaina Petty, Carmen Schentrup, Peter Wang, Alex Schachter – Fourth row L: Helena Ramsey, Scott Beigel, Aaron Feis, Chris Hixon
Harris toured pristine classrooms and visited a memorial to the victims
The young teacher’s papers remain on his desk in the boarded-up Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School building, which has been preserved for a series of criminal trials, including that of the school’s deputy sheriff, Scot Peterson, who was acquitted last year. past the charges of having failed to address Cruz.
Students’ laptops, now obsolete, sit open on their desks, collecting dust along with half-eaten snacks. Bullet-riddled doors hang from their hinges in a classroom where a whiteboard where a teacher had written “no excuses allowed.”
It is scheduled to finally be demolished this summer, but in the meantime it has become a classroom for lawmakers studying how to make school buildings safer.
“The building is a time capsule,” said Rep. Jared Moskowitz, who attended the school and has shown his congressional colleagues around.
“They learn about the failures of the building, the failures in the law enforcement response to the shooting, the failures in teacher training, the failures in the shooter’s threat assessments, and the failure of all the warning signs.” .
Cruz, who had recently been expelled from school, fired 140 shots as he prowled the school building during his six-minute attack.
He bought his AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle a year before the murders and told his trial that his planning became serious about seven months in advance as he researched previous mass shooters, saying he tried to learn from their experience.
But he had been thinking about an attack for about five years and said he chose Valentine’s Day to make sure it would never be celebrated at school again.
Nikolas Cruz was seen on security footage when he carried out his 2018 rampage.
Jurors followed Cruz’s path as he moved methodically from floor to floor, shooting through hallways and classrooms.
Cruz shot thirty-four people while wandering around the school building with his AR-15 style weapon.
Students were ordered to keep their hands up as they fled the school in terror.
Chaos reigned as parents and relatives struggled to discover if their loved ones were alive.
More than 3,000 students were in class when Cruz pointed his gun at the school.
He purchased 10 guns after turning 18, but local authorities and the FBI took no action over reports that he was planning a mass shooting.
He became the most prolific school shooter to stand trial after surviving the attack and was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty in 2021.
Florida is among 21 states that introduced “red flag laws” after the killings, allowing courts to confiscate guns from those deemed a danger to themselves or others.
Harris was in Florida to urge more states to adopt the legislation and announce the establishment of the National Resource Center for Extreme Risk Protection Orders.
Of all the states that have passed red flag laws, only six have accepted the offer we have made to them through our federal resource management to assist them with the training and implementation of these red flag laws,’ he said.
‘This National Resource Center will be a place where we provide training to local leaders on how to use alert laws and keep communities safe.
Cruz was sentenced to life in prison after the jury said they could not unanimously agree that the killer, pictured with Deputy Public Defender Melisa McNeill, should be executed.
The survivors, the victims and their families released doves to remember the dead.
“I will continue to advocate for what we need to do in terms of universal background checks and assault weapons bans,” Harris told her audience.
“So these are just some of the ways we can learn from what happened here, and of course I will continue to advocate for what we need to do in terms of universal background checks and assault weapons bans.”
Max Schachter has accompanied politicians and officials on tours of the building where his 14-year-old son Alex was shot to death through his classroom window.
He said NBCMiami that all visitors recognize the importance of making school buildings safer, pointing to Utah, which launched a $100 million program to protect windows and doors after school viewing.
“I couldn’t save Alex, but every time officials go through that building, lives are saved,” he said.