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Monday, February 19, 2018, 18:25
Survivors of deadly school shooting lash out at Trump
By Associated Press
Monday, February 19, 2018, 18:25 By Associated Press

People visit a makeshift memorial outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where 17 students and faculty were killed in Wednesday's mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, Feb 18, 2018. (GERALD HERBERT / AP)

PARKLAND, Florida — Student survivors of the deadly Florida school shooting who hope to become the face of a revived gun control movement are on a potential collision course with President Donald Trump.

Several of the students have criticized the president, whose election was strongly supported by the National Rifle Association and who ran on a platform opposing gun control.

Nikolas Cruz, a 19-year-old who had been expelled from the school, is being held without bail in the Broward County Jail, accused of 17 counts of first-degree murder

Trump spent the weekend at his estate in South Florida, only an hour's drive from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School where 17 people were fatally shot last week. His only mentions of the massacre came in tweets Saturday contending that the FBI was too focused on the Russia investigation to respond to warnings about the alleged shooter and mocking Democrats for failing to pass gun control.

READ MORE: Anger as FBI admits failure to act on Florida gunman

"You're the president. You're supposed to bring this nation together, not divide us," said David Hogg, a 17-year-old student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in South Florida, speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"How dare you," he added.

After more than a day of criticism from the students, the White House said the president would hold a "listening session" with unspecified students Wednesday and meet Thursday with state and local security officials.

Florida politicians, meanwhile, scrambled to produce legislation in response to the Feb 14 attack that killed 17 people. Nikolas Cruz, a 19-year-old who had been expelled from the school, is being held without bail in the Broward County Jail, accused of 17 counts of first-degree murder.

In a TV interview, Republican Senator Marco Rubio embraced a Democratic bill in the Florida legislature to allow courts to temporarily prevent people from having guns if they are determined to be a threat to themselves or others.

Governor Rick Scott, also a Republican, attended a prayer vigil at the First Church Coral Springs, blocks from the shooting site. He is expected to announce a legislative package with GOP lawmakers this week.

Emma Gonzalez, another student survivor, gave an impassioned speech at a weekend rally with a stinging citation of the NRA's US$30 million in expenditures on Trump's behalf in the presidential election. On Sunday she cited Trump, Rubio and Scott by name in a warning to politicians backed by the NRA.

ALSO READ: Poll shows deep rift over gun control in US despite shootings

"Now is the time to get on the right side of this, because this is not something that we are going to let sweep under the carpet," she said on "Meet the Press."

Seeking to increase pressure for gun control, the students plan to visit the state capitol in Tallahassee this week to demand immediate action. They are also calling for anti-gun violence demonstrations in Washington and other cities March 24.

Organizers behind the Women's March, an anti-Trump and female empowerment protest, called for a 17-minute, nationwide walkout by teachers and students on March 14.

Chris Grady, a 19-year-old senior at the Florida school, was one of several students at Sunday's rally near the campus. "The kids in Newtown were too young to understand what happened and were too young to have their own voice," Grady said, referring to the 20 first-graders killed in the 2012 Connecticut school shooting. "We want to be the voice for those kids and thousands of others."

Nyla Hussain, 16, a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, hangs signs on the fence of the school with her mother Heather Hussain, right, in Parkland, Florida, Feb 18, 2018. (GERALD HERBERT / AP )

Not every student at the Florida school was calling for more gun control. James Ciaramello, a freshman in the school's JROTC program, was heartbroken by the massacre but skeptical firearms regulations could have prevented it.

"He's just messed up," Ciaramello said of Cruz, another JROTC member. "I mean, tighter gun control, it's not gonna help. There's always a way around it."

School and government records obtained Sunday show Cruz was diagnosed as developmentally delayed at age 3 and had disciplinary issues dating to middle school. In February 2014, while in 8th grade, Cruz was transferred to a special school for children with emotional and behavioral issues. He stayed there until 10th grade, when he was transferred to Stoneman Douglas. Last year, Cruz was expelled.

On Sept 28, 2016, an investigator from the Florida Department of Children and Families visited Cruz and his mother, Lynda Cruz, after he posted video on Snapchat showing him cutting himself. The report showed that Cruz had written a racial epithet against African-Americans and a Nazi symbol on his book bag, which his mother had forced him to erase. The investigator said Cruz was suffering from depression and on medication and had told Lynda Cruz he planned to buy a gun, but she couldn't determine why.

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