Latest news with #MarjoryStonemanDouglas
CBS News
23-05-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Peter Wang, teen Junior ROTC cadet killed in Parkland shooting, honored as West Point 2025 graduate
Washington — The cadets graduating Saturday from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point spent four years studying strategy, ethics and the art of leadership. They march past statues of battlefield giants, memorize the lessons of Antietam and Afghanistan and are steeped in stories of courage drawn from the long arc of American military history. But among the lessons on duty and sacrifice for the class of 2025, there's inspiration among their ranks — one not found in the footnotes of war colleges or the annals of Medal of Honor citations. It's the story of a teenager who never wore a uniform beyond the one he donned as a Junior ROTC cadet in Florida seven years ago — a boy who dreamed of being a soldier, but before he could achieve it, he had already sacrificed his life as a hero. Peter Wang, a member of this year's West Point class, was just 15 years old when he was among the 17 killed in the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. He was found dead in a third-floor hallway, wearing his Army JROTC uniform. When the sounds of gunfire reverberated through the hallways, Peter was in study hall, passing time over a chessboard. As panic spread through the corridors, he moved toward the exit—not to flee, but to hold the door open, easing the way for his classmates to escape behind him. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a U.S. senator for the state of Florida at the time of the shooting, told CBS News the tributes to Peter were a "solemn recognition of [his] bravery and heroism on that horrific day. Duty, honor, and country are key pillars of West Point cadets, and it's clear Peter personified these principles." He was shot 13 times, first in the foot, then twice more in the thigh. A round tore through his torso. His arms absorbed five more bullets. The final shots—four in total—were to his head, according to Wendolyn Sneed, the medical examiner who performed the autopsy and testified at the shooter's sentencing hearing. Gov. Rick Scott of Florida, now a U.S. senator, authorized the Florida National Guard to honor Peter with a military funeral. Hundreds assembled in South Florida to pay their respects, with attendees spanning generations and backgrounds. Junior ROTC cadets from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and other South Florida schools stood saluting in uniform, joined by military veterans and local residents. The gathering reflected the deep impact Peter had on both his peers and the wider community. File: Funeral of Peter Wang, Junior ROTC student killed in Parkland shooting CBS News / James LaPorta screenshot An American flag was draped over Peter's casket as "Taps" echoed through the air and salutes rose from all corners of the crowd. Among them were veterans with lined faces, uniformed service members, and first responders in dress attire. But it was the youngest among them—fellow Junior ROTC cadets in crisp uniforms—who stood most still. For his actions, Peter was posthumously awarded the Medal of Heroism by the U.S. Army, the highest award given to Army JROTC and ROTC cadets whose performance "involved the acceptance of danger and extraordinary responsibilities." Junior ROTC cadets Alaina Petty and Martin Duque, who were also killed during the shooting, also received the medal. West Point granted Peter honorary admission to the class of 2025, which is now preparing to take their commission as second lieutenants and potentially lead soldiers into battle. "Peter demonstrated the characteristics and attributes we seek out of graduates of the Naval Academy or West Point," said retired Lt. Gen. Robert Caslen, the West Point superintendent who authorized Wang's entry into the class of 2025. "Individuals like Peter are exactly the men and women you want leading America's youth in combat situations, the fact that he demonstrated that at his age says a lot about him which is why we made him an honorary member of the class."
CBS News
22-05-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
DeSantis signs school safety bill, adds changes made since 2018 Parkland shooting
A bill that addresses a series of school safety issues, including training for school security guards, has been signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis. This spring, the House and Senate unanimously passed the bill. It adds to safety changes made since the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland that killed 17 people. "Every year, we are incorporating lessons learned and looking for improvements," Republican Senator Danny Burgess, who sponsored the bill, said. "Florida families expect us to get this right. We can't, and we won't let them down." As an example, the bill requires that training of school security guards be conducted by sheriffs or approved by sheriffs. As another example, the bill makes changes to requirements about perimeter and door security at schools. DeSantis signed the measure, which will take effect July 1, during an appearance in Winter Haven.
CBS News
19-05-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Parkland families push back as NRA asks Supreme Court to strike down Florida gun law
Families of Parkland shooting victims are speaking out against the National Rifle Association's push to overturn a Florida law that raised the minimum age to buy a gun from 18 to 21, a measure enacted after the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. The NRA is now asking the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down the law, drawing fierce criticism from those still grieving the loss of loved ones. A law born from tragedy Debbie Hixon's husband, Chris Hixon, was one of 17 people killed in the Parkland shooting. He died trying to disarm the gunman. "He ran into the building to try and disarm the shooter," Hixon recalled. In the wake of the shooting, Florida legislators responded by raising the legal age to purchase firearms. That law, passed with bipartisan support, has faced repeated challenges since - primarily backed by the NRA. NRA argues for adult gun rights The NRA contends that the law violates the constitutional rights of 18- to 20-year-olds. In a statement to CBS News Miami, John Commerford of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action said: "Americans 18 years of age and older are considered adults who can vote, enter into contracts, marry, and enlist and fight for our country. Those same adults are also guaranteed the right to defend themselves through the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution." The group has appealed to the Supreme Court, citing conflicting rulings in lower courts over similar age-based firearm restrictions. A mother's frustration and hope for finality Hixon, who has advocated for gun safety legislation since her husband's death, expressed frustration that the law continues to face legal and political challenges - despite its public support and connection to one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history. "There's no line of 18-year-olds that are demanding this right. There's just none," she said. "I've been to a number of the sessions and sat in there. There's two older gentlemen that are from the NRA that complain about it, but there's no 18-year-olds that are demanding this opportunity." For three consecutive years, Florida lawmakers in the state House have voted to repeal the law, but each time, the measure has stalled in the Senate. Hixon hopes a final ruling from the nation's highest court will settle the issue once and for all. "If the Supreme Court says that the law is constitutional and they'll uphold the law, then we won't have to hear about it again," she said. "It would be really nice not to have it come back again."
The Guardian
23-04-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Florida students lobby to keep 2018 gun control law in wake of recent shooting
Florida students who were traumatized by the 2018 Parkland school shooting – and last week's deadly shooting at Florida State University – are urging lawmakers in the Republican-controlled statehouse not to roll back gun restrictions they passed in the wake of the killing at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school. Gun rights activists have been fighting to unravel the 2018 law since it was passed, including a provision that raised the state's minimum age to buy a gun to 21. Governor Ron DeSantis and some Republican lawmakers have argued that if an 18-year-old Floridian can serve in the military, they should be able to purchase a firearm. In the wake of the FSU shooting, student activists – including some who were in the vicinity of both mass shootings – were walking the halls of the capitol building in Tallahassee, lobbying lawmakers to support gun control policies in the final two weeks of the legislative session, which is scheduled to end on 2 May. 'No one should ever have to experience a school shooting – let alone two – just to have to beg lawmakers to care enough to stop the next one,' said Stephanie Horowitz, who was a freshman at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in 2018 and is now a graduate student at FSU. Two people were killed and six others injured in the shooting last Thursday that terrorized FSU's campus, about a mile from the state capitol. Logan Rubenstein, a 21-year-old junior at FSU, says it could have been much worse, if a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers hadn't taken action after Parkland. Rubenstein believes gun restrictions passed by the Florida legislature in 2018 helped prevent the FSU shooter from carrying out more carnage – like what happened at Rubenstein's high school in Parkland seven years ago. Rubenstein was in eighth grade at nearby Coral Springs middle school when a 19-year-old gunman armed with an AR-15-style rifle killed 17 people and injured 17 others at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Investigators say the suspect in the FSU shooting, a 20-year-old student at the university named Phoenix Ikner, armed himself with a handgun that was the former service weapon of his stepmother, a local sheriff's deputy. Under the state's current laws, he couldn't legally buy a rifle from a federally licensed dealer. 'The law that we passed after Parkland worked,' Rubenstein said. 'Because if he was able to buy an AR-15, body armor and a bump stock and unlimited ammo, how much more deadly would it have been?' About three weeks before the FSU shooting, the Florida house passed a bill that would lower the state's minimum age to buy a gun to 18. The proposal had stalled in the state Senate even before the FSU shooting, and it appears even less likely to advance now. Still, speaking at a rally with student activists on the steps of Florida's historic old capitol on Wednesday, Democratic state senator Tina Polsky said she is not letting up. Polsky, whose district includes Parkland, is among the Democrats who have sponsored gun control bills this session that never got a hearing in the capitol, where Republicans hold a supermajority in both chambers. 'I am begging them to do something like we did after the horrific Parkland shooting,' Polsky said. 'I don't know if it's going to happen. But we will continue to fight.'
Yahoo
18-04-2025
- Yahoo
‘We owe our children better.' Parkland survivors traumatized again by FSU shooting
The shooting that left two people dead at Florida State University and several others wounded Thursday tragically threads to the survivors and loved ones of the victims of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting seven years ago. Some of the students who were at the school during the Feb. 14, 2018, mass shooting now attend Florida State. And family members of the Parkland victims now have children at the Tallahassee university. 'When I first got the FSU Alert via text message, my heart dropped. It's a feeling I know all too well, panic, fear, disbelief. No parent should ever have to experience this once, let alone twice,' said Lori Alhadeff. The Broward County School Board member's daughter Alyssa was among the 17 people murdered by a former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas. READ MORE: Two dead, suspect in custody after sheriff's deputy's son opens fire at FSU Alhadeff funneled her grieving into activism, founding Make Our Schools Safe, a nonprofit with the goal of curbing gun violence at schools. Now, her son Robbie is an underclassman at FSU, and news of the violence at the college rushed in familiar dread to Alhadeff and her family. 'My immediate thoughts were: Is my son safe? Is this really happening again? It's every parent's worst nightmare, and for me, it was a horrifying déjà vu,' Alhadeff said. Alhadeff was able to get in touch with her son, who she said is 'physically safe, but emotionally shaken, as are so many students and parents right now.' 'Even when there's no injury, the trauma of hearing shots fired or being on lockdown can leave lasting scars and trauma,' she added. Police said Thursday's shooting was carried out by a student who opened fire at Florida State University's main campus with a handgun owned by his mother, a Leon County Sheriff's deputy. The suspect, Phoenix Ikner, shot eight people before he was shot by police and taken into custody, according to Tallahassee's police chief. Cameron Kasky is a Parkland survivor and, as a result, a founding member of Never Again MSD, a gun-violence prevention group, as well as an organizer of the March 2018 March for Our Lives student protests calling for gun law reforms. Asked by the Herald how he felt when hearing about what happened at FSU Thursday: 'Unsurprised.' And, he's pessimistic anything will change. 'This is what happens in Florida and all over our country. America is a very violent place, and people are not safe in schools,' Kasky said. 'When I see these shootings happen, I do not wonder how it could've happened, I reflect upon how inevitable it is.' Kasky's classmate, David Hogg, now vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, has also been an outspoken gun control advocate since surviving Parkland, and was among the more visible faces in the March for Our Lives movement. He told CBS News Thursday that the FSU shooting highlights the continued need for stronger laws, and he warned of the efforts among some Republicans in the Florida Legislature to roll back of reforms that were achieved in the wake of Parkland. 'There are a lot of students from Parkland at FSU, and what really bothers me is, in Florida, we worked in a bipartisan manner to pass reforms after Parkland,' he told CBS's Major Garrett. 'We passed a red flag law that has been used over 19,000 times to disarm people who were a risk to themselves and others.' Hogg also said that the fact that many of his former classmates are reliving the horror of another mass shooting is a reason not to become complacent as the memory of what happened at FSU fades from the headlines. 'To go through something like this once, this is something that's not supposed to happen at all,' Hogg said. 'We act like these are natural disasters in this country. It's not. This doesn't happen in other countries.' Fred Guttenberg's 14-year-old daughter Jaime was also killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas. His son was also a student at the school and had to run away from the shooting to the shelter of a nearby restaurant. Since then, Guttenberg has become an outspoken advocate for tougher gun laws, including those that would make it more difficult for young people to access firearms. He noted that the gunman targeted the freshman building at Marjory Stoneman Douglass, the 1200 building, and many of those first-year high schoolers are now months away from graduation at Florida State. 'Dozens of students who had to run through the carnage of the student union today at FSU today had to run through the carnage of the 1200 building at Marjory Stoneman Douglass. This is their second shooting. It's not normal,' Guttenberg said. One Stoneman Douglas alum, Josh Gallagher, said on X that he was in the FSU law library when he heard 'active shooter' over an alarm. 'After living through the MSD shooting in 2018, I never thought it would hit close to home again,' Gallagher wrote. ' No matter your politics, we need to meet — and something has to change. Prayers to the victims and families.' Alhadeff has a message for Florida lawmakers as this year's Legislative session nears its end: 'Enough is enough.' 'Thoughts and prayers are not a policy. We need real action, immediately. Every moment lawmakers delay, lives are on the line,' she said. And, it's not just access to guns that is a problem, Alhadeff said. Policy makers also have to look at fortifying schools, colleges and universities, and pass laws that make it easier to identify people capable of causing widespread harm and death before they act, she said. 'Fund school safety at all levels. There needs to be a continuation of the Behavioral Threat Assessment process to include colleges and Universities. And fully fund mental health support,' Alhadeff said. 'Ensure every school has life-saving technology like panic buttons.' 'Stop the politics and start protecting our kids. We cannot become numb to this. We owe our children better.'
