Reuters/Jonathan Ernst
President Donald Trump hosted a listening session with survivors of the Florida high-school shooting on Wednesday, February 21, 2018.
- President Donald Trump hosted a listening session at the White House on Wednesday, one week after a mass shooting in Florida left 17 people dead.
- Andrew Pollack, the father of one of the victims, gave an impassioned speech, telling Trump he was "pissed" that little has been done to protect students.
A man whose daughter died in last week's mass shooting at a Florida high school gave an enraged speech during a listening session at the White House on Wednesday, telling President Donald Trump that "we as a country failed our children."
Andrew Pollack, whose 18-year-old daughter Meadow Pollack was shot nine times by alleged gunman Nikolas Cruz, said he wouldn't rest until students are protected from future shootings.
"My daughter has no voice. She was murdered last week, shot nine times on the third floor," Pollack said. "This shouldn't happen. We go to the airport, I can't get on the plane with a bottle of water, but we leave some animal to walk into a classroom and shoot."
The White House hosted several Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students who survived the shooting, along with their parents, parents of students who died in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting, and other teachers and officials.
Pollack railed against the federal government for tightening airport security in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but doing little to protect schools from potential shooters.
"One school shooting and we all should've fixed it. And I'm pissed because my daughter I'm not going to see again. She's not here," he said. "We protect airports, we protect concerts, stadiums, embassies, the Department of Education that I walked in today that has a security guard in the elevator. How do you think that makes me feel?"
Others who attended the session voiced support for stricter gun-control measures. Cary Gruber, whose son Justin survived the shooting and texted him throughout the massacre said that gun laws shouldn't be a political issue.
"If he's not old enough to go buy a drink, buy a beer, he should not be able to buy a gun at 18 years old," he said, referring to Cruz, who legally purchased his AR-15 rifle. "We gotta do something about this. We cannot have our children die, this is just heartbreaking. Please."