Clooneys donate $500,000 to student gun reform march

NEW YORK, UNITED STATES - Hollywood star George Clooney and his human rights lawyer wife Amal on Monday pledged $500,000 to help fund a student march on Washington, giving a huge boost to what is considered an unprecedented youth mobilization against gun violence.

The "March for Our Lives" is scheduled to take place on March 24, with sister rallies planned across the country demanding that US Congress come up with effective legislation to address the epidemic of gun violence in the United States.

It comes after a 19-year-old armed with a semi-automatic rifle killed 17 people at a high school in Parkland, Florida last week, and is being organized by surviving students.

The teenagers, who have grown up with mass shootings at US schools, have vowed to make the tragedy a turning point in America's deadlocked debate on gun control.

"Amal and I are so inspired by the courage and eloquence of these young men and women from Stoneman Douglas High School," Clooney said in a statement.

"Our family will be there on March 24 to stand side by side with this incredible generation of young people from all over the country," he added.

"In the name of our children Ella and Alexander, we're donating $500,000 to help pay for this groundbreaking event. Our children's lives depend on it."

'OVERWHELMED'

The pledge from the Clooneys, one of the biggest A-list couples on the planet, who announced the birth of their twins in London last June, comes after other celebrities have called for greater gun controls since the Florida shooting.

"We want to express extreme gratitude for the amazing donation that George Clooney and his family have made," tweeted the Never Again account representing survivors of the Florida shooting.

"We are overwhelmed with the support, and we can't wait to march."

US Congress is deadlocked on the gun debate, accomplishing nothing even after last October's killing of 58 people by a gunman in Las Vegas who had amassed 47 firearms to commit the worst mass shooting in recent US history.

The White House says President Donald Trump is supportive of efforts to improve background checks for gun purchases, but many want far more deep-seated reforms.

The students organizing the March 24 rally say they are fed up "waiting for someone else" to take action to stop the US epidemic of mass school shootings, and are demanding a "comprehensive and effective bill" in Congress to address gun violence.

"Politicians are telling us that now is not the time to talk about guns," their mission statement said. "Every kid in this country now goes to school wondering if this day might be their last. We live in fear." 

"Change is coming. And it starts now, inspired by and led by the kids who are our hope for the future. Their young voices will be heard."

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Survivors of Florida school shooting launch gun control push

PARKLAND/TALLAHASSEE, Florida - Dozens of students and parents from the Florida high school where 17 teens and staff members were slain last week in a shooting rampage arrived in the state capital of Tallahassee on Tuesday to lobby for a ban on assault-style rifles.

Last week's massacre, the second-deadliest shooting at a public school in US history, has inflamed a national debate about gun rights and prompted young people from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and across the United States to demand action for stricter firearms controls.

Students from the South Florida high school were tearful as they stepped down from the bus in Tallahassee to be welcomed with waves, cheers and somber applause from fellow teens.

"We're here to make sure this never happens again," Diego Pfeiffer a senior at Stoneman told the crowd that included hundreds of students from a Tallahassee high school over a crackling microphone.

On Tuesday, less than a week after the shooting, the Republican-controlled Florida House of Representatives rebuffed a bid to bring up a bill to block sales of assault-style rifles in the state.

"I am not going back to school until lawmakers, and the president, change this law," said Tyra Hemans, a 19-year-old senior, who traveled to the state capital.

"Three people I looked to for advice and courage are gone but never forgotten, and for them, I am going to our state capital to tell lawmakers we are tired and exhausted of stupid gun laws," Hemans said.

Student and parent activists from the high school in Parkland, Florida, near Fort Lauderdale were expected to stage a rally at the statehouse on Wednesday, about 725 kilometers to the north of the school.

Fourteen students and 3 educators were killed, and 15 other people were wounded in the Feb. 14 attack.

Nikolas Cruz, 19, a former student expelled from Stoneman Douglas High for disciplinary problems, was arrested and charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder. 

Authorities say he was armed with a semiautomatic AR-15 assault-style rifle that he legally purchased from a licensed gun dealer last year when he was 18.

Former classmates have described Cruz as a social outcast and trouble-maker with a fascination for guns, and police have acknowledged responding to numerous calls related to Cruz during the past few years.

On Tuesday a member of the accused gunman's legal team from the Broward County public defender's office said Cruz saw his life unravel last year when he was expelled and his mother died.

The year before, Florida's Department of Children and Families had opened an inquiry into Cruz after he was reported to have been cutting himself, but the case was closed in November of that year with the finding that he was receiving sufficient support, the agency said.

"In 2017 a lot of the support systems that he had were not there anymore. Those cries of help, however, were still there, and the system, as designed, missed them and failed," said Gordon Weekes, assistant public defender.

STAR POWER

The youth-led protest movement that erupted within hours of the shooting attracted prominent celebrity supporters on Tuesday when film star George Clooney and his wife Amal, a human rights lawyer, said they would donate $500,000 to help fund a planned March 24 gun control march in Washington.

Hollywood director Steven Spielberg and media mogul Oprah Winfrey later joined in contributing $500,000 each toward the march.

A Washington Postal News opinion poll released on Tuesday showed 77 percent of Americans believe the Republican-dominated U.S. Congress is doing too little to prevent mass shootings, with 62 percent saying President Donald Trump, also a Republican, has not done enough on that front.

Trump said on Tuesday he had signed a memorandum directing the attorney general to draw up regulations banning devices that turn firearms into machine guns, like the bump stock used in October's mass shooting in Las Vegas.

Students and parents elsewhere in Florida and in other states, including Tennessee and Minnesota, staged sympathy protests on Tuesday, according to local media reports. Miami's WTVJ-TV showed video of about 1,000 teens and adults marching from a high school in Boca Raton to the site of the Parkland shooting, about 20 kms to the west.

An aide to Florida State Representative Shawn Harrison was fired on Tuesday after he falsely accused two Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students of being actors, the New York Times reported.

Florida's legislature has taken up at least two bills during its current session intended to provide broader access to guns. But signaling a possible shift, state Senator Bill Galvan, the chamber's next president, called for a bill to raise the legal age limit for purchasing assault rifles from 18 to 21, the same as it is for handguns. The legislature's current session ends on March 9, leaving little time for a vote.

Gun violence on public school and college campuses has become so commonplace in the United States during the past several years that education officials regularly stage drills to train students and staff about what they should do in the event of a mass shooting on school grounds.

Gun ownership is protected by the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and remains one of the nation's more divisive issues. A federal ban on assault weapons, in force for 10 years, expired in 2004.

Funerals continued for the young victims of Wednesday's attack. The U.S. Military Academy at West Point on Tuesday said it made a rare posthumous letter of acceptance to Peter Wang, a student of the school killed in the shooting. A Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps cadet, Wang had aspired to attend the elite academy.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

2 teenagers killed, 18 hurt in Florida shooting

FORT MYERS - A shooting outside a party at a Florida nightclub that left two male teenagers dead and as many as 18 other people wounded early on Monday was not an act of terror, police in Fort Myers said.

The latest burst of gun violence to wrack the state this summer occurred just after 12:30 a.m. EDT (0430 GMT) in the parking lot of Club Blu, which was hosting an event open to teenagers, the Fort Myers Police Department said in a statement.

Police said Stef'An Strawder, an 18-year-old basketball star at a local high school, and Sean Archilles, 14, were killed. Two other people have potentially life-threatening injuries, local hospital officials said.

Although police said they did not know the motive for the shooting, they confirmed in a statement that "this incident is not an act of terror (as it has been referred) or terrorism."

Police said three people had been detained for questioning and that the area around the club was deemed safe, although roads in the vicinity remained closed.

Hospitals affiliated with the Lee Memorial Health System received 19 patients ranging in ages from 12 to 27 years from the nightclub shooting. Lisa Sgarlata, chief administrative officer for Lee Memorial Hospital, said an additional victim was pronounced dead at the scene.

Four patients remain hospitalized at Lee Memorial Hospital. Two have potentially life-threatening injuries and are in a surgical intensive care unit, Dr. Drew Mikulaschek told reporters at a news conference.

The shooting came six weeks after a massacre at a nightclub in the Florida city of Orlando, where a lone gunman who sympathized with Islamist extremist groups killed 49 people in the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.

Club Blu, located about 150 miles southwest of Orlando in the Gulf Coast city of Fort Myers, was hosting a "swimsuit glow party" for people all ages, according to a flyer posted on Twitter by local television station WINK. To enter, patrons were not required to show proof that they were the legal age to drink alcoholic beverages.

The nightclub said on its Facebook page that the shooting occurred when the venue was closing and parents were picking up their children.

"We tried to give the teens what we thought was a safe place to have a good time," the statement said, pointing out that armed security guards were posted inside and outside the club. "It was not kids at the party that did this despicable act."

In a video interview with local media, Syreeta Gary said her daughter and a friend ran for cover from the gunshots, seeking safety at a nearby apartment complex.

"Dodging bullets and running, dropping between cars, it's ridiculous that these kids have to go through this," Gary said in an interview posted on Twitter by a reporter for Fort Myers Fox affiliate WFTX. "They can't enjoy themselves."

Her daughter got out unscathed, but a bullet struck a friend in the leg, Gary said.

The teens who died both attended schools in Lee County, district spokeswoman Lauren Stillwell said. Archilles was due to enter the eighth grade at Royal Palm Exceptional Center, while Strawder was to start his senior year at Lehigh Senior High School.

Strawder's mother, Stephanie White, told the News-Press newspaper that her son was shot in his right shoulder as he walked out of the club. His 19-year-old sister survived a gunshot wound in the leg, White said.

Police said shots were also fired at a nearby residence, where there was one minor injury.

Fort Myers police and the Lee County's Sheriff's Office were canvassing the area for other people who may have been involved, a police statement said.

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