Follow the Story
Parkland school shooting survivor Donovan Metayer dead at 26 by suicide
Rift between Parkland massacre survivor and some families of the dead erupts in court
Florida high school students face long lines after metal detectors rollout on first day of classes
Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz agrees to donate his brain to science in shocking settlement
Parkland school shooting horror reenacted for lawsuit against sheriff’s deputy who failed to help
Enraged Parkland parent Michael Schulman calls for Nikolas Cruz to be murdered in jail
The mother of a 14-year-old girl who was killed in the Florida school massacre made a gut-wrenching plea to President Trump on Thursday — begging him to do something about the country’s never-ending gun violence — during a live interview with CNN.
“How, how do we allow a gunman to come into our children’s school?” asked Lori Alhadeff, mother of Alyssa Alhadeff.
“What security is there? There’s no metal detectors. The gunman – a crazy person – just walks right into the school, knocks down the window of my child’s door and starts shooting. Shooting her. And killing her,” said Alhadeff, tears pouring down her face.
“President Trump – you say, ‘What can you do?’ You can stop the guns from getting into these children’s hands. Put metal detectors at every entrance of the schools,” she added.
“What can you do? You can do a lot. This is not fair to our families. That our children go off to school and have to get killed. I just spent the last two hours putting the burial arrangements (together) for my daughter’s funeral who is 14. President Trump, please do something. Do something. Action. We need it now. These kids need safety now.”
Alyssa, a freshman at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, was one of 17 people killed Wednesday during alleged shooter Nikolas Cruz’ rampage.
Her mother’s passionate plea to Trump on Thursday caused both CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin and Congressman Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) — whom she was interviewing — to break down crying on-air as the cameras cut to them.
“Sorry,” Baldwin said, appearing visibly shaken. “Just hearing that mother…it got me.”
Deutch added, “What that grieving mother said, is the most powerful message that everyone needs to hear. It’s the message I’ve heard from PTA moms and school board members. It’s the message that I heard from [Stoneman Douglas students] who came up to me and said that they were in the school. One of them said, ‘We need action. We have to do something…I sat there and watched my friend’s face get blown off.’ Her friend said that she was underneath someone else who bled out, who died on top of her. How much more of this?”
