The roundtable meeting was being held in the same ballroom where the families learned of their loved ones' deaths. Jamaal Bowman said.Īfter the tour, the members traveled to a nearby hotel to discuss school safety issues with parents and wives who lost loved ones in the attack. To see the blood of children on the floor in a school together, is going to change the way we interact and collaborate,” New York Democratic Rep. “We just had a shared experience that will transform our lives for the rest of our lives. Reporters were barred from Friday's tour, but The Associated Press was one of five media outlets allowed inside after Cruz's jury went through last year. In one classroom, there is an unfinished chess game one of the slain students had been playing, the pieces unmoved. Opened textbooks and laptop computers remain on students’ desks - at least those that weren’t toppled during the chaos. They called it a “time-capsule” of the attack's devastation.īroken glass still litters the floor, along with wilted roses, deflated balloons and discarded gifts. The families and wounded are seeking unspecified damages.Įarlier in the day, six Democrats and three Republicans from the House School Safety and Security Caucus toured the building for almost two hours - an experience few have had since the shooting. It is likely Peterson’s attorneys will oppose the attempt. That will have to be argued later, she said. Circuit Judge Carol-Lisa Phillips allowed the reenactment, but made clear she was not ruling on whether the recording will be played at trial. The burden of proof is lower in the civil lawsuit, however. law enforcement officer ever tried criminally for conduct during an on-campus shooting. He has said he would have charged into the building if he had known the shooter’s location.įamilies of the victims who filed the lawsuit contend Peterson knew Cruz’s location, but retreated out of cowardice. Peterson got within feet of the building’s door and drew his gun, but backed away and stood next to an adjoining building for 40 minutes, making radio calls. The experts were firing with an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle identical to the one Cruz used, and the bullets were to be caught by a safety device. Cruz, a 24-year-old former Stoneman Douglas student, pleaded guilty in 2021 and was sentenced to life in prison. The shooting sparked a nationwide movement for gun control and traumatized the South Florida community. The building has been kept standing behind a locked chain-link fence to serve as evidence during Cruz's trial last year. The reenactment began shortly after nine members of Congress toured the blood-stained and bullet-pocked halls of the three-story classroom building where Nikolas Cruz carried out his six-minute attack. He told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel that 49 rounds were fired Friday and that the test showed Peterson would have heard the shots and known their location. Peterson, who was acquitted at a criminal trial in June, has said that because of echoes he could not pinpoint the shooter's location.ĭavid Brill, the attorney overseeing the reenactment on behalf of the families, did not return a call from The Associated Press seeking comment Friday. The reenactment is part of a lawsuit by the victims’ families and the wounded that accuses the Broward County deputy assigned to the school, Scot Peterson, of failing in his duty to protect them and their loved ones. During the massacre, 139 shots were fired. A few hours later, the fire alarm went off, just like it did during the Valentine's Day 2018 attack, but no shots were heard underneath it. Two shots were heard by reporters sitting about 200 yards (180 meters) from the building about noon and then two more about an hour later. – Gunfire erupted again at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Friday as part of a reenactment by ballistics experts of the 2018 massacre that left 14 students and three staff members dead.
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