President Trump on Monday criticized the officers who failed to confront the shooter at Stoneman Douglas High School, boasting that “I really believe I’d run in there even if I didn’t have a weapon.”
“You never know until you’re tested,” he said during a meeting with governors at the White House on Monday. “But I think, I really believe I’d run in there even if I didn’t have a weapon and I think most of the people in this room would’ve done that too because I know most of you.”
He also said it was “frankly disgusting” and “really a disgrace” that an armed school resource officer who was assigned to the high school didn’t enter the building for four minutes after the gunfire started. At least three other officers reportedly held back from entering the building during the massacre.
Trump’s Monday remarks aren’t the first time the President has criticized those officers. Trump used the incident to prop up his proposal that teachers should be armed to combat school shooters. He claimed last week that teachers “love” their students more than a security guard does and would go further to protect them.
In the wake of a school shooting at the Parkland, Florida high school on Valentine’s Day, Trump has suggested several reforms to prevent mass shootings: arming teachers, banning bump stocks, reforming background checks for gun purchases and increasing the minimum age for buying a rifle to 21.
Trump: I would have run into the school with no weapon https://t.co/UZadMQzY34 pic.twitter.com/Jp6BBmA7TV
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) February 26, 2018