(HOUSTON) — Seeking to comfort grieving families and shaken survivors, President Donald Trump spent more than an hour privately Thursday with some of those impacted by a Texas mass school shooting that killed 10 and wounded more than a dozen on May 18.
The latest spasm of violence in a year marred by assaults on the nation’s schools, the shooting at Santa Fe High School was the latest to test the president’s role as national comforter-in-chief. Trump met with more than two dozen people affected by the shooting, and did not publicly share his message for the grieving families and local leaders during a meeting at a Coast Guard base outside Houston.
Pamela Stanich — whose 17-year-old son, Jared Black, was among the eight students killed — was one of the parents who met with Trump, presenting him with a family statement and a copy of her son’s eulogy.
Trump “met with us privately and showed sincerity, compassion, and concern on making our schools safer across the nation,” she wrote in a Facebook[1] post after the meeting. “He spent time talking to the survivors and asking on what happened and what would have made a difference. Changes are coming for the good. Thank you Mr. Trump.”
Rhonda Hart, whose 14-year-old daughter, Kimberly Vaughan, was killed at the school, told The Associated Press that Trump repeatedly used the word ‘wacky’ to describe the shooter and the trench coat he wore. She said she told Trump, “Maybe if everyone had access to mental health care, we wouldn’t be in the situation.”
Hart, an Army veteran, said she also suggested employing veterans as sentinels in schools. She said Trump responded, “And arm them?” She replied, “No,” but said Trump “kept mentioning” arming classroom teachers. “It was like talking to a
