Florida shooting: West Point admits murdered hero

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A reserves trainee who died helping other students escape a Florida school shooting has been posthumously accepted to a prestigious US military school.

Peter Wang, 15, who was one of 17 killed in the 14 February attack, was admitted to the class of 2025 at his dream school, West Point Academy.

He was a member of the US Army Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC), a school programme for potential US military officers.

His funeral took place on Tuesday.

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The school will confer a letter of admission and honorarium tokens to his family, local West Point alumni Chad Maxey told the Sun Sentinel newspaper.

Florida Governor Rick Scott also reportedly directed the state’s National Guard to honour Peter and two other members of the JROTC at their funerals.

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The US Army bestowed the Medal of Heroism to three students who were killed, including Peter, according to US media.

The Cadet Command approved Junior ROTC Heroism Medals for cadets Alaina Petty, Peter Wang and Martin Duque, an army spokesman told Fox News.

Peter was in uniform when he was fatally shot while holding the door for others fleeing a gunman at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, witnesses say.

The recognition comes after an online petition called for him to be laid to rest with military honours, saying he “deserves” to be buried as a hero, because “his selfless and heroic actions have led to the survival of dozens in the area”.

Peter, who had spent part of his childhood in his parents’ native China, had dreamed of attending the West Point military academy, friends say.

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Jesse Pan, a neighbour and longstanding friend of Peter’s family, told the BBC Chinese Service he had tried to support the teenager’s parents as they struggled to cope with the loss.

“I was there with his parents, helping translating and finding a funeral home,” he said.

“His parents fainted as soon as they saw his body. He had got multiple shots in front… So horrible.”

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The funeral of cadet Alaina Petty, 14, was attended on Monday by 1,500 mourners, including Florida Governor Rick Scott.

Her coffin was draped in an American flag, and her family members told well-wishers that she will be remembered for being “patient and loving”.

“She just wanted to be your friend,” said her father, Ryan Petty.

Martin Duque, 14, is scheduled to be buried on Saturday.

Meanwhile, about 100 students from Stoneman Douglas have travelled by bus to the Florida state capitol, where they plan to hold a rally against gun violence on Wednesday.

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday called for a ban on rapid-fire “bump stock” devices, which were used last October’s Las Vegas massacre, but not in the Florida high school attack.

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The Parkland school was the scene of a deadly rampage last week, when an ex-student confessed to opening fire with an AR-15 assault rifle which he had purchased legally despite several mental health warnings.

The Stoneman Douglas students, who are out of school until it is due to reopen on 27 February, are hoping their march inspires others across the US.

A larger protest is being planned for Washington DC on 24 March.

In the wake of the shooting, a city leader in Dallas has asked the National Rifle Association (NRA) to move their annual convention.

“It is a tough call when you ask the NRA to reconsider coming to Dallas,” said Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway, according to local media.

The mayor cited past shootings in the Texas city, including the assassination of President John F Kennedy and the murder of five police officers in 2016.

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Nikolas Cruz had moved in with a friend, who also attended the school, after his adoptive mother died in 2017.

The parents who hosted Mr Cruz, James and Kimberly Snead, told CBS News the teenager was depressed but they did not realise how troubled he was.

“The Nik we knew was not the Nik that everybody else seemed to know,” James Snead told CBS.

“He pulled one over on us. As well as a lot of people,” Mrs Snead said.

Mr Snead, a US army veteran, said he knew Mr Cruz had guns but believed he had the only key to the safe where they were located. He added that it was Mr Cruz’s right to have guns.

Law enforcement officials say that Mr Cruz had legally purchased seven rifles in the last year, despite several mental health warnings.

The couple also told ABC News that Mr Cruz had texted their son only three minutes before the attack began in Parkland, Florida to say he was “going to the movies”.

When they first saw him at the police station after he was arrested, he “mumbled” an apology to the parents.

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Documents obtained by CBS show that Mr Cruz and his late adoptive mother, Lynda Cruz, had been visited by Florida’s Department of Children and Families (DCF) after allegations of medical neglect in September 2016.

The investigator reportedly determined that Mr Cruz suffered from depression, ADHD and autism, cut his arms in a post on social media and once plastered a racist message on his school backpack.

Officials closed the investigation after deciding that he was not being mistreated, according to CBS News.

Mr Cruz told child service investigators that “he plans to go out and buy a gun”, according to a DCF report.

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Trump Denies Woman’s Allegation Of Unwanted Kissing In Trump Tower

Rachel Crooks speaks at a news conference in December to discuss her accusations of unwanted kissing by Donald Trump. The president denied the allegations on Twitter after her story resurfaced on the front page of the Washington Post.

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Rachel Crooks speaks at a news conference in December to discuss her accusations of unwanted kissing by Donald Trump. The president denied the allegations on Twitter after her story resurfaced on the front page of the Washington Post.

Mark Lennihan/AP

The lengthy feature article on the front page of Monday’s Washington Post was a profile of Rachel Crooks, one of more than a dozen women who have accused President Trump of sexual misconduct. After going public with her story in the fall of 2016 on the eve of the election, she is now running for the state Legislature in Ohio as a Democrat.

Up until this point, Trump hadn’t directly addressed her claim that he kissed her against her will in 2006, with Trump and his spokespeople instead offering blanket denials.

That changed with two late morning tweets.

“A woman I don’t know and, to the best of my knowledge, never met, is on the FRONT PAGE of the Fake News Washington Post saying I kissed her (for two minutes yet) in the lobby of Trump Tower 12 years ago,” Trump wrote inaccurately describing Crook’s account of what happened. “Never happened!”

A woman I don’t know and, to the best of my knowledge, never met, is on the FRONT PAGE of the Fake News Washington Post saying I kissed her (for two minutes yet) in the lobby of Trump Tower 12 years ago. Never happened! Who would do this in a public space with live security……

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 20, 2018

Trump added a rhetorical question bridging the two tweets: “Who would do this in a public space with live security……….cameras running.”

Crooks then responded to Trump on Twitter, calling on him to release surveillance footage, if there is any, from where she says the unwanted kissing occurred, the 24th floor of Trump Tower, not the lobby as Trump had asserted in his tweet.

Trump’s tweets come at a time when his interactions with women over the years are in sharp focus. Last Friday the New Yorker published a piece detailing how the National Enquirer bought exclusive rights to and then never published the story of a former Playboy Playmate, Karen McDougal, who says she had a consensual sexual relationship with Trump in 2006.

This followed a New York Times story a week ago where Trump’s longtime lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen said that shortly before the election, he paid $130,000 to a porn actress named Stephanie Clifford, who goes by the professional name of Stormy Daniels. Cohen has released a statement for Clifford denying she had an affair with Trump in 2006. But in 2011 she detailed the alleged affair in an interview with In Touch magazine that wasn’t published at the time but was released earlier this year.

On Sunday, as Trump’s motorcade drove him to the Trump International Golf Club for dinner with his family, it passed the Ultra Gentleman’s Club near Palm Beach International Airport, which was advertising an event: “Stormy Daniels Making America Horny Again.”

A sign for a Gentlemen’s Club across the street from Trump International Golf Club that reads “Stormy Daniels Making America Horny Again” was seen from President Trump’s motorcade.

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A sign for a Gentlemen’s Club across the street from Trump International Golf Club that reads “Stormy Daniels Making America Horny Again” was seen from President Trump’s motorcade.

Andrew Harnik/AP

By Crooks’ telling in the Washington Post, Trump kissed her outside the office where she worked as a receptionist for the Bayrock Group:

“He was waiting for the elevator outside our office when I got up the nerve to introduce myself,” she is quoted in the Post as saying.

The article starts with Crooks telling her story to a group of a dozen women her aunt had gathered for a dinner party:

“She reached for her water glass and lifted it up into the air to use as a prop. ‘He took hold of my hand and held me in place like this,’ she said, squeezing the sides of the water glass, shaking it gently from side to side. ‘He started kissing me on one cheek, then the other cheek. He was talking to me in between kisses, asking where I was from, or if I wanted to be a model. He wouldn’t let go of my hand, and then he went right in and started kissing me on the lips.’

“She shook the water glass one final time and set it down. ‘It felt like a long kiss,’ she said. ‘The whole thing probably lasted two minutes, maybe less.’ ”

The timing of the alleged incident is notable, coming just months after the Access Hollywood tape was recorded. In that video, which didn’t come out until October 2016, Trump is heard grabbing a mint before disembarking from a bus to greet an actress.

“I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her,” Trump said in comments he later described as nothing more than “locker room talk.” He added, “You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.”

After the Access Hollywood tape came out, the New York Times published a story that included charges from multiple women. Crooks was among them. At the time, Trump spokesman Jason Miller dismissed the entire article as “fiction.”

“It is absurd to think that one of the most recognizable business leaders on the planet with a strong record of empowering women in his companies would do the things alleged in this story, and for this to only become public decades later in the final month of a campaign for president should say it all,” Miller added.

Trump himself tweeted that “nothing ever happened with any of these women.”

Nothing ever happened with any of these women. Totally made up nonsense to steal the election. Nobody has more respect for women than me!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 15, 2016

Late last year, Crooks was in the headlines when she was among a group of Trump accusers who again came forward in the midst of the #MeToo movement, which has seen many powerful men accused of wrongdoing face public shame and professional consequences. This drew attention back to accusations against Trump and why he never saw similar consequences.

Crooks and two other women were featured on NBC’s Today and held a news conference in New York in December. At the time, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked about it in the daily White House press briefing.

“Look, the president has addressed these accusations directly and denied all of these allegations,” said Sanders. “And this took place long before he was elected to be president. And the people of this country, at a decisive election, supported President Trump, and we feel like these allegations have been answered through that process.”

And up until this point, that has been the White House response to such allegations — denial combined with the argument that Trump won despite widespread knowledge of allegations against him. Case closed.

As to the question Trump posed in his tweetstorm about Crooks, “Why doesn’t @washingtonpost report the story of the women taking money to make up stories about me? One had her home mortgage paid off. Only @FoxNews so reported,” Trump was apparently referencing a December 2017 story from The Hill discussed on air on Fox News.

The story detailed efforts by well-known lawyer Lisa Bloom to secure payments or other support for women who had come forward to talk about their experiences with Trump. Crooks wasn’t mentioned in that article.

The article did describe a Trump accuser, Jill Harth, who had the approximately $30,000 remaining on her mortgage paid off by an unnamed donor. However, the article points out that Harth had filed a sexual harassment suit against Trump in 1997 and her account of Trump groping her had resurfaced and been published in the summer of 2016, months before she ever connected with Bloom.

“Nothing that you’ve said to me about my mortgage or the Go Fund Me that was created to help me out financially affects the facts or the veracity of my 1997 federal complaint against Donald J. Trump for sexual harassment and assault,” she said in the article.

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