Trump has ignored Parkland families — except the one who supports him

Three months after 17 people were killed at the Parkland, Florida, school gun massacre, Trump is still ignoring most of the surviving families.

Refusing to the decent thing by offering up condolences to all the victims, Trump to date has only reached out to a single Parkland family, and that was a family that publicly supported Trump’s plan to arm school teachers.

As for the other Parkland families, many of whom have been vocal in their support of gun safety and their condemnations of the NRA and its radical gun agenda, Trump has stiff-armed them.

The petty move represents a stunning dereliction of duty. But Trump has made a habit out of refusing to do the right thing, like honoring fallen U.S. soldiers, or acknowledging an American hero who helped stop a recent Waffle House gun massacre.

As for the historic Parkland massacre, “He just completely ignored us and it’s really shitty,” Debra Hixon told BuzzFeed. Her husband, Chris Hixon, died trying to disarm the Parkland gunman and protect his students. “A human thing to do is to reach out to everyone. If you reach out to one family you should reach out to all of us.”

The parents of slain Parkland geography teacher Scott Beigel have noticed that Trump seems to have a lot of free times on his hands but can’t find any time for them.

“It’s almost amazing that he would take the time to call Roseanne Barr and congratulate her on such a great show, because it implied how wonderful he was,” Scott’s father, Michael Schulman, said. “But when it comes to consoling or helping, or even reaching out to victims, or people who are assisting victims, he has nothing to say. It’s really mind-boggling.”

Several Parkland families were angered and stunned when Trump, while addressing the NRA’s annual convention last week, pretended to care about the victims. “We mourn for the victims and their families,” he announced.

But they say there’s zero proof Trump has mourned the victims.

To date, it appears the only Parkland family that Trump has reached out to is one that supports him politically: “Andrew Pollack, who has been a vocal supporter of adding more armed personnel at schools, told BuzzFeed News said that he met with the president twice within a month of the massacre.”

The truth is Trump signaled his callous indifference to the families from the very beginning. Just after the massacre, he went golfing in Florida the same day that a funeral for a Parkland victim was being held just down the coast.

But this is how Trump operates, often without basic human decency.

Last October, when ISIS gunmen in Niger killed four Army Special Forces troops in an ambush, Trump refused to publicly acknowledge Americans’ sacrifice, let alone honor them or offer condolences.

More recently, Trump has refused to publicly acknowledge and praise the heroic actions of James Shaw Jr.

Police say the unarmed Shaw risked his life when he leapt to action during a shooting at a restaurant in Tennessee. Shaw knocked the gun out of the murderer’s hand, preventing further bloodshed.

But Shaw’s heroism doesn’t fit the NRA’s “good guy with a gun” narrative, so Trump has snubbed him.

In the wake of the Parkland tragedy, Trump has turned mourning into a partisan pursuit.