A survivor of last week’s massacre at a high school in Parkland, Florida, said President Donald Trump failed to bring her any real comfort during a phone call he made while she was hospitalized.
“I can’t say I was consoled or helped,” Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School senior Samantha Fuentes said Friday evening on CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront.”
The President, rather, talked about the shooter being a “sick puppy” and used the phrase “oh, boy” about eight times, said Fuentes, who was wounded in both legs. She was also left with a piece shrapnel behind her right eye, the New York Times reported.
“I don’t think he’s ever had to have that conversation with someone before,” said Fuentes. “It was definitely clear in that moment because he did not express any real empathy. It is kind of hard to express empathy when you don’t understand.”
The guest said she respects the President but was saddened by the call’s tone.
“It’s just that when you go through a very traumatic experience such as this one … you have to be very delicate in the way you phrase your words to people. I don’t think he took any caution or any regard for what I was going through,” said Fuentes. “That kind of hurt my feelings.”
Fuentes also was asked what she thought about the school resource officer who authorities said failed to enter the school building during the February 14 attack.
“When you become a police officer you take an oath to protect and serve … and I don’t feel that (Scot) Peterson protected and served his children, just as he claimed he would. He broke a promise, and it’s obvious in his inaction.”
The senior said students, faculty and staff were aware of shooter Nikolas Cruz’s violent outburst and had reported it. But nothing happened, she said. “We thought that we did everything in our power to get him off on school grounds, to get him away from us.”
Students even joked that Cruz would be the next school shooter, Fuentes said.
The student said she will not return to class Wednesday. Rather, she will concentrate on recovery and efforts to prevent such attacks in the future.
“We won’t be stopped,” Fuentes told CNN’s Jim Sciutto.