The mother of a hero teacher who was shot and killed by Nikolas Cruz in the mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida in 2018, went on a tirade against the jury, which refused to recommend the death penalty after a three-month trial, during an appearance on MSNBC on Friday morning.
Scott Beigle-Schulman, Linda Beigle-son, Schulman’s was a geography teacher and cross-country coach at the school who died after opening a door and sheltering kids whose names would have been added to the 17 who were killed and 17 who were wounded in the massacre.
“He opened the door and let us in,” Stoneman Douglas student Kelsey Friend told ABC. I assumed he was following me, but he wasn’t. “When he unlocked the door, he had to re-lock it so we could remain safe, but he didn’t have the opportunity,” he said, “and the gunman probably didn’t realize we were in there since he was laying on the floor.” I wouldn’t be [alive] if the gunman had entered the room.”
On Thursday the jury deliberated for close to nine hours before recommending life in prison because the death penalty required a unanimous agreement, with the jury foreman saying there were three hold-outs.
That infuriated a wide range of family members who lost a loved one four years ago, and Beigle-Schulman made a strong case for the death penalty by describing her son’s wounds and then adding she is considering releasing his autopsy photos to show the public what high-powered weapons in the hands of anyone can do to a body.
“The truth of the matter is, okay, really, the verdict at this point gives credibility to the NRA’s talking point that the problem is mental illness and not guns,” she told host Yasmin Vossoughian before adding, “Are you serious?”
“If anything came out of this, a good portion of the victims’ families —,” she continued before pausing. “I’ll speak for myself, yesterday’s verdict did one thing to me that will never stop me: I will go forward, I will be rededicating my life to work even harder than I’m doing right now to end the epidemic of gun violence in our country.”
“I will do everything I can, I will show photos of my son if I have to of his autopsy of what it is to show people what that assault weapon, what that AR-15 does to people,” she exclaimed. “Instead of the media saying this might be disturbing, you might want to look away — no, don’t look away. Look at what it does to people. Look at how it goes into someone’s head and goes off like a cherry bomb, quote/unquote, from one of those medical examiners and the only thing left in this poor victim’s head was his scalp holding his head together.”
“It’s time for people to see what’s going on. we cannot let this go anymore!” she insisted. “This person who took away 17 lives and was given back his life from the jury. That’s wrong, that’s really wrong.”
