The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, has announced $1m for heightened security at a historically Black college, a day after he was booed at a memorial gathering for victims of a deadly racist shooting in his state.
DeSantis said his administration would give $1m to Edward Waters University to enhance its security after the gunman in this weekend’s racist killings at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville tried to enter the historically Black college but was denied entry.
DeSantis said that an additional $100,000 would be given to a charity for the victims’ families.
“As I’ve said for the last couple of days, we are not going to allow our HBCUs to be targeted by these people,” DeSantis said. “We’re going to provide security help with them.”
DeSantis’s funding measure comes as he faces criticism for limiting Black history education in Florida, a move that many have condemned as racist.
DeSantis has also come under renewed scrutiny for his support of expanded gun access in his state. The Florida governor signed legislation in April that allows resident to carry concealed guns without a permit.
On Sunday, he was jeered while speaking at a memorial that drew a crowd of nearly 200 to remember the victims of the Dollar General shooting.
“He don’t care,” an attendee shouted as DeSantis was being introduced, the Hill reported.
At one point, a council member came to DeSantis’s defense and attempted to quiet the crowd, but the booing continued.
“It ain’t about parties today,” said Jacksonville city councilwoman Ju’Coby Pittman. “A bullet don’t know a party.”
DeSantis referred to the shooter as a “major-league scumbag” in his remarks, adding that Florida opposed racist violence.
“What he did is totally unacceptable in the state of Florida,” DeSantis said. “We are not going to let people be targeted based on their race.”
The 21-year-old gunman left behind several manifestos that invoked racist slurs, police confirmed. The rifle used in the attacks also had Nazi symbols painted on, police added.
The US justice department announced Sunday that the shooting would be investigated as a hate crime.
Police have confirmed that the gunman bought the weapons legally, despite being involuntarily held for a previous mental health crisis and being involved in a domestic violence case that provoked a law enforcement response, the Washington Post reported.
Because neither case resulted in criminal convictions, the gunman was legally able to buy the weapons this year, sometime between April and July.
“There was no criminal arrest history. There is nothing we could have done to stop him from owning a rifle or a handgun,” Jacksonville’s sheriff, TK Waters, said during a Sunday news conference.
“There were no red flags.”
The Jacksonville shooting is the latest act of public, racist violence against Black people after 10 were killed in a shooting at a Buffalo grocery store last year.
The killer in the Buffalo case has since been given a sentence of life imprisonment.
