While our attention drifted elsewhere in the four years since a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School killed 17 people, Manuel Oliver recaptured it, starkly reminding us that the pain of losing a child does not ease.
Oliver, whose son Joaquin, was gunned down and murdered along with 16 others students and faculty members on Valentine’s Day 2018, staged a dramatic protest Monday, the fourth anniversary of the tragedy.
Frustrated by the lack of gun-control laws passed since the tragedy, Oliver focused a light on an administration he says had done little to rein in guns in America.
Oliver climbed atop a construction crane near the White House where, battered by cold winds, spoke into his camera: “The whole world will listen to Joaquin today.”
He unfurled a banner with a photo of his son and the message: “45K people died from gun violence on your watch.” He was talking to President Biden.
Oliver’s unusual protest made national news. Mission accomplished, at least for the day. For his ultimate goal is gun control, the kind that would have prevented a young gunman from securing a deadly weapon.
Oliver said that he asked for a meeting with Biden a month ago. “Never got that,” he said.
That’s a shame, because if there is one president who knows what it’s like to lose a child it’s Biden; he’s lost two. In 1972, his 13-month-old daughter, Naomi, died in a horrific car crash that also killed his first wife.
And in 2015, Biden’s son Beau, died of brain cancer at 46.
The Stoneman Douglas tragedy turned some parents of the victims into fierce gun-control activists. One parent ran for the Broward County School Board, and won.
And Oliver scaled a crane. He was arrested, along with two others. Monday night, the charges were unclear.
Monday morning, Biden issued a statement observing the Stoneman massacre. But that wasn’t enough for Oliver. In fact, it’s not going be enough, period.
Oliver does not what his son to have died in vain. Once he came down, he unfurled a banner with a photo of his son and the message: “45K people died from gun violence on your watch.”
Maybe Biden should listen and give Oliver his meeting,
Or this: First lady Jill Biden can meet with the grieving father Oliver when she visits Miami this week.
That, too, would be the right thing to do.
