Just 45 miles from where the mournful families broken by the latest school shooting laid their loved ones to rest, the President of the United States slipped on a white polo shirt, put a matching white cap on his head and set out for the golf course.
The President arrived at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach shortly after 9 a.m. Monday, and was there two hours later as 14-year-old Alaina Petty’s friends and family filled a Coral Springs Church and talked about her smile.
“It doesn’t feel real at all,” Alaina’s friend, Brooklynn told Florida’s Local 10 News outside the Coral Springs Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
“It feels like you’ll walk into her, like, at the store or when you go into school the next day.”
Trump to meet with Florida high school shooting survivors
Another girl, Hailey, a classmate at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where last week’s rampage took place, talked about how smart her friend was.
President Trump arrives at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., on Monday.
(ERIC THAYER/REUTERS)
“She never had to study for any of the tests and she was just so kind to everyone,” Hailey said. “She never judged you based on what you were going through or who you were.”
Alaina was one of 17 students and staff gunned down in the Parkland, Fla. massacre Wednesday when a former student armed with an assault rifle stormed the school, pulled a fire alarm and picked off teens and teachers as they filled the hallways.
The suspect, Nikolas Cruz, 19, has been charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder. The school remains closed.
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Trump, who briefly met with injured victims and first responders from the school shooting Friday, avoided playing golf over the weekend, a decision aides said was out of respect for the people killed in one of the worst school shooting in American history.
But the President returned to the course on Monday — to cap off President’s Day weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
White House officials did not say whether Trump was playing golf.
Trump returned to Washington late Monday afternoon.
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But before the wheels were up on Air Force One, Trump was spotted in golf attire on the plush grounds.
Luke Hoyer
(Family Handout)
Alaina Petty
(Facebook)
Luke Hoyer and Alaine Petty were killed in the school massacre.
Meanwhile, just an hour’s drive away, 15-year-old Luke Hoyer was remembered as a mama’s boy at a funeral service at The Church by the Glades in Coral Springs.
“He didn’t know what he wanted to do yet,” Luke’s aunt, Joan Cox, told People Magazine. “He was just a freshman and was looking forward to high school.”
The shooting aftermath was the latest episode in the conflicting saga of golf and grief.
Trump came under fire last month for playing golf in Florida on the Martin Luther King holiday, a time traditionally set aside for service.
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Trump was at his Bedminster, N.J., golf resort in September when he launched a personal attack against San Juan, Puerto Rico Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz for criticizing his leadership after Hurricane Maria devastated the island.
While Trump has logged more time at golf courses than his predecessor, President Barack Obama’s love of the links led to criticism as well — including from Trump.
Obama skipped Justice Antonin Scalia’s funeral in Feb. 2016, and his aides would not deny that he was playing golf.
In 2014, Obama was spotted playing golf and laughing shortly after announcing that an American journalist, James Foley, had been beheaded by ISIS terrorists.
Trump stands on the 14th fairway during a pro-am round of the AT&T National golf tournament at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Md. on Feb. 10, 2017.
(Patrick Semansky/AP)
Obama later admitted that he “should’ve anticipated the optics.”
“What kind of President doesn’t get playing golf after a cruel beheading isn’t the thing to do?” Trump tweeted at the time. “Detached from reality he is”
Trump, before he was elected, was relentless in his criticism of Obama’s time on the golf course.
“President Obama has a major meeting on the N.Y.C. Ebola outbreak, with people flying in from all over the country, but decided to play golf!, Trump tweeted in Oct. 2014.
Mourners leave after the funeral of Alaina Petty at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Monday in Coral Springs, Fla.
(Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
“We pay for Obama’s travel so he can fundraise millions so Democrats can run on lies. Then we pay for his golf,” Trump tweeted the same day.
“Obama has admitted that he spends his mornings watching @ESPN. Then he plays golf, fundraises & grants amnesty to illegals,” Trump tweeted in 2014.
In a recent tweet, Trump criticized the FBI for not investigating a tip about the school shooter. He wrote that the agency was “spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign.”
Meanwhile, the grief goes on.
Mourners paid tribute to shooting victim Carmen Schentrup, 16, and Gina Montalto, 14, and wakes in the area.
Gina “was a smart, loving, caring, and strong girl,” her mother Jennifer Montalto, said in a Facebook post last week.
Carmen “was dedicated and accomplished, her parents said on Facebook, and “was going to change the world.”
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