List of All Articles with Tag 'america'

Mike Pence says he wants to see an armed guard in every public school in America to try and prevent mass shootings rather than gun control measures. The former vice president told a CNN town hall that he believed there should be more gun-carrying security guards in American schools capable of taking down shooters. “We ought to fund an armed and trained security guard at every public school in America and we ought to do it now,” he told host Dana Bash. Bash pointed out that heavily-armed police had not prevented the massacre in Uvalde, Texas, in which 19 students and two teachers were murdered. “That is why I always say trained and armed .... they have got to be trained. If it takes federal funding let’s do it,” said Mr Pence. “I just think we ought to end the conversation and Washington DC should stand up and provide the funding for a trained armed guard that can be part of the school community.” Mr Pence was also asked to justify his belief in expediting the death penalty for mass shooters, most of whom are killed or intend to die during the violence. “I follow these stories as closely as you do and of course our years in the White House we saw one tragedy after another and we see evidence in the aftermath that they went in without regard to whether they would survive, but I just believe in the deterrent of the law,” he said. “I believe that if perhaps we made it clear ... the Parkland shooter in Florida is going to spend the rest of his life in jail, that is not justice.” Mr Pence told the town hall that his “heart breaks” for Chicago, where his parents grew up, and the gun violence that has impacted the city. “We need to get serious and tough on violent crime and give our cities and states resources to restore law and order to our streets,” he said. Bash then had a surprising statistic for the former governor of Indiana. “I just want to say, because I’ve heard other people talk about Chicago, just for the record, the ATF data shows that more than half of the recovered guns used to commit crimes in Illinois in 2021, do you know where they came from? Indiana,” she told him. Read More Mike Pence news – live: At CNN town hall Pence says he won’t pardon Jan 6 protesters who called for his death Pence calls on DoJ not to indict Trump but stops short of saying he’d pardon him if elected in 2024 Mike Pence isn’t even a contender for 2024. Why are we pretending? Deputy Scot Peterson could have stopped Parkland school shooting but protected himself instead, trial hears

Mike Pence has called on the Justice Department to not prosecute Donald Trump for his handling of classified documents but refused to say he would pardon the former president if he won the White House. The former vice president told a CNN town hall in Des Moines, Iowa, that he viewed the handling of classified material as “a very serious matter” but told host Dana Bash that federal prosecutors should leave Mr Trump alone. “I would hope not, I really would,” he said when asked if the DoJ special counsel Jack Smith should indict Mr Trump over the documents found at his Mar-a-Lago estate. “I think it would be terribly divisive to the country at a time when the American people are hurting. This kind of action by the DoJ would only fuel further division in the country and send a terrible message to the wider world…I hope the DoJ thinks better of it and resolves this in a better way than an indictment,” he continued. Mr Pence told the audience that “no one is above the law” and admitted that he himself had no business having some classified documents at his home in Indiana. “I took full responsibility for it. I would hope there would be a way to move forward without the dramatic, drastic steps of indicting a former president of the United States.” Bash then directly asked Mr Pence, who earlier in the day officially launched his campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, if as president he would pardon Mr Trump if he was convicted. “I don’t want to speak about hypotheticals. I am not sure I am going to be elected president of the United States but I believe we have a fighting chance,” he said. Mr Pence was also asked to respond to Mr Trump’s claim he would pardon anyone convicted of taking part in the violent January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol. “You know on January 6 I issued a tweet demanding that people leave the Capitol and end the violence and said those who didn’t should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and I believe that today,” he said. “We cannot ever allow what happened on January 6 to ever happen again. I have no interest or intention of pardoning those who assaulted police officers or vandalized the capitol.” Read More Mike Pence news – live: At CNN town hall Pence says he won’t pardon Jan 6 protesters who called for his death Mike Pence isn’t even a contender for 2024. Why are we pretending? Pence accuses Trump of treating abortion issue as an ‘inconvenience’

Javier Salazar, the sheriff of Bexar County, Texas, is recommending criminal charges against those involved with flights that sent 49 mostly Venezuelan migrants from El Paso to Martha’s Vineyard last year, what was widely derided as a political stunt orchestrated by Florida governor Ron DeSantis. A statement from the sheriff’s office says it has completed an investigation launched last September and recommended several counts of unlawful restraint, both misdemeanours and felonies, to the office of the Bexar County district attorney. Meanwhile, Casey DeSantis, Florida’s first lady and the wife of the aspiring Republican presidential candidate, has been branded a “Walmart Melania” after she wore a leather jacket emblazoned with a map of the Sunshine State, an alligator and the legend “Where woke goes to die” during a campaign stop in Iowa to promote her husband. Elsewhere, a Vice documentary about the candidate’s earlier career as a US Navy lawyer serving at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba has been mysteriously dropped from Showtime’s schedules, according to The Hollywood Reporter, with no explanation given. Read More Federal judge blocks DeSantis ban on gender-affirming care for Florida trans youth: ‘Gender identity is real’ Chris Christie gave Trump legitimacy. Now he can’t stop Trump in 2024 Mike Pence suffered the wrath of Trump. Now the ex-vice president wants his old boss’s job in 2024

Former vice president Mike Pence on Wednesday announced that he is entering the running for the 2024 presidential election, setting up a heated competition for the Republican nomination with former president Donald Trump. In a launch video for his campaign, Mr Pence said a “different leadership” could turn the country around to prevent the American dream from being “crushed”. “Today our party and our country need a leader that will appeal, as Lincoln said, to the better angels of our nature,” Mr Pence continued. While the video highlights Mr Pence’s work as vice president, it avoids making a single mention of the man he served during that period – Mr Trump. In an increasingly crowded GOP field, Mr Pence faces competition from fellow ex-Trump administration figures, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley. Mr Pence served as a member of the House of Representatives between 2001 and 2013 and as Indiana’s governor between 2013 and 2017, but rose to international attention as Mr Trump’s running-mate in 2016. He is the first vice president in modern US history to run against his former running mate.

Doug Burgum, the little-known governor of North Dakota, announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for president on Wednesday morning, further crowding the Republican field. Mr Burgum, who won re-election in staunchly Republican North Dakota last year, will make his announcement official on Wednesday morning. In a preview video released on Tuesday, he mostly focused on the economy, with a tagline saying “a new leader for a changing economy.” The governor did not mention President Joe Biden in his announcement video, nor did he mention former president and current candidate Donald Trump in the video. “Anger yelling and fighting,” he said. “That's not gonna cut it anymore. Let's get things done.” Mr Burgum’s entrance into the 2024 Republican presidential primary field makes him the third candidate to throw his hat into the thing during the last week alone. On Monday, former vice president Mike Pence and ex-New Jersey governor Chris Christie filed the requisite paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to be counted as candidates in next year’s GOP primary. Mr Christie, a former ally of Mr Trump who is recasting himself as a critic this time around, kicked off his campaign at St Anslem’s College in New Hampshire on the night of 6 June. Mr Pence is set to hold a kickoff rally on Wednesday and follow that up with a CNN town hall appearance that evening. The three candidates who’ve jumped in this week are joining a primary field as diverse as any the GOP has ever had. Three primary candidates — Sen Tim Scott (R-SC), former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy — are persons of colour, as is right-wing talk show host Larry Elder. The two frontrunners in the race, Mr Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, both hail from the Sunshine State, while little-known businessman Perry Johnson is a resident of Michigan. Read More Mike Pence announces 2024 run with video calling for ‘different leadership’ Trump ridicules Chris Christie’s weight in edited 2024 campaign launch video

Luci Baines Johnson was a somewhat impatient 18-year-old on Aug. 6, 1965, when she happened to be on what she called “daddy duty,” meaning “I was supposed to accompany him to important occasions.” The occasion that day was President Lyndon Johnson’s scheduled signing of the Voting Rights Act, which Congress had passed the day before. She assumed the ceremony would be in the East Room of the White House, where the Civil Rights Act had been signed the previous year. “And that would probably take an hour and then I could be on my way,” she recalled in a recent interview from the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas. Instead, her father met her and guided her to the South Portico, where the presidential motorcade was waiting. They were going to Congress. Knowing a trip to Capitol Hill would take more time than she anticipated, she asked why. “‘We are going to Congress because there are going to be some courageous men and women who may not be returning to Congress because of the stand they have taken on voting rights,’” she recalled her father telling her. ”‘And there are going to be some extraordinary men and women who will be able to come to the Congress because of this great day. That’s why we’re going to Congress.’” Johnson, who stood behind her father during the signings, knew the significance of the law and asked him afterward why he had presented the first signing pen to Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen, a Republican from Illinois, when so many civil rights champions were on hand. “Luci Baines, I did not have to say or do anything to convince one of those great civil rights leaders to be for that legislation,” she recalled him saying. “If Everett Dirksen hadn’t been willing to be so courageous to support it, too, and more importantly brought his people along ... we’d never have had a law.” Johnson said personal relationships and events in her father’s life influenced his thinking on civil rights and voting rights, as well as many of the social programs he helped establish. Some of that can be traced to his life before politics when he was a teacher in Cotulla, Texas, where most of his students were Mexican American. They were wonderful and eager, but often hungry and very poor, she said. “He thought he’d grown up poor so he would understand what their plight was like,” she said. “But he had never gone without a toothbrush. He had never gone without toothpaste. He had never gone without shoes. He had never known the kind of discrimination that they had known.” “He swore if he ever got in a position to change the trajectory of the lives of people of color” he would, she said. Johnson said she was saddened in 2013 when the Supreme Court released its ruling in Shelby County v. Holder, which essentially ended a provision of the Voting Rights Act mandating the way states were included on the list of those needing to get advance approval for voting-related changes. “I cried because I knew what was coming. I knew that there were parts of this country, including my home state, my father’s home state, that would take advantage of the fact that there would no longer be an opportunity to have the federal government ensure that everyone in the community had the right and equal access to the voting booth,” she said. “I have seen over a lifetime so much take place that has tried to close the doors on all those rights,” she said. “I’m 75 years old now, and my energies are less than they once were, but for all of my days I will do all I can to try to keep those doors open to people of color, people who are discriminated against because of their age, or their ethnicity or their physical handicaps.” With the Supreme Court due to rule on another major pillar of the Voting Rights Act, Johnson said she wants to keep fighting to try to maintain her father’s legacy and protect voting rights. “I don’t want to get to heaven one day, and I hope I do, and have to say to my father, it was gutted to death on my watch,” she said. ___ The Associated Press coverage of race and voting receives support from the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Donald Trump fired off a nasty buffet video of Chris Christie after the former governor attacked Ivanka Trump at his 2024 campaign launch. The former president shared a video created by Twitter users @NautPoso and @drefanzor which was crudely edited to make it appear as if the ex-New Jersey governor was starting his campaign at an all-you-can-buffet holding a plate of food. Mr Trump shared the video not long after taking another shot at Mr Christie’s weight. “How many times did Chris Christie use the word SMALL? Does he have a psychological problem with SIZE? Actually, his speech was SMALL, and not very good,” Mr Trump wrote on Truth Social. “It rambled all over the place, and nobody had a clue of what he was talking about. Hard to watch, boring, but that’s what you get from a failed Governor (New Jersey) who left office with a 7% approval rating and then got run out of New Hampshire. This time, it won’t be any different!” Mr Christe has faced a litany of jokes about his weight in the last few weeks from outlets such as Newsmax and Fox News. Fox host Greg Gutfeld took part in the mockery, as did network anchor John Roberts who said the former governor “could drink a lot the milkshake if he wanted to” because of his “physical stature”. Mr Roberts apologized on Tuesday, Mediaite noted. This is not the first time Mr Trump has mocked the weight of Mr Christie, who became the first establishment Republican to endorse Mr Trump after dropping out of the 2016 primary. Mr Christie was for a time of Mr Trump’s presidential transition and was also considered for roles such as vice president and attorney general, ideas which were vetoed by Mr Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. After being an ally of the president and supporting him in both the 2016 and 2020 elections, Mr Christie has now become one of his harshest critics. Last year, Mr Trump posted an image of Mr Christie at a buffet with the caption “Chris Christie at a Roy Rogers at 11 PM in the evening trying to console himself”. More follows... Read More Chris Christie gave Trump legitimacy. Now he can’t stop Trump in 2024 Trump news – live: Trump lashes out at ‘boring’ presidential rival as charges expected in Mar-a-Lago documents case Chris Christie news – live: Ex-governor lashes out at Trump family’s ‘breathtaking grift’ in fiery 2024 launch

Former vice president Mike Pence on Wednesday announced that he is entering the running for the 2024 presidential election, setting up a heated competition for the Republican nomination with former president Donald Trump. More follows

Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie launched his campaign for president on Tuesday at a town hall in Manchester, New Hampshire. This is the second time Mr Christie has made a bid for the White House, the first being in 2016 when he lost to former president Donald Trump. Though Mr Christie lent his support to Mr Trump in 2016 when he dropped out of the race, he has since changed his opinion of the former president and become a vocal critic of Mr Trump. That was evident on Tuesday, as he denounced his former ally as a corrupt narcissist and vowed to draw blood in his quest for the Republican nomination. He did so several times during the town hall event, including at one point when he tore into the former president’s family for “breathtaking” levels of corruption and “grift” that he said followed them through the White House and beyond. The former New Jersey governor plans to position himself as a moderate Republican alternative to both Mr Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, while promising an aggressive campaign unafraid to punch at his rivals. Read More Chris Christie gave Trump legitimacy. Now he can’t stop Trump in 2024 Chris Christie targets his ‘divisive’ former friend Donald Trump as he sets up bitter 2024 battle Mike Pence suffered the wrath of Trump. Now the ex-vice president wants his old boss’s job in 2024

The battle for the Republican nomination just got a whole lot messier. That was the defining message of former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s campaign launch on Tuesday: get ready for blood. Calling out his opponents by name, deconstructing their campaign slogans and clever quips — Chris Christie was in prime form on Tuesday evening at St Anselm College in New Hampshire, where he addressed a small crowd of voters in a town hall-style event and put his sights clear on his top rival, Donald Trump. Mr Christie spoke at length before taking questions from his guests. In his remarks throughout the event, he remained plain-spoken and sharp-tongued while denouncing the four years of his rival’s presidency as an utter failure and little more than an opportunity for “breathtaking” levels of corruption and “grift” carried out by the Trump family. He called the man he twice supported for the White House a “self-consumed, self-serving, mirror hog”, and said that Americans now had four years’ worth of a record with which to judge the former president. At the same time, he made clear that he had little patience for his other rivals, those like Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley and Tim Scott, who have thus far played coy with their thoughts regarding the former president and his legacy. He even torched Trump family members Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump for receiving a $2bn investment from a Saudi firm into one controlled by Mr Kushner just a short time after they left the White House, deriding it as evidence of a corrupt relationship. "The grift from this family is breathtaking. Jared Kushner and Ivanka Kushner walk out of the White House, and months later, it turns out, they get $2bn from the Saudis?” said Mr Christie. “That makes us a banana republic,” he added. It was comments like that — plus his effortless deconstruction of calls from his rivals to ignore leaders who don’t “look forward”, and their calls for “generational change” — that outlined Mr Christie’s strengths as a politcian and in-person campaigner. Whether it will translate into votes for his candidacy, rather than just the destruction of his foes, is not yet evident. But what is evident is the eagerness of Mr Christie to get into a brawl with his opponents, a trait so far only shared by Mr Trump himself. That similarity was picked up on by one questioner, who identified herself as a clinical psychologist concerned about a nation “traumatised” by constant anger and divisiveness. Mr Christie responded that his brash nature and willingness to throw punches at his opponents was a strength only because it was supposedly paired with a humility and willingness to admit his own mistakes that made him a good leader. It was at least the outline of an effective campaign, if one light on actual policy. The governor did touch on a few national issues, such as when he expressed his opposition to federal efforts to ban abortion — unless, he conceded, there was real support in Congress for it — as well as when he touched on the issue of Ukraine, and labeled Republican rivals Vivek Ramaswamy and Ron DeSantis the “Neville Chamberlains” of the 2024 race for their supposed willingness to give endless concessions to a dictator. But for the most part, Mr Christie focused on his real advantages as a candidate: The fiery personality that won him both praise and criticism in New Jersey, and a willingness to spar with his opponents at a surgical level. He laid the blame for Joe Biden’s 2020 victory at his opponent’s feet, calling the now-president a weak politician who had gone up against a hopelessly-damaged candidate. "He wouldn't be in office if it wasn't for Trump. Joe Biden never beat anybody outside the state of Delaware in 45 years except for one guy Donald J. Trump...not once, until he ran up against the guy who the American people knew in their heart was full of it,” said the ex-governor. And despite his insistences on Truth Social that he was not worried about the entrance of his former ally into the race, Donald Trump clearly had Chris Christie on his mind Tuesday evening as he blasted out commentary from his social media platform. So too did Marco Rubio, Christie’s unfortunate victim in 2016, who lamely insisted in his own tweet that the New Jersey governor’s onstage humiliation of him had not contributed to his downfall. If there was one takeaway from Tuesday night’s event, it was this: Chris Christie is in the GOP primary to win it all, and he plans to do so by setting himself apart from his fellows as a bold, unflinching truthteller — ironically, the same reputation that Donald Trump constructed for himself in 2016. Whether his newfound courage will be enough to convince his potential voters to break away from the man whom the governor admitted tonight to supporting in two presidential elections? That’s another story. Read More Elon Musk hosts anti-vax 2024 candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr on Twitter Spaces after disastrous DeSantis event Tucker Carlson calls Ukraine’s Jewish leader ‘rat-like’ as he launches new Twitter show with pro-Kremlin rant How to make tomato confit with whipped feta Ivanka and Jared split over attending Trump 2024 launch – follow live Why was Donald Trump impeached twice during his first term? Four big lies Trump told during his 2024 presidential announcement

A former US intelligence officer has blown the whistle on the US government by alleging they concealed a programme that has physical evidence of a “non-human origin” craft. David Charles Grusch told The Debrief and NewsNation this week that he confidentially turned over classified information to Congress and the Intelligence Community Inspector General in July 2021 about the programme and possible evidence. According to Mr Grusch, he experienced retaliation when his identity was revealed – something he has filed a formal complaint regarding. But now, Mr Grusch wants the rest of the world to know about some of the information that he believes was being illegally concealed, even if it means putting himself at risk. “I am for real. I am sitting here at great personal risk and obvious professional risk by talking to you today,” Mr Grusch told NewsNation. Here’s what we know about Mr Grusch and the claims he’s making. Who is David Charles Grusch? Mr Grusch is a 36-year-old veteran of the US Air Force as well as the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office. He is a decorated former combat officer in Afghanistan, according to The Debrief. From 2016 until 2021, Mr Grusch served as a senior intelligence officer with the National Reconnaissance Office. From 2019 until 2021, he was the office’s representative to the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) Task Force. From late 2021 until July 2022, he co-led the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s UAP analysis. In total, Mr Grusch has 14 years of intelligence experience. At the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Mr Grusch was a senior intelligence capabilities integration office and had Top Secret / Secret Compartmented Information level clearance. Mr Grusch told The Debrief that he reported to Congress on the existence of a “publicly unknown Cold War for recovered and exploited physical material” that identified UAP [Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena] crashes, landings and retrieved material for “exploitation / reverse engineering to garner asymmetric national defense advantages.” Mr Grusch told NewNation that the UAP task force was refused access to the materials recovery programme. “I thought it was totally nuts and I thought at first I was being deceived, it was a ruse. People started to confide in me. Approach me. I have plenty of senior, former, intelligence officers that came to me, many of which I knew almost my whole career, that confided in me that they were part of a program,” Mr Grusch told NewsNation. What are his claims? Mr Grusch is alleging that the materials recovery programme retrieved, “non-human origin technical vehicles” but kept it hidden from the public. “Call it spacecraft if you will, non-human exotic origin vehicles that have either landed or crashed,” Mr Grusch said to NewsNation. In a separate interview with the Debrief, Mr Grusch described how the government allegedly has evidence of spacecraft created by a “non-human intelligence” of “unknown origin.” “[This assessment is] based on the vehicle morphologies and material science testing and the possession of unique atomic arrangements and radiological signatures,” the former official said. He sounded the alarm to Congress and the Intelligence Community Inspector General in July 2021, confidentially alleging that the materials recovery programme was shielded from proper congressional oversight. However, he claims his identity was somehow disclosed and he suffered retaliation for disclosing the confidential information. “I hope this revelation serves as an ontological shock sociologically and provides a generally uniting issue for nations of the world to re-assess their priorities,” Mr Grusch said to The Debrief. The former defence official said he hadn’t directly witnessed or seen photos of the recovered alien objects himself, but has spoken extensively with colleagues who have. “We’re definitely not alone,” he told NewsNation. “The data points, quite empirically that we’re not alone.” He added that as part of his disclosures to Congress and the inspector general, he turned over verifiable “proof” of his claims. Altogether, Mr Grusch said his experiences have convinced him the US government has been systematically lying to the American people for decades about unidentified aerial phenomena. “There is a sophisticated disinformation campaign targeting the US populace which is extremely unethical and immoral,” Mr Grusch said in his interview with NewsNation. What has the US government said? Sue Gough, a spokesperson for the DOD said in a statement provided to The Independent that to date the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) does not have “any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently.” The All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) investigates unidentified flying objects and other phenomena in the air, sea, land or space. Ms Gough said the AARO is “committed to following the data and its investigation wherever it leads” adding that they are working with the Office of the General Counsel and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations to establish “a safe and secure process for individuals ot come forward with information to aid AARO in it’s congressionally-mandated historical review.” “AARO welcomes the opportunity to speak with any former or current government employee or contractor who believes they have information relevant to the historical review,” Ms Gough added. The Independent has reached out to the Intelligence Community Inspector General for comment regarding the whistleblower complaint. Read More UFO ‘whistleblower’ says government has ‘intact’ non-human craft White House dodges question on UFO whistleblower Nasa holds first public meeting about sightings of UFOs White House dodges question on UFO whistleblower UFO ‘whistleblower’ says government has ‘intact’ non-human craft Chris Christie targets his former friend Trump as he sets up bitter 2024 battle

Police in Richmond, Virginia, responded on Tuesday to a shooting that took place during a high school graduation ceremony on the campus of Virginia Commonwealth University. Seven people were shot in the incident, leaving with three people life-threatening injuries and four with non-life-threatening injuries, Richmond interim police chief Rick Edwards said during a press conference on Tuesday. Five others went to the hospital with other injuries, he added. Bystanders also sustained injuries fleeing the shooting, including individuals who fell and someone who was struck by a car. Two people have been arrested in connection with the violence, Mr Edwards said. Two people were killed in the shooting, WRIC reports, and children were among those wounded in the incident, according to the outlet. According to the university’s safety alert system, shots were fired on the Monroe Park campus after 5pm Eastern time, near the Altria Theater. “This does have to stop. We know where it starts,” lieutenant governor Virginia Winsome Earle-Sears said on Tuesday, speaking to reporters from campus. “If I had the accountability and the responsibility, this wouldn’t keep happening. The peope who are elected here, they’re in charge. They must make that adjustment so that this, the shooting, doesn’t keep happening.” Three off-duty officers were inside the theater and heard gunshots around 5.13pm, running outside and encountering the victims. VCU police said on Tuesday there’s no ongoing threat to the public. “Multiple injuries reported. There is no immediate threat to the public,” the Richmond Police Department tweeted on Tuesday. “Avoid the area.” The shooting took place outside of Huguenot High School’s graduation ceremony, Richmond Public Schools told the station. Jason Alexander, whose son was part of the graduation ceremony, told NBC12 the shooting sounded like “fireworks” and sent crowds scattering outside the theater. The man says he saw multiple injured and estimates he heard eight to 10 shots fired. “It just don’t make no sense,” another bystander told the station. “We’re supposed to be happy about people. We’re supposed to be supporting one another, loving on another, hugging one another. Come on now. I just think it’s bad. We have to do better.” The man told the station one of his daughter’s friends was among the wounded. “Everyone literally started running for their lives,” a witness told 8News. The incident occured close to the end of the ceremony, witnesses told WTVR. “This is heartbreaking,” congresswoman Jennifer McClellan of Virginia wrote on Twitter on Tuesday. “My staff & I are closely monitoring this situation. Praying for the safety of everyone involved. I encourage everyone who can to avoid the area.” Bystander video of the shooting from bystanders shows throngs of people running across the campus green after the shooting. Virginia state police and Richmond police enforcement officers are on campus investigating. Police were seen by local reporters searching a car near the campus. Richard Public Schools will be closed on Wednesday following the shooting, school officials wrote on the RPS website. This is a breaking news story and will be updated with new information.