(Reuters) – Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on Monday pledged $1 million to increase security at a historically Black college in Jacksonville that a white gunman tried to enter before shooting and killing three Black people at a Dollar General store.
Authorities said the attack on Saturday was racially motivated. The shooter, 21-year-old Ryan Christopher Palmeter, first went to Edward Waters University but was turned away after refusing to identify himself to a campus officer, authorities said.
They said he left behind several manifestos for media, his parents and law enforcement detailing his hatred for Black people.
“We are not going to allow our (historically Black colleges and universities) to be targeted by these people,” DeSantis said at a press conference on Monday where he announced the donation to the college.
DeSantis said the money for extra security would come from the Volunteer Florida Foundation, a non-profit organization that receives state and federal funding.
An additional $100,000 will be donated to a charity supporting the families of the shooter’s victims, DeSantis said.
Florida Department of Law Enforcement personnel were at Edward Waters University on Monday, evaluating security on campus and making recommendations for improvements to its safety infrastructure, according to DeSantis.
Some black leaders have denounced DeSantis, a Republican presidential candidate, for what they say is his government’s attack on Black history.
Florida in January banned an Advanced Placement course on African-American history from being offered to high school students. The state in July directed kindergarten through high school history teachers to include lessons on how enslaved Black people “developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”
The governor was booed at a prayer vigil for the shooting victims on Sunday. DeSantis told the crowd the gunman was “a major-league scumbag.”
Jeffrey Rumlin, a pastor at the Dayspring Church in Jacksonville who spoke after DeSantis, disagreed. “At the end of the day, respectfully, governor, he was not a scumbag,” Rumlin said. “He was a racist.”
(Reporting by Julia Harte; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and David Gregorio)
