A lawmaker's aide called school-shooting survivors 'actors.' Within hours, he was fired

Students Kelsey Friend, left, and David Hogg recount their stories about the mass shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Hogg is being targeted for speaking out. Photo / Getty

An aide to a Florida legislator was fired on Tuesday after claiming two survivors of a Florida high school shooting who spoke to CNN were not students, but instead "actors that travel to various crisis when they happen."

Benjamin Kelly, an aide to state representative Shawn Harrison, reportedly sent an email to the Tampa Bay Times' Washington Bureau Chief Alex Leary about the appearance of two Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students, Emma Gonzalez and David Hogg, on CNN. The students are survivors of a mass shooting at the Parkland, Florida, school last week that left 17 people dead and dozens of others wounded after a 19-year-old walked into the school and opened fire.

Parkland shooting survivor Emma Gonzalez's message to the NRA: "Disband. Dismantle. Don't make another organization under a different name. Don't you dare come back here" https://t.co/J0vjnvcMeB (via @ellefs0n) pic.twitter.com/5ZFAlWtxU1

— Jennifer Hansler (@jmhansler) February 19, 2018

In their interview, Gonzalez and Hogg called for disbanding the NRA, and for stricter gun control laws.

"The fact that you were in power for so long, that you had so much influence for so long in America just goes to show how much time and effort we still need to spend on fixing our country," Gonzalez said of the NRA. "And gun control is just the first thing right now."

In his email to the Tampa Bay Times, Kelly said, "Both kids [in the interview] are not students here but actors that travel to various crisis when they happen," according to the newspaper.

When the Tampa Bay Times asked Kelly to support his claim, he sent a link to a YouTube conspiracy video about Hogg.

"There is a clip on you tube that shows Mr Hogg out in California. (I guess he transferred?)," Kelly said in the email, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

An article published in the Coral Springs Talk on February 8, six days before the shootings, names Hogg as a senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas and features a documentary he made about astronomy students' efforts to launch a weather balloon and an attached craft into space. Gonzalez is featured in the video as the project's tracking team leader.

Shawn Harrison first placed Kelly on leave and then fired him.

After receiving the link to the video, the Tampa Bay Times then reached out to Harrison, who said, "If my aide disparaged a student from Parkland who is grieving than I will deal most strongly with my aide. . . . Clearly it was inappropriate for him to send that."

On Tuesday afternoon, Harrison tweeted that Kelly was put on leave. Less than two hours later, he said in a tweet that Kelly had been fired, and apologised to grieving families for any pain Kelly's actions caused.

Richard Corcoran, the Speaker of the Florida house who fired Kelly, said in a tweet he was "shocked and angry" after reading the email.

Kelly also took to Twitter Wednesday, and said after his firing that he had made a mistake.

He later tweeted, "And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

His Twitter account later appeared to have been deleted altogether.

Claiming some of the students on tv after #Parkland are actors is the work of a disgusting group of idiots with no sense of decency

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) February 20, 2018