Parkland parents forcibly removed, arrested at U.S. House hearing on gun control

By Moira Warburton

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The parents of one of the 17 people killed in a 2018 mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, were forcibly removed on Thursday from a U.S. House of Representatives hearing on guns, videos showed.

Manuel Oliver was pinned to the ground outside the hearing and arrested by Capitol Hill Police. His wife, Patricia Oliver, was also removed from the hearing by police.

The pair were attending a hearing of a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee, entitled “ATF’s Assault on the Second Amendment,” referring to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Capitol Police said Manuel Oliver was arrested after he disrupted a hearing and then attempted to re-enter the hearing room, and that it was a citation arrest which meant he would not face jail time.

The Olivers’ son, Joaquin, was 17 when he was killed by a mass shooter at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School. The incident led to a mass movement among youth and parents of gun violence victims to push for stricter gun laws in the United States.

“The Chair should’ve given a warning. He completely escalated the situation,” Democratic Representative Maxwell Frost, a member of the committee who left in protest after the Olivers’ removal, said on Twitter.

Republican Chair Pat Fallon did not immediately return a request for comment.

(Reporting by Moira Warburton in Washington; editing by Jonathan Oatis)