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Mother Of Pulse Victim To Attend Trump’s Address

Leon County Judge John Cooper on June 30, 2022, in a screen grab from The Florida Channel.
WMFE
/
The Florida Channel
Leon County Judge John Cooper on June 30, 2022, in a screen grab from The Florida Channel.

The mother of a victim of the Pulse Night Club shooting will be watching from the Capitol tonight as President Donald Trump gives an address to a joint session of Congress.

Christine Leinonen’s son Drew and his boyfriend died in the Pulse Night Club shooting.

Since then, Leinonen has become a national gun control advocate, speaking at the Democratic National Convention.

Democratic Congresswoman Val Demings says she wants to keep the memory of the victims alive.

“And we want to make sure people don’t forget the devastating role that gun violence plays,” Demings said. “Lone wolves and home grown terrorists pose the biggest threat to our communities.”

Congressional democrats held a sit-in after the Pulse Night Club shooting to try and get gun control measures passed.

Health News Florida reporter Abe Aboraya works for WMFE in Orlando. He started writing for newspapers in high school. After graduating from the University of Central Florida in 2007, he spent a year traveling and working as a freelance reporter for the Seattle Times and the Seattle Weekly, and working for local news websites in the San Francisco Bay area. Most recently Abe worked as a reporter for the Orlando Business Journal. He comes from a family of health care workers.