AndrewBlakeParkland, FL – A teacher at the Florida School where 17 students were gunned down is being investigated for alleged comments made comparing a Jewish pro-Second Amendment student to Hitler and saying he was “dangerous.”
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School history teacher Gregory Pittman, who is an outspoken gun control advocate, made the comments after student Kyle Kashuv was in photos posted on social media at a gun range with his father, according to Fox News.
WTVJ-TV reported that Pittman said that Kashuv was “acting like the next Hitler.”
“School leaders take all matters involving students and staff seriously,” Broward County Public Schools spokeswoman Nadine Drew told Fox News. “They are aware of the allegations and are looking into the matter.”
“We cannot discuss the details of the case, but we do believe he will be cleared of all allegations of any wrongdoing,” the teachers union president said, according to Sun-Sentinel.
Kashuv is a junior and posted the photo and video on Friday of the first time shooting a gun with his father, who was with the Israel Defense Forces, according to Fox News.
Kashuv told Fox News that the post led to an interrogation from a school official and a report from the Broward County Sheriff’s Office. The sheriff’s office found the posts to be “non-threatening.”
“After a mass shooting at a school, you don’t have to be the sharpest tack in the box to understand when another student posts a photo of an assault weapon why school security personnel and police might ask questions,” tweeted Pittman, according to The Sun-Sentinel.
Pittman and Kashuv had a Twitter exchange where Pittman said it was “bad” for Kashuv to hold a gun and that the student was doing it just to get attention.
Days later, the teacher began disparaging Kashuv in class when Kashuv was not present. A student witnessed the teacher’s angry rant and reported that the teacher said Kashuv was “dangerous.”
Kashuv responded to the alleged comments from Pittman on Twitter.
“I find it utterly vile that he’d call a Jew the next Hitler,” Kashuv wrote on Twitter, according to Fox News. Kashuv’s family came from Israel in the 1990s. “It’s also quite telling that he doesn’t know that Hitler took the people’s weaponry and I want more law-abiding citizens to have firearms.”
The teacher didn’t respond to requests from comment from Fox News.