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Texas Boy Killed by Truck as His School Held a Walkout on Guns

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Texas Boy Killed by Truck as His School Held a Walkout on Guns

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Another spokesman for the Police Department, Sgt. Robert Gomez, said at the news conference: "It is illegal to walk on a highway. It's next to impossible for motorists to move out of the way of pedestrians on the roadway and that's why it's a restricted passage."

On social media, some blamed the walkout for Jonathan's death and called for schools to stop endorsing the protests, but Mr. De La Torre said the students who left the campus were an "isolated group."

School walkouts took place throughout the country on Friday, the 19th anniversary of the Columbine shooting. It marked the third nationally coordinated gun control protest this year - each led by students, some of whom have had to participate in school lockdown drills since kindergarten.

They banded together to call for tougher gun laws, share firsthand stories about the violence that has roiled their communities and honor the 17 students who were shot to death in February at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.

Jonathan's mother, Ashley Benko, is a nurse in the University Medical Center's emergency department, a spokesman for the hospital said, and his uncle, Michael Benko, works as a respiratory therapist there.

"All of us at U.M.C. are heartbroken by the loss of a child belonging to one of our associates, especially a child as young as Jonathan," Jacob Cintron, the chief executive of the medical center, said in a statement.

The middle school had placed additional supervision at the back and front of the school, but the group of students left the school grounds on the east side, Mr. De La Torres said.

The school's safety and security "is unparalleled," he said, but when students choose to leave campus "it becomes more and more difficult to guarantee their safety."

Jonathan's death was a tragic accident, he said.

"What we've come to understand is that there are students out there that are very vocal, that are going to be our future leaders that are going to insist upon walking out," he said. "And what we try to do is help them understand that they can still have a voice and that they can still have a presence and demonstrate their recognition and honor of some of the things that have happened in this country without leaving the premises."

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ysleta independent school district (el paso  tex)

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Texas Boy Dies After Being Hit by Truck During School Walkout on Guns

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Another spokesman for the Police Department, Sgt. Robert Gomez, said at the news conference: "It is illegal to walk on a highway. It's next to impossible for motorists to move out of the way of pedestrians on the roadway and that's why it's a restricted passage."

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What Does Kim Jong-un Want? U.S. Fears Answer Is ‘Give a Little, Gain a Lot’

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What Does Kim Jong-un Want? U.S. Fears Answer Is ‘Give a Little, Gain a Lot’

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Mr. Trump has vowed not to do that. But aides say he is beguiled by the prospect of making history on the Korean Peninsula. He has yet to impose any preconditions on his meeting with Mr. Kim, not even the release of three Americans who are being held in North Korea, though officials say the United States is working hard to get them out.

This past week, he endorsed Mr. Kim's effort to reach a peace accord with South Korea's president, Moon Jae-in, which would formally end the 68-year military conflict in Korea. Inside the White House, some worry that Mr. Kim will use promises of peace to peel South Korea away from the United States and blunt efforts to force him to give up his nuclear weapons.

"People don't realize the Korean War has not ended," Mr. Trump said with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan sitting next to him. "It's going on right now. And they are discussing an end to the war. So, subject to a deal, they would certainly have my blessing."

Mr. Abe pointedly did not echo those sentiments. Japan is deeply skeptical of Mr. Kim's motives, and worried that its security concerns may not be taken into account in any agreement between either North and South Korea, or North Korea and the United States.

Japanese officials dismissed North Korea's announcement that it was suspending nuclear and missile tests as "not sufficient" because it did not clearly state whether it included the short- and midrange missiles that are capable of hitting Japanese territory.

"Just because North Korea is responding to dialogue, there should be no reward," Mr. Abe said after spending two days with Mr. Trump at his Palm Beach estate in Florida, Mar-a-Lago. "Maximum pressure should be maintained, and actual implementation of concrete actions towards denuclearization will be demanded."

Even China, which is accustomed to controlling its relationship with North Korea without interference from other powers, is chafing at the speed of events, and the increasingly warm feelings between Pyongyang and Washington. Chinese officials fear that they will be sidelined in negotiations and that Mr. Kim will pursue a deal with the United States that places the North closer to Washington than Beijing.

Much of the anxiety in Tokyo and Beijing stems from the unpredictability of the main players. Mr. Trump, who threatened in August to rain "fire and fury" on the North, is now talking about "good will" between Washington and Pyongyang. Mr. Kim has proved more adroit than many expected in orchestrating the diplomatic opening to South Korea and the United States.

"They're doing a great job of appearing reasonable, but picking apart the maximum pressure campaign, and positioning themselves to be accepted as a nuclear weapons state in the future," said Evan S. Medeiros, a former senior Asia adviser to President Barack Obama.

Adding to the uncertainty is the flux on Mr. Trump's national security team. Days after accepting Mr. Kim's invitation to meet, the president fired his secretary of state, Rex W. Tillerson, and his national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, was forced to step down.

Now, Mr. Trump has entrusted the diplomacy to Mike Pompeo, the C.I.A. director, whom he nominated to replace Mr. Tillerson and who is embroiled in a difficult Senate confirmation process. Mr. Pompeo traveled secretly to Pyongyang over Easter weekend to meet Mr. Kim, bringing along only aides from the spy agency.

Mr. Pompeo raised the issue of the detained Americans, according to a senior official. But much of his one-day visit was devoted to logistical issues, like the venue and date for a meeting, which is expected in late May or early June. The lack of involvement by the White House or the State Department, another official said, has limited the amount of substantive preparation for the meeting with Mr. Kim.

General McMaster's hawkish successor, John R. Bolton, is another wild card. Two weeks before he was recruited as national security adviser, he said a meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim was useful only because it would inevitably fail, and then the United States could move swiftly on to the next phase - presumably a military confrontation.

"It could be a long and unproductive meeting, or it could be a short and unproductive meeting," he said on Fox News.

Since entering the White House, however, Mr. Bolton has stuck to a traditional definition of his job, brokering proposals to present to Mr. Trump, officials said. Even among officials who worry about war, there is sympathy for his view that "failing quickly" would be valuable. The United States, they said, should flush out Mr. Kim's intentions before he has another six months or a year to master intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Mr. Bolton's presence has also not stopped Mr. Trump from praising Mr. Kim and voicing optimism - even excitement - about their looming encounter. On Friday, he tweeted, "North Korea has agreed to suspend all Nuclear Tests and close up a major test site. This is very good news for North Korea and the World - big progress! Look forward to our Summit."

The administration viewed Mr. Kim's statement about halting nuclear tests as more intriguing than his acceptance of a continuing American troop presence because he made it to his own people. Still, they noted his unwillingness to rule out short- and medium-range missiles, which they said could divide Japan from the United States.

Officials also acknowledged the challenge of staying in sync with Mr. Moon, who is acting as a mediator between the United States and North Korea and who is deeply invested in ending years of estrangement between the North and South.

Mr. Moon contends that it would not be difficult to broker a "broad" agreement between Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim in which North Korea commits to giving up its arsenal and the United States makes security guarantees, including a peace treaty and normalized ties, and offers aid that Mr. Kim needs to rebuild his economy.

South Korea envisions a sequential process, starting with an agreement to freeze North Korea's nuclear program and ending with total denuclearization. The North, officials said, will insist that for each step it takes, the United States offer reciprocal incentives.

Such an approach is not new: The George W. Bush administration tried it with Mr. Kim's father, Kim Jong-il, in 2005. But the process could be open-ended if North Korea and the United States, mistrustful of each other, haggle each step of the way, as they did then.

The key to success, South Korean officials said, is if North Korea and the United States can agree to narrow the time span between the initial freeze, which Mr. Moon has called "the entrance," and complete denuclearization, which he calls "the exit."

South Korean officials are banking on Mr. Kim's desperate desire to improve the economy and Mr. Trump's need for a diplomatic victory before the midterm elections in November.

Once they reach a broad deal, analysts said, Mr. Kim could move to dismantle production facilities for intercontinental ballistic missiles and allow access to nuclear sites in the North; the two leaders could exchange liaison offices in Pyongyang and Washington; and Mr. Trump could ease sanctions, especially those that affect ordinary North Koreans.

Like their American counterparts, South Korean officials do not believe that Mr. Kim will swiftly relinquish his nuclear weapons. But there is a growing belief in Seoul that he might ultimately bargain them away, if it helps him rebuild the economy. That is why some in South Korea viewed his announcement on testing as a hopeful sign.

"It means that North Korea is willing to give up an ICBM capability that threatens the United States," said Cheong Seong-chang, a senior North Korea analyst at the Sejong Institute, a think tank in South Korea. "This is why it is good news for the Trump administration."

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arms control and limitation and disarmament

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What Does Kim Jong-un Want? U.S. Fears Answer Is 'Give a Little, Gain a Lot'

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Mr. Trump has vowed not to do that. But aides say he is beguiled by the prospect of making history on the Korean Peninsula. He has yet to impose any preconditions on his meeting with Mr. Kim, not even the release of three Americans who are being held in North Korea, though officials say the United States is working hard to get them out.

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Trump Rejects Notion He Has Made Too Many Concessions to North Korea

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Trump Rejects Notion He Has Made Too Many Concessions to North Korea

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WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - As negotiations over a summit meeting with the ruler of North Korea accelerate, President Trump on Sunday disputed any suggestion that he had made too many concessions at the outset of an unpredictable and potentially volatile diplomatic exercise.

From his Florida estate, Mr. Trump took to Twitter to criticize Chuck Todd, the host of "Meet the Press," who had questioned on his program whether the president had gotten anything in return for the "huge gift" he had given the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, by agreeing to meet with him.

On the show, Marc Short, the White House legislative affairs director, had an answer teed up - that the North Koreans had given the United States "an agreement to stop testing" nuclear weapons.

But from his Twitter account, the president chose to answer Mr. Todd directly.

"Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd of Fake News NBC just stated that we have given up so much in our negotiations with North Korea, and they have given up nothing," Mr. Trump wrote. "Wow, we haven't given up anything & they have agreed to denuclearization (so great for World), site closure, & no more testing!"

North Korea has not in fact agreed to denuclearization. It has told the South Koreans that it is willing to discuss the issue, but Mr. Kim has made no such statement to his own people, as he did with his declaration that his country did not need to conduct further nuclear testing.

Experts inside and outside the American government believe that Mr. Kim's ultimate goal is to have his country recognized as a nuclear power even as he offers enough concessions - some potentially largely symbolic - to press the United States into easing crippling economic sanctions.

Analysts who study North Korea's diplomatic patterns say there is cause for concern over Mr. Kim's overtures, given his murky motives and his apparent effort to use the concessions to try to achieve the upper hand in the negotiation process.

North Korea has a long history of not abiding by promises to curtail its nuclear program, and Mr. Todd on his program reflected skepticism among former and some current White House officials that Mr. Kim will actually follow through on any vow to dismantle the North's primary nuclear test site or stop nuclear weapons testing.

Some officials worry that Mr. Trump may be so eager to reach a historic deal that he will be lured into an agreement that falls short of the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula that global powers have demanded.

Mr. Short said the administration had "cautious optimism" about the North Korea talks, which are expected in the next month or two. But he said the president would not relent on his "maximum pressure" campaign against the North until it denuclearized.

Asked what "denuclearization" meant to the two sides, Mr. Short said that they would have to hash it out, but that the American view was that it would mean "full denuclearization."

Mr. Trump, perhaps sensitive to any suggestion that he could be duped by a wily North Korean leader, sought to project an air of only-time-will-tell caution.

"We are a long way from conclusion on North Korea, maybe things will work out, and maybe they won't," Mr. Trump wrote.

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Trump Rejects Notion He Has Made Too Many Concessions to North Korea

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WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - As negotiations over a summit meeting with the ruler of North Korea accelerate, President Trump on Sunday disputed any suggestion that he had made too many concessions at the outset of an unpredictable and potentially volatile diplomatic exercise.

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Public Servants Are Losing Their Foothold in the Middle Class

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Public Servants Are Losing Their Foothold in the Middle Class

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OKLAHOMA CITY - The anxiety and seething anger that followed the disappearance of middle-income jobs in factory towns has helped reshape the American political map and topple longstanding policies on tariffs and immigration.

But globalization and automation aren't the only forces responsible for the loss of those reliable paychecks. So is the steady erosion of the public sector.

For generations of Americans, working for a state or local government - as a teacher, firefighter, bus driver or nurse - provided a comfortable nook in the middle class. No less than automobile assembly lines and steel plants, the public sector ensured that even workers without a college education could afford a home, a minivan, movie nights and a family vacation.

In recent years, though, the ranks of state and local employees have languished even as the populations they serve have grown. They now account for the smallest share of the American civilian work force since 1967.

The 19.5 million workers who remain are finding themselves financially downgraded. Teachers who have been protesting low wages and sparse resources in Oklahoma, West Virginia and Kentucky - and those in Arizona who say they plan to walk out on Thursday - are just one thread in that larger skein.

"I was surprised to realize along the way I was no longer middle class," said Teresa Moore, who has spent 30 years investigating complaints of abused or neglected children, veterans and seniors in Oklahoma.

She raised two daughters in Alex, a rural dot southwest of the capital, on her salary. But when she applied for a mortgage nine years ago, the loan officer casually described her as "low income."

At 57, Ms. Moore now earns just over $43,000, which she supplements with a part-time job as a computer technician.

The private sector has been more welcoming. During 97 consecutive months of job growth, it created 18.6 million positions, a 17 percent increase.

But that impressive streak comes with an asterisk. Many of the jobs created - most in service industries - lack stability and security. They pay little more than the minimum wage and lack predictable hours, insurance, sick days or parental leave.

The result is that the foundation of the middle class continues to be gnawed away even as help-wanted ads multiply.

Reducing state and local payrolls, of course, is a goal that has champions and detractors. Anti-tax crusaders, concerned about cost and overreach, have longed for a smaller government that delivers only the most limited services. Public-sector defenders worry that shortages of restaurant inspectors, rat exterminators, mental health counselors and the like will hurt neighborhoods. Pothole-studded roads and unreliable garbage pickup don't entice businesses, either.

Yet whether one views a diminished public sector as vital to economic growth or a threat to health and safety, it is undeniable that it has led to a significant decline in middle-class employment opportunities.

"It's a tough time to be working in government," said Neil Reichenberg, executive director of the International Public Management Association for Human Resources. Once there were several attractions to public employment in addition to the mission of making a difference in your community, he added, but incentives like good health insurance and retirement benefits have disappeared. "There's been a lot of cutbacks that have made government a less competitive employer," he said.

From the late 1950s through 1980, the United States added 350,000 new state and local workers a year. The rate slowed in the mid-1980s through the early 2000s, but payrolls still grew annually by 300,000 workers.

Government hiring failed to bounce back after the recession in both Republican- and Democratic-led states, and states continued to shed workers through 2013. The recovery's slow pace held down revenues at the same time as baby boomers began retiring and generous pension and benefit commitments made in fatter years came due.

"They couldn't pay their obligations," said Edwin Benton, a political scientist at the University of South Florida and the managing editor of an academic journal, State and Local Government Review. "The epidemic has grown to almost every city and state."

"We're in uncharted waters," he added.

In the past 12 months, local and state payrolls grew by 31,000, a fraction of the historical rate. There are now fewer such workers per capita than there were three decades ago.

Nonetheless, those combined payrolls dwarf those of the federal government, which employs about 2.8 million civilians, including postal workers. That number has shrunk slightly in recent years.

Short of money, many states have also privatized services like managing public water systems, road repair, emergency services or prisons, transferring jobs from the public sector to private companies that have reduced salaries and benefits to increase their profits.

The government employment pinch especially hurts in small and rural counties, where President Trump and other Republicans are popular. These areas tend to lack the number and diversity of private employers found in larger cities, and are therefore more dependent on government jobs.

Oklahoma is one of several Republican-led states where persistent anti-tax sentiment and severe budget cuts have guided policymaking, particularly since 2010, when many candidates supported by Tea Party voters won local offices.

Then, the newly elected governor, Mary Fallin, led the charge to reduce the state's top income-tax rate and shrink the tax on oil and gas production to 2 percent from 7 percent for new wells. But a sharp drop in oil and gas prices in 2014 delivered an unexpected wallop. Tax revenue evaporated, leaving huge budget shortfalls since then.

Justin Fortney, 41, was one of 200 employees laid off by the state health department this year. "It's getting more difficult to be a public employee - whether that's a teacher or public health officer - and see yourself as part of a thriving middle class," he said.

Mr. Fortney, who lives with his wife and son in Guthrie, 30 miles north of the capital, was forced to start job hunting. "We always made it work," said Mr. Fortney, who was employed by the state for 12 years and earned about $50,000 annually. "But if you're going to choose to be a public servant, you have to have in mind that you will live in a small home and drive a sometimes unreliable vehicle."

He said he worried that talented workers will opt for the private sector. Staffing shortages are common in states across the country.

In Houston, pinched by a property tax cap, the police chief has said his department is short 1,500 to 2,000 officers. In North Carolina, a federal report blamed a 25 percent job vacancy rate at a state prison in Elizabeth City for four deaths that occurred during a breakout attempt.

Back in Oklahoma, state prisons are at 153 percent capacity, while the corrections department has lost a tenth of its staff since 2009. "Our folks are only armed with their self-defense training, a can of pepper spray, and a wing and a prayer that someone will come and help them if they get in trouble," Joe Allbaugh, the director of the corrections department, has said publicly.

Since 2009, staffing at the state mental health department in Oklahoma is down more than 20 percent, and at the Office of Juvenile Affairs by nearly a quarter. The state Office of Fire Marshal once employed 30 workers, but now has 18.

A report on 2017 state compensation in Oklahoma found that average salaries were 27 percent lower than for comparable jobs in the private sector.

Many government workers take a second job to make ends meet. Eldon Johnson, 40, who cares for children with cerebral palsy and autism at a group home in Norman, works from 2:45 to 10:45 p.m., earning $12.50 an hour, less than some clerks at 7-Eleven. He then drives directly to his better-paying second job at a private mental health center, where he works until 8 a.m.

"There's no way I could make it without a second job, unless I lived in a box, and maybe had a moped," said Mr. Johnson, who has worked for the state for 10 years.

Advocates for disadvantaged groups like foster children or the disabled have trouble rallying broad support for budget and tax increases, but public school teachers have been able to recruit additional allies among families with school-age children.

Parents from affluent Republican suburbs like Bixby and Jenks outside Tulsa, for instance, car-pooled for a 100-mile trip to the State Capitol last month to lobby lawmakers for more education funding and raises for teachers.

"My adjusted gross income is $28,000," said Shala Marshall, a Spanish teacher at Jenks High School. A 17-year veteran with a master's degree and a finalist for Oklahoma teacher of the year, Ms. Marshall has two children. "I can't support a family on that," she said.

So she puts in another 30 hours or so a week tutoring students and selling online the luminescent pink LipSense gloss she wears. That pays for soccer cleats, camp and school pictures, as well as her children's health insurance.

On April 3, Governor Fallin signed a bill to increase taxes for the first time in 28 years to pay for teacher raises of roughly $6,000 and additional funding for schools. Dozens of Republican lawmakers voted for the measures.

"No one wants to raise taxes, but we've got to pay the bills," said Josh West, a freshman Republican from Grove, where his four children attend public school.

He was one of several lawmakers to meet with Bixby and Jenks parents over box lunches from Chick-fil-A. An Army veteran, Mr. West said he had been criticized by conservative groups for refusing to sign a pledge to never to raise taxes.

"My district just wants to fix the problem," Mr. West said. "They don't care if you're Republican or Democrat."

Several Republicans in the administration and Legislature now concede that tax cutting got out of hand. "I was rather vocal last year as the appropriations chair that even as a Republican, we had gone too far and it was time to start investing again in Oklahoma," said Leslie Osborn, a representative from Mustang.

The recent budget also includes small pay raises for other state workers. Ms. Moore, for instance, who watches over vulnerable adults, is slated to get an additional $750 a year.

But the Department of Human Services, where she works, won't be able to restore any of the 1,200 jobs eliminated over the past three years, leaving the agency with 6,109 full-time employees. Those figures don't include 800 vacancies that cannot be filled because the budget is overstretched.

So Ms. Moore will still be responsible for roughly a third of the state, covering 25 counties, 19,000 square miles, and more than 100 long-term care institutions that care for older or disabled residents as well as those with dementia.

"That's a lot of windshield time," she said.

Because of the cuts, the agency extended the deadline for maltreatment investigations at nursing homes. Rather than beginning within seven days of a complaint, they must now start within 30 days.

Ms. Moore's friends and neighbors hold conflicting views of her taxpayer-funded job. "The minute they have someone in the nursing home they perceive to be mistreated, we're the first people they come to," she said. "They want us when they need us. And when they no longer need us again, they don't want us."

Some are resentful that they are being asked to pay for benefits that they themselves struggle to afford.

"I asked my brother, 'How do you feel about this pay raise?'" Ms. Moore recalled. "He said: 'I want you to have it. You deserve it. But we don't feel like we should pay for it.'"

"Well," she said, "who do you want to pay for it?"

Follow Patricia Cohen on Twitter: @PatcohenNYT

Patricia Cohen reported from Oklahoma City and Robert Gebeloff from New York.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Public Servants Losing Foothold In Middle Class. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

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Public Servants Are Losing Their Foothold in the Middle Class

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OKLAHOMA CITY - The anxiety and seething anger that followed the disappearance of middle-income jobs in factory towns has helped reshape the American political map and topple longstanding policies on tariffs and immigration. But globalization and automation aren't the only forces responsible for the loss of those reliable paychecks.