TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — During a question and answer session in Jacksonville, Gov. Ron DeSantis said that in the five years since Parkland, Florida had worked hard to bring accountability and safety to schools in the state.

The comments came after another mass shooting event on Monday night, this one at Michigan State University.

“Five years ago was one of the worst days that this state has ever had. I was not governor yet at the time, but it was something that I think reverberated in every corner of our state but really across the country,” DeSantis said. “When I became governor, I got to know many of the families, and these were really, really difficult losses. It was an abominable act.”

DeSantis said that since taking office, he’d made the state focus on improving school safety and accountability.

“Since I’ve been governor, what we’ve done, we’ve done over $1 billion to bolster school security, we’ve worked hard to bring accountability to folks who maybe could have done something to prevent this guy from being in this position,” DeSantis said.

He went on to mention the removal of the county sheriff, several school board members, and replacement of the school district superintendent.

“If there’s never accountability, then these things are more likely to happen again. There are things that happen in life that you can’t always foresee or prevent, sometimes people you wouldn’t expect can do some horrible things,” DeSantis said. “But this was an individual, as soon as this happened everybody knew in that community who had done it, without even getting any information.”

DeSantis said that Nikolas Cruz, the shooter, was a “ticking time bomb,” and promised legislative action to reform death penalty proceedings since Cruz, despite admitting to it and pleading guilty, had avoided a death sentence.

“You killed 17 people, what other penalty can you get besides the ultimate penalty?” DeSantis said. He called the verdict, which took years to be finalized, “a bitter pill.”