Thread: At least 20 injured in Florida high school mass shooting

What is immigration status?

If this is an anchor rat or Dreamer...then shit needs to hit the fan!

And he was in a military program!

NO MILITARY FOR ILLEGAL ALIENS! THE ONES WHO ARE IN ARE IN...NO MORE!!!

Tragedy!
JROTC @ wikipedia states .... At least two-thirds of JROTC units offer rifle marksmanship programs, and most of these have rifle or pistol teams
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junior...Training_Corps

Another case of mother knew @ his guns, rifle. She would call the police to talk some sense into him when he acted up - why would she allow him guns? He and his brother are adopted.
Nikolas Cruz, Shooting Suspect, Had Been Expelled From School, Authorities Say

By MATTHEW HAAG and SERGE F. KOVALESKIFEB. 14, 2018




The suspect arrested in connection with Wednesday’s shooting at a Florida high school, which left at least 17 people dead, was identified by the sheriff as 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz. Credit via Social Media The man suspected of opening fire inside a Florida high school on Wednesday, killing at least 17 people, is a former student who had been expelled for disciplinary reasons, the authorities said.
Sheriff Scott Israel of Broward County, Fla., said that the man, Nikolas Cruz, 19, previously attended Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland but was expelled after getting into trouble. He was enrolled at another Broward County school, officials said.
In the hours after the shooting, people who knew Mr. Cruz described him as a “troubled kid” who enjoyed showing off his firearms and whose mother would resort to calling the police to have them come to their home to try to talk some sense into him.
“He always had guns on him,” the student, who did not give his name, told WFOR-TV. “The crazy stuff that he did was not right for school, and he got kicked out of school multiple times for that kind of stuff.”




Jim Gard, a math teacher at Douglas High School, said in an interview that Mr. Cruz was a student in his class during the first semester of the 2016-17 school year. In the class, he was quiet and not disruptive, Mr. Gard said.

But he recalled that school administrators became concerned last year about Mr. Cruz’s behavior and alerted the faculty. “We received emails about him from the administration,” Mr. Gard said in an interview, adding that he did not recall the specific issues.
After the shooting on Wednesday, Mr. Gard said that several students told him that Mr. Cruz was taken with a girl at Douglas High School “to the point of stalking her.”



In the interview with the Miami news station, the student said Mr. Cruz was a junior at Douglas High School when he was expelled last year. He said that students would joke that if anyone were to open fire inside the school, it would be Mr. Cruz. Because of that, students feared him and mostly stayed away from him, the student said.
“A lot of people were saying that it would be him,” the student told WFOR-TV. “They would say he would be the one to shoot up the school. Everyone predicted it.”
Helen Pasciolla, who is retired, lives on an elegant street in the Pine Tree Estates development in Parkland, three houses down and across from where the Cruz family resided until about a year ago. Ms. Pasciolla said that Mr. Cruz told her that the family had to move out of their one-story beige house and sell it because they could no longer afford it.

She said that Mr. Cruz has a brother, Zachary, and that both boys were adopted. Their adoptive father died some years ago, she added.
Ms. Pasciolla said that the boys’ mother, Lynda Cruz, had regular problems with their behavior. On occasion, she said, the mother would resort to calling the police to have them come over to try to talk some sense into her sons.
“I think she wanted to scare them a little bit,” Ms. Pasciolla said. “Nikolas has behavioral problems, I think, but I never thought he would be violent.”
When she saw his picture on TV on Wednesday after the shooting, Ms. Pasciolla said that she thought to herself, “Oh, my God, that’s the kid who lived down the street.”

Sheriff Israel said that the authorities did not yet know the motive for the killing, but were learning more about Mr. Cruz through his social media pages, which he described as “very, very concerning.”

Screen shots of an Instagram page said to belong to Mr. Cruz show many photos of a man holding firearms and ammunition used in a semiautomatic AR-15 rifle. One photo shows several guns, including rifles with scopes, laying on a bed. Another appears to show a frog that had been killed.

After Mr. Cruz left Douglas High School, he took a job at a Dollar Tree store about a mile and a half from the school. A person who answered the phone at the store on Wednesday evening said that Mr. Cruz worked as a cashier and was well liked by his colleagues.

“He was a great guy,” the person said.
He added that he last saw Mr. Cruz about a year ago before he transferred to another Dollar Tree store closer to his home.
Another student at Douglas High School, Ocean Parodie, told The Daily Beast that he visited the store after Mr. Cruz was expelled to check on him. “He said he was expelled and was happy that he was thrown out,” Mr. Parodie said. “I felt bad for him.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/14/u...e=sectionfront

Everybody knew. Administrators knew, teachers knew, students knew, mother knew, JROTC knew, mother would call the police to come talk to him to calm him down, so even the police knew. Everybody knew.

The question I have is how did he get inside the school? Don't they lock the doors during class? Every school should lock the doors during school time. All good commercial doors have automatic locks, where it locks behind you when you enter, but has a bar that you push to get out. All schools should be locked up during class time. Did he shoot out the door or was the door unlocked and he just walked in?

UPDATE

Cruz was initially identified by the media as Nicolas de Jesus Cruz and Nicolas Cruz and also goes by Nick Cruz. But the sheriff’s office clarified the correct spelling is Nikolas Cruz and records show his full name is Nikolas Jacob Cruz.

Nikolas Cruz: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

Broward Sheriff/Instagram

Nikolas Jacob Cruz.

A 19-year-old former student has been identified as the suspect in a shooting at a Florida high school that left at least 17 people dead and 15 others wounded.

Nikolas Cruz, who a teacher says was previously identified as a threat to students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, was arrested after the shooting and has been charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder, authorities said. He was expelled from the Parkland school for disciplinary reasons, Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said at a press conference.Israel said they are examining “very, very disturbing” social media posts investigators have uncovered.

Some of those posts, confirmed by Heavy, show Cruz holding weapons and talking about shooting targets as therapy. Students say that Cruz, whose adoptive mother died in November, often talked about guns. Cruz was currently enrolled in the Broward County school district, but it is not clear where or if he was attending classes. The district’s superintendent said he could not provide any other information about him because of federal privacy laws.

Israel said the victims were killed inside the school, just outside and on a road nearby, with two victims dying at the hospital. The victims included students and adults. Four victims have been identified so far. You can read about them here.

View image on Twitter

Josh Cohen - ESPN West Palm@JoshCohenRadio

This photo of the suspect was just provided to me by a member of law enforcement. Cruz is wearing his ROTC shirt. #Parkland #NicolasCruz
4:20 PM - Feb 14, 2018

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The motive for the Valentine’s Day shooting is not yet known. Cruz was initially identified by the media as Nicolas de Jesus Cruz and Nicolas Cruz and also goes by Nick Cruz. But the sheriff’s office clarified the correct spelling is Nikolas Cruz and records show his full name is Nikolas Jacob Cruz.

According to CNN, an AR-15-style rifle was recovered by police. It is not known how he obtained the weapon and if it was legally owned.

CNN reports that Cruz purchased the gun himself in the past year and passed a background check.The sheriff said Cruz had multiple magazines with him. Florida Senator Bill Nelson told CNN the shooter wore a gas mask and had smoke grenades. Nelson said the gunman set off the fire alarm to get students into the hallways.

“It was toward the end of the day, it was fourth period,” an 18-year-old student at the high school told Heavy. “I started to put my head down in class and next thing you know I heard about 6 to 7 shots in the classroom right next to me on the first floor of the freshman building.

We all just decided to pile in one corner, we all decided to just stay put, because we didn’t know what was happening. We didn’t know if it was real or fake. We all kept quiet, the next thing we know the school shooter shot the window, glass went everywhere. We all put our heads down, he put the gun inside the window, turned his gun and shot three or four bullets, I heard a kid in my class with his knee shot and another school got shot and she was just bleeding everywhere. It was horrifying.”

The student said he grabbed a towel and gave it to a teacher who tied it around the wounded student’s leg. SWAT officers came about 15 minutes later to get the students out of the classroom.

Anyone with information about the shooting or the shooter is asked to call 1-800-CALL-FBI. Videos and images of the shooting and any other information about it or the gunman can be uploaded through the FBI website here.Florida Senator Marco Rubio tweeted, “Just finished update from fed authorities on #FloridaSchoolShooting. It is clear attack was designed & executed to maximize loss of life. In days ahead (it) will become increasingly evident that killer in today’s #FloridaSchoolShooting gave plenty of indications of what was to come.”

President Donald Trump tweeted Thursday, “So many signs that the Florida shooter was mentally disturbed, even expelled from school for bad and erratic behavior. Neighbors and classmates knew he was a big problem. Must always report such instances to authorities, again and again!”

Nikolas Jacob Cruz is being held without bail at the Broward County Jail and is scheduled to appear in court Thursday, CNN reports. Local, state and federal authorities are investigating the shooting.

A GoFundMe account has been set up for donations for the families of the victims killed and the survivors. You can make a donation here.Here’s what you need to know about Nikolas Cruz:

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1. Cruz, Who Told a Friend ‘I Don’t Go to School on Valentine’s Day,’ Was Arrested Without Incident After Fleeing From the School by Mixing With Students

WSVN 7 News
✔@wsvn

UPDATE: Authorities have taken a subject into police custody in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School
1:06 PM - Feb 14, 2018

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Nick Cruz was taken into custody at a Parkland home not far from the school about about 4 p.m. The shooting was first reported about 2 p.m. It is not clear how Cruz escaped from the school, but he possibly fled with students during the chaos. CNN reports that he mixed himself in with those leaving the school in an effort to escape.

According to police scanner transmissions, officers were tracking the suspect’s movements in the school through security cameras and had a description of the clothing he was wearing.

They later had witnesses identify him as the shooter after he was taken into custody.

“Broward Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to an active shooter situation at a Broward County school Wednesday afternoon,” the sheriff’s office said in a press release.“Responding deputies were met with hundreds of students fleeing the school. Investigators later learned that the shooter had concealed himself in the crowd and was among those running out of the school.

After watching school security video, investigators were able to identify the shooter as Nikolas Cruz, 19. Cruz had attended and was expelled from the school the previous year.”

Franklin White@FranklinWSVN

#NEW: Longer video of suspect arrested @wsvn
1:39 PM - Feb 14, 2018

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The sheriff’s office said Cruz was arrested by the Coconut Creek Police Department in a neighborhood in Coral Springs.

Video showed Cruz on the ground being handcuffed and then being ledd into a Broward County Sheriff’s Office vehicle.

Chris Stewart
✔@CStewartWPTV

Video from @WPTV viewer Mike Quaranta of the moment #Parkland shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz was arrested.
4:20 PM - Feb 14, 2018

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View image on Twitter

WSVN 7 News
✔@wsvn

Photo: Suspect is loaded into fire rescue to be transported to hospital
1:27 PM - Feb 14, 2018

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“Cruz exhibited labored breathing. He was transported to a local hospital as a precaution for medical clearance,” the sheriff’s office said.
He was later seen being transported to jail.

Miguel Fernandez@miguelcbs4

#BREAKING Suspect: Nicolas Cruz now at @browardsheriff headquarters after leaving hospital #school shooting @CBSMiami
3:13 PM - Feb 14, 2018

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Thomas D Bradley@ThomasDBradley

Video of the dirtbag Nicolas Cruz whose is the suspect of killing 17 angels at Stoneman Douglas High School in @CoralSpringsFL being led in at @browardsheriff jail. #StonemanShooting
4:26 PM - Feb 14, 2018

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WSVN 7 News
✔@wsvn

BSO escort shooting suspect from hospital
2:47 PM - Feb 14, 2018

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You can listen to police scanner audio from the shooting below:

Broward Sheriff Scott Israel told reporters, “the shooter was not a current student.” He added,” it’s catastrophic. There really are no words. I don’t know why he left,” the school. He added that the suspect was taken into custody without incident.Cruz was living with a friend’s family after his adoptive mother died. An attorney representing that family told the Miami Herald that Cruz slept in Wednesday morning and didn’t go to school, telling his friend, “‘It’s Valentine’s Day and I don’t go to school on Valentine’s Day,’” the lawyer said.

The lawyer, Jim Lewis, told the Sun-Sentinel that Cruz already owned the AR-15 used in the shooting before he moved in with the family.

“It was his gun,” Lewis told the newspaper. “The family made him keep it in a locked gun cabinet in the house but he had a key.”

Read More From Heavy
Coach Aaron Feis: A Tribute to the Hero Killed at Douglas High School

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2. Cruz Was Expelled After a Fight, Was Abusive Toward His Ex-Girlfriend & Was Deemed to Be a Threat to Other Students, a Teacher & a Classmate Say

WSVN/Screengrab

The suspect is taken into custody outside of a home.

Nick Cruz was a former student at the school and was reported for making threats to students in the past, the Miami Herald reports.

“We were told last year that he wasn’t allowed on campus with a backpack on him,” Jim Gard, a math teacher who had the suspected shooter in his class last year, told the newspaper. “There were problems with him last year threatening students, and I guess he was asked to leave campus.”

Gard said the school administration sent out an email warning teachers that the student had made threats against others in the past and should not be allowed on the campus with a backpack.

Broward Sheriff Scott Israel said that Cruz was expelled from Douglas High School at some point for disciplinary issues. He possibly later attended another local high school, J.P. Taravella High School, but the sheriff said they are still not clear how long he was there. Israel did not provide details about Cruz’s expulsion.

According to The Associated Press, Cruz was expelled after a fight with his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend. Victoria Olvera told the AP that Cruz was abusive toward his ex-girlfriend.

Gard told the New York Times, Cruz was obsessed with a girl at the school, “to the point of stalking her.”

Israel told the public, “If you see something, say something. If anybody has any indicator that someone’s going through a behavioral change, or on their social media that there are disturbing photos, perhaps bombs or firearms or just videos or pictures that are just not right, that there’s something off, please make sure law enforcement knows about it.”

When asked if there were signs with the suspect, he said, “I believe there will” indicators uncovered once investigators have completed examining the suspect’s social media and interviewing him and those who know him. “Our investigators certainly began dissecting social media.”

School officials have not released any information about possible threats made by the suspect, and the district’s superintendent told reporters that there was no warning it was going to happen.

“It’s a day that you pray every day when you get up that you will never have to see. It is in front of us,” Broward Superintendent Robert Runcie said at a press briefing. “I ask the community for prayers and their support for the children and their families. We received no warning… Potentially there could have been signs out there. But we didn’t have any warning or phone calls or threats that were made.”

Broward Mayor Beam Furr told CNN that Cruz was a client at a mental health clinic and had been “dealing with mental health issues.” He had been undergoing some treatment, Furr said, but he did not go into detail about that.

“I don’t know if he was exactly on law enforcement radar, but it wasn’t like there wasn’t concerns for him. He had not been back to the clinic for over a year. So there’s been a time he was receiving treatment and then stopped,” Furr said.

CNN is reporting that Cruz bought the AR-15 rifle used in the shooting himself and passed a background check. At a press conference, Sheriff Israel said he thinks people undergoing treatment for mental illness should not be able to purchase or carry handguns.

“While people who are the victim of mental health illnesses are being treated, in the opinion of this sheriff, they should not be able to buy, surround themselves, purchase or carry a handgun,” he said. “Those two things don’t mix.”

Read More From Heavy
Florida School Shooting Victims: Tributes, Names & Photos

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3. He Posted Photos of Guns & Knives on Instagram, Called His Weapons an ‘Arsenal,’ & Appears to Have Left Threatening YouTube Comments

A photo posted on Instagram by the suspect.

Using the name Nikolas Cruz, the suspect posted several photos in 2016 and 2015 on his Instagram page of weapons and made statements about wanting to buy guns. The page has since been deleted, but Heavy confirmed with sources who know Cruz that the page belonged to him, @cruz_nikolas. The Miami Herald has also verified the page belonged to Cruz.

Instagram often takes down pages of shooting suspects from public view at the request of law enforcement.

A screengrab of Cruz’s now-deleted Instagram page.

In 2016, he posted a photo of a shotgun he said he wanted to buy.

“I plan on getting this but I need more information on it so if someone could give advice on how much I’m spending and background cheeks please to god let me know,” he wrote in 2016.

A photo posted by Nikolas Cruz in 2016.

He also posted multiple photos in January 2016 of himself holding knives.

Nikolas Cruz.

Nikolas Cruz

In 2015, he posted a screenshot of a Google search for the phrase, “what does allahu akbar.” He then wrote a caption that included an anti-Muslim slur, “Well at least we now know what it means when a sand durka says “allahu Akbar” ??????” While some have been using that post to claim that he was pro-ISIS or supporter of Islamic terrorism, comments he made on the Instagram post indicated he wanted to kill terrorists and made jokes about terrorism.
“Durka durka Mohamed jihad .. how do I work this oh oh I mess up cooo booom!!” he wrote. He then added, “durka durka … bam boom explosions,” with a series of bomb smilies.

Instagram

A photo posted by Cruz.

Ocean Parodie, a 17-year-old student at Broward County school, told The Daily Beast, “I knew him to be passive aggressive but not violent. He was rude to people. He had an act up like he was tough. He never got into, like, physical fights with anyone, but he did get into verbal arguments. I just thought he dropped out of school, I didn’t think he would do anything.

He always kept a low profile.”

Parodie added, “He was definitely not accepted at our school socially. People saw him as someone who was different than the normal people at our school.” She said he wore “patriotic” shirts that “seemed really extreme, like hating on” Islam, making offensive jokes and deriding Muslims as “terrorists and bombers.” She added that she had seen him wearing a Trump hat.

Also in 2015, he posted a meme of a target with bullet holes in it with the words “Group therapy, sometimes it works.” He added in the caption, “It really does f*cking work give it a try .”

A photo posted by Nikolas Cruz.

Cruz began using a new Instagram page in 2017, which has also been deleted, but has been confirmed to belong to him by Heavy. The New York Times also verified the page. In that page, @nikolascruzmakarov, he is wearing a Donald Trump campaign “Make America Great Again” hat. Makarov is the name of a Russian-made pistol.

Nikolas Cruz’s second Instagram profile.

Nikolas Cruz had this photo as his Instagram profile picture.

In one photo, which you can see below, he displayed various guns on a bed, along with body armor and wrote in the caption, “arsenal.”

Cruz captioned this photo, posted in 201, “Arsenal.”

You can see some of the photos of his weapons below:

A photo posted by Cruz in 2017.

He captioned this photo, “30-06.”

He captioned this photo, “I love this holographic sight.”

He captioned this photo, “Cost me $30 bucks,:

Instagram

A target posted by Cruz.

Cruz also posted a disturbing photo of a bloody, dead toad. He wrote, “These things killed my dog. So I kill them pretty much. #killingtoads.” He wrote simply in his Instagram profile header, “Annihilator.”

CNN reports that a user named Nikolas Cruz left comments on several Youtube videos in which he talked about shooting people and violence.
Nine months ago, the user posted on a video clip from the NatGeo show “Alaska State Troopers: Armed and Dangerous,” writing, “I am going to kill law enforcement one day they go after the good people.”

Six months ago, the user wrote, “Im going watch them sheep fall f*ck antifa i wish to kill as many as i can,” on aYoutube video titled “Antifa Gun Club.”

Also nine months ago, Cruz commented, “I am going to do what he did,” on a video about the 1966 sniper shooting at the University of Texas.

CNN says the user wrote on other posts, “I whana shoot people with my AR-15 (sic)” and “I wanna die Fighting killing shit ton of people.” The user also wrote, “Elliot rodger will not be forgotten,” a reference to the 22-year-old California man who killed six people and wounded 14 others near UC Santa Barbara in 2014 before killing himself.

A YouTube user named “BentheBondsman” posted a video Wednesday night saying that the FBI visited him to talk about Cruz because a user named Nikolas Cruz commented on one of his videos recently. The YouTuber’s full name is Ben Bennight, and he is from Mississippi.

He said he reported the comment, “Im going to be a professional school shooter,” after seeing it in September. He submitted a report to Youtube and it was deleted, and he submitted a tip of it to the FBI. He said two agents visited him in September about the post. BentheBondsman said he talked to agents again after the shooting.

Bennight told Buzzfeed News the agents first came to his office September 25.

“They came to my office the next morning and asked me if I knew anything about the person,”
Bennight told BuzzFeed News. “I didn’t. They took a copy of the screenshot and that was the last I heard from them.”

On Wednesday, about 4:30 p.m., Bennight told Buzzfeed he received a call from a FBI agent based in Miami.

“I think we spoke with you in the past about a complaint that you made about someone making a comment on your YouTube channel,” the agent said in the message, which Bennight provided to BuzzFeed News. “I just wanted to follow up with you on that and ask you a question with something that’s come up, if you wouldn’t mind giving me a ring.”

Two agents came and talked to Bennight. He told Buzzfeed, “They asked me if I knew who he was. I didn’t. I don’t. Then they left.”

The FBI has not confirmed the Youtube account belongs to the accused shooter.

“People leave pretty heinous comments on a pretty regular basis on this channel and I really didn’t think anything of it,” Bennight said in his Youtube video about the comment. “But this comment said, ‘I’m going to be a professional school shooter’ and I knew I couldn’t just ignore that.”

CNN reports that a second threat was reported to the FBI. CNN reports that those threats were not passed on to local law enforcement.

Shimon Prokupecz
✔@ShimonPro

CNN: There were at least two alleged threat reports that the FBI received about the shooter, according to a law enforcement official. One was the YouTube post about being a professional school shooter. We don’t have details on the second one.
7:29 AM - Feb 15, 2018

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“I saw the story kind of go across my newsfeed but I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to it, but when the FBI said it was the same name the first thing that went through my mind was, ‘Wow, I hope you were at least watching this guy that I alerted you to months ago,'” Bennight told CNN.

FBI Special Agent Robert Lasky, who runs the agency’s Miami office, said Thursday at a press conference that in 2017 the FBI received a tip about a comment made on a YouTube channel that said, “I want to be a professional school shooter.” Lasky said there was no information about a possible time connected to the threat or any identifying information other than the name of the user. Lasky said agents investigated, but were unable to further identify who made the comment.

Read More From Heavy
Nikolas Cruz’ Social Media Posts About Guns on Instagram

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4. A Student Says ‘Everyone Predicted’ the Suspect Would Be the Shooter

Nick Cruz.

In 2015, Nikolas Cruz posted a photo of himself giving the middle finger with the caption, “F*ck youuuuuuuuuuuu allllll.”

A student at the school told WJXT-TV’s Vic Micolucci that students thought Cruz would be the suspect.

“Honestly a lot of people were saying it was going to be him,” the student said. “A lot of kids threw jokes around like that, saying that he’s the one to shoot up the school, but it turns out, you know, everyone predicted it. That’s crazy.

He was on the third floor, he knows the school layout. He knows where everyone would be at.

He’s been in fire drills, he’s prepared for this stuff.”

Students have said that fire alarms went off before the shooting and they initially thought it was a drill. It is not clear if a drill was planned or if someone pulled the alarm.

The student told WFOR that Cruz had showed him his guns after he got kicked out of school.

Vic Micolucci WJXT
✔@WJXTvic

"Everyone predicted it," a student said about the #Parkland shooting.
2:17 PM - Feb 14, 2018

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Matthew Walker, a 17-year-old junior told WFOR-TV, “He was going class to class just shooting at random kids. Everything he posts (on social media) is about weapons. It’s sick.”
A student who knows Cruz told the news station, “He always had guns on him and stuff like that. He was a little bit of a troubled kid.”

Nikolas Cruz is seen in a yearbook photo.

Cruz was at one point part of the U.S. Army JROTC program at Douglas High School, a fellow member of the program, Giovanni Watford, told Buzzfeed News. He called Cruz a “sketchy kid,” adding that he “was off” and “was super stressed-out all the time and talked about guns a lot and tried to hide his face.”

Watford said Cruz “talked about guns a lot.” He also said Cruz complained often about bullying and said Cruz “had beef with one kid.” Watford’s brother Mike, told Buzzfeed News, that Cruz talked about “how tired he was of everyone picking on him and the staff doing nothing about it,” and said, “something definitely pushed him.”

Cruz was adopted by his parents, Roger and Lynda Cruz, as a young child, a family member told ABC News. Both of his adopted parents are dead. Lynda Cruz died last year, ABC News reports. An obituary shows she died in November. She is pictured on that obituary page holding her young son.

Legacy.com

Nikolas Cruz is held by his mother, Lynda Cruz, in a photo from her obituary

A family member told the Sun-Sentinel that Cruz and his biological younger brother were adopted by Lydia and Roger Cruz while they were living in Long Island. The couple and the two children then moved to Florida. When Lynda Cruz died of pneumonia in November, Nikolas and his brother were left in the care of a family member, the newspaper reports.

“I know she had been having some issues with them, especially the older one. He was being a problem. I know he did have some issues and he may have been taking medication. [He] did have some kind of emotional or difficulties,” Barbara Kumbatovich, Lynda’s sister-in-law, told the newspaper. “[Lynda] kept a really close handle on both boys. They were not major issues, as far as I know, just things teenagers do like not coming home on time, maybe being disrespectful.”

Another family member, who was not identified, told the newspaper that Nikolas’ adoptive father died of a heart attack when Nikolas was young.

The family member said Nikolas Cruz had been diagnosed with autism and Lynda had sought counseling for him from a young age.

“She did her best getting him any help he needed,” the family member told the newspaper.

Cruz eventually moved in with a classmate’s family after he was unhappy with where he was living after his mother’s death.

“The family is devastated, they didn’t see this coming. They took him in and it’s a classic case of no good deed goes unpunished,” Jim Lewis, an attorney representing the family who took Cruz in told the newspaper. “He was a little quirky and he was depressed about his mom’s death, but who wouldn’t be?”

Neighbors told the Sun-Sentinel that Cruz would harass neighbors and get into trouble while he was growing up and that police came to his home multiple times.

A person who knew Cruz, Nicholas Coke, told the Miami Herald that Cruz was a loner who left school and moved to North Florida after his mother died. “He had a lot of problems in middle school. You never think anyone you know is going to do something like this,” Coke told the newspaper.

“He was psycho, for sure,” a student who knew Cruz told WPLG-TV. “He was crazy because he liked to kill small things, like little animals — frogs and other animals like that and he just had a crazy mind. He was racist and he was just crazy.”

Police received a tip that the suspect was possibly watching videos on Youtube about how to make bombs, according to police scanner transmissions. Police were searching the building as a precaution after learning about that information, but it is not known if there were any bombs left in the school.

The person who gave police the tip also had messages exchanged with the suspect.

Police were at the suspect’s home searching for more information about him. He lives in the 11000 block of NW 47th Drive in Parkland. They were also at another location where he previously lived.

Chuck Weber
✔@ChuckWeber12

Sources say accused Broward school gunman 19-yr Nikolas Cruz lived with brother at mobile home park west of Lantana, where @PBCountySheriff and Bomb Squad serving search warrant. @CBS12
7:54 PM - Feb 14, 2018

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Vincent Crivelli@VincentCrivelli

MORE: A lawyer who says he represents the family that lives here says the accused shooter, Nikolas Cruz lived here the last three months. He says Cruz had his own room at the home. He says the family he represents is fully cooperating with investigators. @cbs12
7:25 PM - Feb 14, 2018

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Cruz had been working as a cashier at a Dollar Tree store after leaving high school, according to the New York Times.

While some on social media have been spreading claims that Cruz is a registered Democrat, a search of the Florida voter database with his birthdate, September 24, 1998, shows that he is not a registered voter.

Other social media users have claimed that Cruz can be seen wearing an “Antifa” shirt, but the photo being circulated via a fake Antifa account is another man named Marcel Fontaine, according to Buzzfeed News, which has rounded up details on several hoaxes and fake stories related to the shooting.

Read More From Heavy
Sheriff Scott Israel: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

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5. Horrific Videos Captured the Moment Panicked Students Hid in Classrooms as Gunshots Rang Out During the 18th Shooting at a School in 2018

Twitter

A photo tweeted by a student from inside Douglas High School.

A student who is inside the school told CBS Miami through text message, “All of a sudden there was a really loud noise…..people are crying” and hiding in “the closet.”

A video recorded by a student captured the gunshots:

errol barnett
✔@errolbarnett

Just In: The sounds of pure terror inside an American classroom, during what police describe as a "mass casualty" event in Florida.

This chilling video from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High should be the type of thing that is extremely rare.

Tragically, it is not.
1:23 PM - Feb 14, 2018

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Xana O'Neill
✔@xanaoneill

Chilling scenes from inside classrooms at a Florida high school https://snapchat.com/s/m:zC0rJTbUQ5SMDlcDx6_EQQAAEVLgNv4b9AnswAWGWcfShAWG WXb8hAAFRgA …
3:19 PM - Feb 14, 2018

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Michael Katz told ABC News, “It was really loud.

Then I heard it again. Then I heard frantic screaming. I’ve never heard such loud screams in my life. Then we realized there was a shooting at my school.”

Students took to Twitter to provide updates about the situation, saying they’ve heard several shots and are hiding in the school.

Jay Golden, of Parkland, whose daughter, Rachel is a senior at the high school. She is still inside the school, Goldentold the Sun-Sentinel.

“She was crying, she’s scared. She’s been texting back and forth. She’s OK at the moment,” he told the newspaper. “I’m freaking out. This is crazy, this stuff shouldn’t be going on in these schools. People are crazy. I don’t know what goes on through these people’s minds these days, it’s a scary thing. It’s one of those things – you don’t want to put a metal protector and treat them like prisoners but they have to figure something out. You put your kids in school and it’s supposed to be a safe place and this stuff happens all the time.”

Federal authorities responded to the scene, including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which is typical in active shooter incidents.

“ATF agents from the Miami Field Division are responding to reports of a school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. The investigation is ongoing and active,” the ATF tweeted.

About 2,900 students are enrolled at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, according to its website. Police were still searching the building Wednesday night.

The school is part of the Broward County Public Schools system.

Rick Scott
✔@FLGovScott

I’ve spoken with @BrowardSheriff Scott Israel, @browardschools Superintendent Robert Runcie and FDLE Commissioner Rick Swearingen regarding Stoneman Douglas High School. We’ll continue to receive updates from law enforcement.
12:09 PM - Feb 14, 2018

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President Donald Trump was made aware of the situation, the White House says.

“My prayers and condolences to the families of the victims of the terrible Florida shooting. No child, teacher or anyone else should ever feel unsafe in an American school,” Trump tweeted.

“Just spoke to Governor Rick Scott. We are working closely with law enforcement on the terrible Florida school shooting.”

There have been 17 other shootings on school campuses around the country already this year.

Everytown for Gun Safety defines those shootings as “any time a firearm discharges a live round inside a school building or on a school campus or grounds, as documented by the press and, when necessary, confirmed through further inquiries with law enforcement or school officials.”

The shooting at Sal Marcos Middle School in California earlier this month was the 12th to occur on school property in the United States in 2018, according to the New York Times.

Included in that total is a shooting that occurred in Benton, Kentucky, on January 23. A 15-year-old student opened fire on classmates, killing two other 15-year-olds and injuring 18 other people. Just a day earlier, on January 22, a 15-year-old girl was shot by another student at a high school in Italy, Texas. She survived the shooting and the gunman was arrested.

The other shootings have not been as high-profile, according to NPR, which compiled a list of the incidents.

According to Everytown for Gun Safety, there were multiple shootings in February. On February 8, a gun was fired at The Metropolitan High School in New York City.

“A 17 year-old male student fired a gun, hitting the floor of a classrom. No injuries were reported, and police took the student in custody for questioning,” according to Everytown.

On February 5, a gun was fired but no one was injured at Harmony Learning Center in Maplewood, Wisconsin.

“A school liaison officer was sitting on a bench talking with some students when a third-grader pressed the trigger on the officer’s holstered weapon, causing it to fire and strike the floor.

The holster was equipped with a trigger guard designed to prevent such accidental discharges, so the department is reviewing the
circumstances surrounding the event,”

Everytown writes.
Also on February 5, a 17-year-old student was shot in the chest at Oxon Hill High School in Oxon Hill, Maryland, NBC Washington reports.

On January 31, a shot was fired during a basketball game at Lincoln High School in Philadelphia. A man was shot twice in the leg, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

On the same day as the Texas shooting, a student was wounded in the parking lot of a New Orleans charter school. On January 26, a gun was fired during an altercation at Dearborn High School in Michigan, but no one was injured. A day earlier, on January 25, a gun was fired at Murphy High School in Mobile, Alabama, during a disagreement between two students.

“A disagreement between two 16-year-old students escalated when Jonah Neal pulled out a handgun. School administrators noticed the weapon and tried to calm him; Neal then fled across campus. He was pursued by staff until he fired the gun four or five times into the air.

Nobody was injured. Neal was taken into custody and charged for multiple offenses, including possession of a weapon on school property,” according to Everytown.

On January 20, a man was shot and killed on the campus of Wake Forest University. The victim was a student at Winston-Salem State University and was attending a sorority party.

On January 15, a bullet was fired into a dorm room in Marshall, Texas, on the campus of Wiley College.


On January 10, there were three shootings on the same day. The first was a suicide at Coronado Elementary School in Arizona. Then a student fired a shot in a classroom at Grayson College in Texas, but nobody was hit. Police say it was an accidental discharge during a criminal justice class. And a shot was fired at a building on the campus of Cal State San Bernardino. No one was injured there.

On January 6, a shot was fired at a school bus carrying students in Iowa, shattering a window, but not causing injuries. On January 4, two shots were fired into a Seattle high school classroom. And on that same day a man shot himself in the parking lot of an empty elementary school in Michigan.

“We have absolutely become numb to these kinds of shootings, and I think that will continue,” said Katherine W. Schweit, a former FBI official who co-authored a study on active shooting incidents, told the Times.

https://heavy.com/news/2018/02/nicol...man-instagram/

Nikolas Cruz was booked into Broward County Jail on 17 counts of premeditated murder. On the right is his yearbook picture. (Broward County Sheriff's Office/Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School)

An endless stream of dysfunction -
mental illness treatment/passed background check to purchase firearm.
adoptive mother said he was autistic years ago/yet he was allowed to purchase a gun and keep in the house
cops were called several times to "talk some sense into him"/they must have known he had a firearm.
adoptive mother dies, family friend takes him and his firearm in to keep in a locked cabinet/nobody read his facebook pages?
known at school as one to be a "shooter"/JROTC taught riflery in that area has not been disclosed yet.

Broward Mayor Beam Furr told CNN that Cruz was a client at a mental health clinic and had been “dealing with mental health issues.” He had been undergoing some treatment, Furr said, but he did not go into detail about that.

“I don’t know if he was exactly on law enforcement radar, but it wasn’t like there wasn’t concerns for him. He had not been back to the clinic for over a year. So there’s been a time he was receiving treatment and then stopped,” Furr said.

CNN is reporting that Cruz bought the AR-15 rifle used in the shooting himself and passed a background check. At a press conference, Sheriff Israel said he thinks people undergoing treatment for mental illness should not be able to purchase or carry handguns.

“While people who are the victim of mental health illnesses are being treated, in the opinion of this sheriff, they should not be able to buy, surround themselves, purchase or carry a handgun,” he said. “Those two things don’t mix.”

This is an ongoing issue with former mental health patients being able to buy guns.

This happened for a lot of reasons, but the real reason it happened is simple. The school let a non-student, who had been expelled who had no business on the campus to begin with, with an AR-15 into its premises during class time. No non-student should have access to a school during class-time, anywhere in the United States without prior arrangements and an appointment, and those should only be verified parents or guardians. You don't need to change gun laws, you don't need to read social media, you don't need to get into the rights of the mentally ill, you just need to secure the schools during class-time.

I think the feds should propose proper simple security arrangements to states for public schools to follow in order to collect their federal funds for public education. Simply lock the doors so no can enter during class time, use steel doors with tampering alarms, and keep these people out of your schools. This is not hard, this is very easy. Industries do this every day. Do we have so few industries left that no one in government or education knows how to secure a facility during its operations??!!

School shooting suspect belonged to white nationalist group - AP News

https://www.apnews.com/a6fd450470d4464ab423b8b3a911b42d
1 hour ago - PARKLAND, Fla. (AP) — An orphaned 19-year-old who participated in paramilitary drills with a white nationalist group was charged with murder Thursday in the deaths of 17 people who were fatally shot at a huge Florida high school in the nation's deadliest school attack in five years. Nikolas Cruz legally ...