SCHOOL MASSACRE
Gunman kills at least 17 at school
Expelled student guns downs dozens of former classmates, killing at least 17 in Florida.
A FIRE alarm that funnelled students towards an out-ofcontrol gunman marked the moment a US school was under siege.
The alarm – the second of the day following a practice drill – rang out across Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Florida, just before 2.30pm on Wednesday. Designed to save lives, it instead pushed students into hallways, where they were met with a hail of bullets.
For more than an hour, shooter Nikolas Cruz stalked the Parkland school campus with an AR-15 style assault weapon and multiple magazines, killing at least 17 people and injuring at least 50 more.
A dozen victims were shot dead before they could even escape the school’s buildings.
Two more were killed outside and another on a nearby street as Cruz continued his horrific attack – the most deadly school shooting since the Sandy Hook slaying in 2012. Another two people succumbed to their wounds in hospital, bringing the death toll to 17 last night.
One of the victims is believed to have been a security guard, who used his body to shield students.
Horrifying footage has emerged of the attack, as students recount the terror of the shooting that started just before classes were to be dismissed.
Groups of students huddled in cupboards and under desks as pops – “too many to count” – sounded off across the school.
Emergency services were flooded with desperate calls for help within minutes of the first shots. But it took heavily armed police more than an hour to arrest Cruz.
Shell-shocked school superintendent Robert Runcie put it plainly: “it is a horrific situation”.
The massacre, on Ash Wednesday, was the fourth deadliest school shooting in US history and the eighth deadly school shooting this year.
“It is a horrible day for us,” Mr Runcie said.
“It’s a day that you pray, every day when you get up, that you will never have to see.
“Potentially there could have been signs out there. But we didn’t have any warning or phone calls or threats that were made.”
The walls of the secondary school, one of Florida’s largest with about 3000 students, now stand punctured by bullet holes.
Student Matthew Walker, 17, told WFOR-TV that Cruz appeared to be shooting at random during the attack.
“He was going class to class just shooting kids at random,” he said. “There were bullet holes everywhere. Everyone
was freaking out. I did not see the shooter but he did shoot through my class. He couldn’t get inside because the door was locked.”
Worried parents converged on the school but were held at bay by authorities as they worked to bring the situation under control.
Some were comforted by texts from their children, including those who took shelter in a neighbouring Walmart, while others stood desperate for news.
Beth Feingold said her daughter, Brittani, sent a text at 2:32pm saying: “We’re on code red. I’m fine”. Shortly afterwards, she sent one saying: “Mum, I’m so scared.”
Student Geovanni Vilsant told the Miami Herald he saw three bodies on the floor as he was fleeing the school.
“There was blood everywhere,” he said. “They weren’t moving.”
Maths teacher Jim Gard, who taught Cruz last year, said he had been considered a threat.
“We were told last year that he wasn’t allowed on campus with a backpack on him,’ he told the Miami Herald.
“There were problems with him last year threatening students, and I guess he was asked to leave campus.”
President Donald Trump was briefed on the incident and the White House cancelled its daily briefing out of respect for the situation.
“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,” Mr Trump tweeted.