‘State of grief’ after school

As Max Charles was leaving the building, he saw four dead students and one dead teacher. He said he was relieved when he finally found his mother. “I was happy that I was alive,” he said. “She was crying when she saw me.”

Noah Parness, 17, said he and the other students calmly went outside to their fire-drill areas when he suddenly heard popping sounds.

“We saw a bunch of teachers running down the stairway, and then everybody shifted and broke into a sprint,” Parness said. “I hopped a fence.”

Most of the fatalities were inside the building, though some victims were found fatally shot outside, the sheriff said.

Senator Bill Nelson told CNN that Cruz had pulled the fire alarm “so the kids would come pouring out of the classrooms into the hall”. “And there the carnage began,” said Nelson, who said he was briefed by the FBI.

The scene was reminiscent of the Newtown attack, which shocked even a country numbed by the regularity of school shootings. The December 14, 2012, assault at Sandy Hook Elementary School killed 26 people: 20 first-graders and six staff members. The 20-year-old gunman, who also fatally shot his mother in her bed, then killed himself.

Not long after yesterday’s attack in Florida, Michael Nembhard was sitting in his garage on a cul-de-sac when he saw a young man in a burgundy shirt walking down the street. In an instant, a police cruiser pulled up and officers jumped out with guns drawn.

“All I heard was ‘Get on the ground! Get on the ground’!” Nembhard said. He said Cruz did as he was told.

The school was to be closed for the rest of the week. — AP