17 victims of school shooting mourned
Shooter loved guns and was expelled for disciplinary reasons
AFLORIDA community joined together yesterday to mourn the 17 victims of a suspected lone gunman, as officials seek to find out how the heavilyarmed teenager managed to mingle with students in one of the deadliest school shootings in US history.
The former pupil, identified as Nikolas Cruz, 19, walked into the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland on Wednesday shortly before classes ended and opened fire on students and teachers, Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said.
Cruz was armed with an AR-15-style rifle and had multiple magazines of ammunition when he surrendered to officers in a nearby residential area, police said.
He loved guns and was expelled from school for unspecified disciplinary reasons, police and former classmates said.
The shooting was the 18th in a US school this year, according to gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety.
It was the deadliest ever at an American high school, surpassing the 1999 rampage at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, where two teenagers killed 12 students and a teacher and then themselves.
It was also the second-deadliest at a US public school, behind the 2012 massacre of 20 first-graders and six teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, by a gunman who also killed his mother and himself.
Since Sandy Hook, US schools have installed electronically controlled doors and added security staff.
“Our focus at the School District is certainly to find out from a safety perspective what has occurred,” Marjory Stoneman Douglas High board member Donna Korn told Treasure Coast, a local newspaper group.
A law enforcement officer is assigned to every school in the district.
The sheriff ’s office also provides active shooter training and the schools have a single point of entry, she said.
“We’ve got the people prepared, we have prepared the campuses, but sometimes people still find a way to let these horrific things happen,” Korn said.
Asked about having armed guards in schools, Israel told a news conference: “If a person is predisposed to commit such a horrific act… there is not a lot law enforcement or any entity can do about it.”
The Valentine’s Day bloodshed in the racially mixed community about 72km north of Miami was the latest outbreak of gun violence that has become a regular occurrence at US schools and college campuses in recent years.
Television footage showed images of students streaming out of the building with hands raised in the air, weaving their way between heavily armed, helmeted police officers, as a fire truck and other emergency vehicles idled nearby.
Parents raced to the school of 3 300 students and a nearby hotel that was set up as a checkpoint to find their children.
“This has been a day we’ve seen the worst in humanity. Tomorrow (yesterday) is going to bring out the best,” Broward County public schools’ superintendent Robert Runcie said.
Florida’s two US senators, briefed by federal law enforcement officials, said the assailant wore a gas mask as he stalked into the school carrying a rifle, ammunition cartridges and smoke grenades, then pulled a fire alarm, prompting students and staff to pour from their classrooms into hallways. – Reuters