Former pupil shoots 17 dead at Florida school
A former student at a Florida high school killed 17 people and injured at least 20 in the third-worst mass school shooting in American history. The gunman, Nikolas Cruz, 19, was arrested after carrying out the attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland with an AR-15 rifle. Pupils reportedly hid under desks and in cupboards. One teacher said that school staff had been warned about Cruz after he had previously threatened students.
A FORMER student at a Florida high school returned to his campus with deadly intent yesterday, reportedly donning a gas mask and opening fire with an AR-15 assault rifle, killing 17 people and injuring at least 20.
Pupils at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, 30 miles north of Fort Lauderdale, hid under desks and cowered in cupboards as the shots rang out.
The alleged gunman, named as Nikolas Cruz, 19, managed to make it off campus before he was cornered in a townhouse in the Pelican Pointe gated community on the Wyndham Lakes estate. He was then taken into custody.
The Broward County sheriff confirmed there were 17 fatalities; 12 inside the building. The death toll would make it the third-worst school shooting in recent US history, after the Virginia Tech and Sandy Hook attacks.
Sheriff Scott Israel said his officers were last night still working to clear all the buildings at the large school campus, which is home to around 3,200 students aged 14-19 and 130 teachers. It is the 18th school shooting this year, according to campaign group Every Town for Gun Safety and the seventh classed by the organisation as an “attack on other person(s) resulting in injury or death”.
Bill Bratton, the former chief of New York City police department, said the frequency of school shootings was “astonishing” – but that it had become “the new normal”. “It’s horrifying, it’s terrible, but then we move on,” he said. “This is just a blip on the radar screen.”
Jim Gard, a maths teacher at the school, said that the teachers had reportedly been warned about Cruz.
Another student interviewed on the scene by Channel 7 said the student had guns at home.
“We were told last year that he wasn’t allowed on campus with a backpack on him,” said Mr Gard, who added that the former student had been in his class last year.
“There were problems with him last year threatening students, and I guess he was asked to leave campus.”
One pupil said other teenagers had long thought the suspect would “shoot up the school”.
The pupil told local television station WFOR-TV: “A lot of people were saying it was going to be him. A lot of kids threw jokes around saying that he was going to be the one to shoot up the school. It turns out that everyone predicted it. That’s crazy.”
Another student, named as Brandon, was asked whether he was surprised to learn the identity of the gunman, and replied: “No.” He continued: “He told me he got kicked out of two private schools, and was held back twice. He seemed a little off.”
Mr Gard said the shooting began just before break, at around 2:30pm, after someone pulled the fire alarm. Students and teachers were puzzled because the school had already held a fire drill that day. Then a code red, indicating the school should go into lockdown, was read over the loud speaker.
“Six kids ran back into my room, and I locked the door, turned out the lights and had the kids go to the back of the room,” Mr Gard said. “I told the kids to hang in there, it may still be a drill.” On the first floor, Geovanni Vilsant, 15, said he was in a Spanish classroom when a fire alarm went off, urging all students out of their classrooms.
Then, two minutes later, gunshots rang out and he fled, catching sight of three bodies on the floor as he was fleeing the school.
“There was blood everywhere,” he said. “They weren’t moving.”
His elder brother, Bradley, who jumped a fence and sought refuge in a nearby neighbourhood, went back and found him.
President Donald Trump, who remains backed by the gun lobby in the form of the powerful National Rifle Association, tweeted: “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.”
‘We were told last year that he wasn’t allowed on campus with a backpack on him’