Orphan, 19, charged over school massacre that left 17 dead
An orphaned 19-year-old with a troubled past and an AR-15 rifle has been charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder after being questioned for hours following the deadliest school shooting in the US in five years.
Fifteen wounded survivors were taken to hospital as bodies were recovered from inside and around Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Just before the shooting broke out, some students thought they were having another fire drill.
Such an exercise had forced them to leave their classrooms hours earlier. So when the alarm went off on Wednesday afternoon shortly before they were to be dismissed, they once again filed out into the hallways.
That was when police say Nikolas Cruz, equipped with a gas mask, smoke grenades and multiple magazines of ammunition, opened fire with a semi-automatic weapon, killing 17 people and sending hundreds of students fleeing into the streets. It was the nation’s deadliest school shooting since a gunman attacked an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, more than five years ago.
“Our district is in a tremendous state of grief and sorrow,” said Robert Runcie, superintendent of the school district in Parkland, about an hour’s drive north of Miami. “It is a horrible day for us.”
Authorities offered no immediate details about Cruz or his possible motive, except to say that he had been kicked out of the high school, which has about 3,000 students. Students who knew him described a volatile teenager whose strange behaviour had caused others to end friendships with him.
Cruz’s mother Lynda Cruz died of pneumonia on 1 November, neighbours, friends and family members said, according to reports. Ms Cruz and her husband, who died of a heart attack several years ago, adopted Nikolas and his biological brother, Zachary, after the couple moved from Long Island in New York to Broward County.
The boys were left in the care of a family friend after their mother died, family member Barbara Kumbatovich, of Long Island, said.
Unhappy there, Nikolas Cruz asked to move in with a friend’s family in northwest Broward. The family agreed and Cruz moved in around Thanksgiving. According to the family’s lawyer, who did not identify them, they knew that Cruz owned the AR-15 but made him keep it locked up in a cabinet. He did have the key, however.
President Donald Trump struck a solemn tone after the shooting, describing a “scene of terrible violence, hatred and evil” amd promising to “tackle the difficult issue of mental health” – but avoiding any mention of guns.