Trail of abuse that led to Florida massacre
NIKOLAS CRUZ, who is accused of killing 17 people in one of America’s worst school shootings, left a trail of anti-Semitic, racist, homophobic and homicidal messages on social media.
One of the classrooms where pupils were killed was engaged in a Holocaust history lesson, according to a pupil who survived, although it was unclear if the gunman would have been aware of that.
Cruz’s comments were posted to a private group containing half a dozen people on the Instagram messaging service, which is owned by Facebook.
The name of the group was “Murica great”, accompanied by an American flag and eagle, and Cruz began posting to it in August last year, it was discovered by CNN.
Cruz used the group to stir hatred including messages detailing how he wanted to kill Mexicans, put black peo- ple in chains, that he believed Jews were taking over the world, and that gay people should be “shot in the back of [the] head”.
He wrote that white women in relationships with black men were traitors, and called himself the “annihilator”.
In one message he wrote: “I think I am going to kill people.” On another occasion, he wrote “guys I got paid $330, I am buying body armour”, and suggested wearing it to school.
When asked why, he replied: “School shooters.” He posted pictures of himself wearing the body armour. One of the group’s other members suggested a cheap piece of equipment he could buy that would turn his semi-automatic rifle into a fully automatic weapon.
Cruz, who was born in New York, was adopted as a baby by Roger and Lynda Cruz, who took him to Florida. Roger Cruz died in 2004 and Lynda Cruz died from pneumonia in 2016. On Instagram, Cruz wrote: “My real mom was a Jew. I am glad I never met her.”
Cruz has admitted killing 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, an affluent middle class suburb of Miami, on Valentine’s Day. Defence lawyers have claimed he is autistic. They also say he is remorseful and have indicated he would plead guilty in the hope of being spared the death penalty.
Pressure is mounting on Christopher Wray, the director of the FBI, to resign after the bureau admitted it failed to investigate a telephone tip on Jan 5 alerting it to disturbing social media posts and suggesting Cruz had a “desire to kill”. It is not known if the tip came from one of the members of the Instagram group.
Lewis Mizen, 17, a pupil at the school who is originally from Coventry in the UK, said: “The FBI has failed. It’s going to be a mark on their name for ever.” It also emerged that in 2016 Cruz cut his arms on Snapchat, the social media service, and said he wanted to buy a gun.
That led to a social services investigation which found: “Mr Cruz has fresh cuts on both his arms. Mr Cruz stated he plans to go out and buy a gun. It is unknown what he is buying the gun for.” However, the investigation concluded he was “low risk”.
Funerals for the victims began over the weekend, while two large gun shows were due to be staged at fairgrounds nearby.
Late on Friday, President Donald Trump visited survivors and medical staff at a local hospital. Mr Trump spoke with a female pupil who had been shot four times. He later posted photographs of the meeting on Twitter.
“It’s very sad that something like this happened,” Mr Trump said. Asked in a hospital corridor “Mr President, do gun laws need to be changed?”, he declined to answer.
In one message he wrote ‘I think I am going to kill people’, and in another ‘I am buying body armour’