Suspect ‘just a broken human being’
The teenager accused of unleashing one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history confessed that he heartlessly murdered 17 innocent people at a Sunshine State high school — and that he had even more ammo on him, according to a sheriff’s report released yesterday.
The Broward County Sheriff’s Office report said Nikolas Cruz admitted that he committed the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., that left 17 people dead and 14 others wounded.
The 19-year-old orphan was charged with murder yesterday for the bloodiest school shooting since the 2012 elementary school attack in Newtown, Conn.
There were potential warning signs that Cruz was on the brink, including a YouTube video posted in September in which someone with the name “Nikolas Cruz” commented: “I’m going to be a professional school shooter.”
Benjamin Bennight, a Mississippi bail bondsman, was so concerned after seeing the comment that he said he took a screenshot of it on his phone and called the FBI. And though two FBI agents visited Bennight the next day, no one spoke to Cruz.
“No other information was in the comment which would indicate a particular time, location or the true identity of the person who posted the comment,” said Brett Carr, a spokesman for the FBI office in Jackson, Miss. “The FBI conducted database reviews and other checks but was unable to further identify the person who posted the comment.”
Dakota Mutchler, a 17-year-old junior, said he used to be close friends with Cruz but hadn’t seen him in more than a year following his expulsion from school.
“I think everyone had in their minds if anybody was going to do it, it was going to be him,” Mutchler said.
Jordan Jereb, head of a white nationalist group called the Republic of Florida, said Cruz was a member and had taken part in paramilitary drills included with the organization. Investigators, however, said yesterday they hadn’t confirmed those ties. Authorities have not described any specific motive, except to say that Cruz had been kicked out of the high school.
During yesterday’s hearing on the murder charges, Cruz’s attorney, Melisa McNeill, said her client was sad and remorseful and “just a broken human being.”
“When you don’t have the support system, that affects who you are, and that affects the people around you,” McNeill said. “And when your brain is not fully developed, you don’t know how to deal with these things.”
As of last night, Executive Chief Public Defender Gordon Weekes said Cruz was under a suicide watch.