Florida school shooting suspect charged
PARKLAND, Fla. — Accused Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz admitted his guilt to detectives, saying he discarded his AR-15 rifle and ammunition magazines at the scene and escaped by blending into the crowd of fleeing students, according to arrest reports.
After slipping away, he went to a Subway inside a nearby Walmart for a drink, then headed to a McDonald’s before he was arrested without incident by an officer who recognized his description.
He arrived on campus at 2:19 p.m. Wednesday in an Uber car, whose driver has since spoken with detectives.
As he walked through the school, shooting students, teachers and staff, he fired “well over” 100 shots, according to a law enforcement source.
“Cruz stated that he was the gunman who entered the school campus armed with a AR-15 and began shooting students that he saw in the hallways and on the school grounds,” states a report from the Broward Sheriff’s Office. “Cruz stated that he brought additional loaded magazines to the school and kept them hidden in a backpack until he got on campus to begin his assault.”
Cruz, a former student at Douglas High, was booked into the county jail Thursday morning after prosecutors charged him with 17 counts of premeditated murder. A Broward County Court judge denied bond for Cruz.
“You’re charged with some very serious crimes,” Broward County Judge Kim Theresa Mollica told the defendant via a video feed from the county jail to her courtroom.
Before her decision, assistant Broward state attorney Shari Tate said Cruz went to the high school with a “premeditated design” to kill students and teachers.
“He shot 17 individuals who later died, and he fled the scene,” Tate read from an arrest affidavit.
Broward assistant public defender Melissa McNeill invoked Cruz’s right to silence while he stood by her in an orange inmate uniform in the county jail. His wrists and ankles were shackled. He showed no emotion and only responded once to a judge’s question about whether he understood why he was in court.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
This was America’s 18th school shooting this year, and Florida Gov. Rick Scott said he has had enough.
“We want to make sure this never happens again,” Scott told reporters outside Douglas High on Thursday as he vowed to meet with state lawmakers and find a way to reduce violence in schools. “How do we make sure individuals with mental illness never touch a gun?”
“We should not have disconnected youth wandering around our community,” insisted Broward Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie, who called for “real funding” for mental health programs for young people.
A prolific poster to social media, Cruz had flaunted a fascination with guns and telegraphed his intent to shoot others on Instagram and YouTube, according to police.
But even the FBI was unable to run down a threat that presaged the violence of a troubled teen who carried a weapon of war into Douglas High on Valentine’s Day, killing 17 people and injuring at least 15 more.
Rob Lasky, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Miami field office, said the agency had gotten a tip in 2017 about an ominous message posted to a YouTube video.
The message, Lasky said, read: “I’m going to be a professional school shooter.”
The person who posted the comment left no details about the location or the time, Lasky said. The FBI investigated the incident, reviewing internal databases and checking open sources, Lasky added, but “We were unable to identify the person who made the comment.”
It was signed with the user name, “nikolas cruz.”
Across the country, America will mark the Parkland shooting with flags at half-staff after President Donald Trump issued a proclamation Thursday ordering that the U.S. flag be flown at half-staff at the White House and all public buildings and grounds, military posts, naval stations and vessels and foreign embassies until sunset on Monday.
Trump, who said he will visit Parkland to help coordinate the federal response, addressed the nation Thursday from the White House Diplomatic Room.
“No child, no teacher should ever be in danger in an American school,” Trump said. “No parent should ever have to fear for their sons and daughters when they kiss them goodbye in the morning.”
In Broward, authorities revealed more details about Wednesday’s bloody rampage at Douglas High, a school with about 3,000 students enrolled.
A law enforcement official said Cruz bought the assault rifle used in the deadly attack at a Coral Springs gun shop called Sunrise Tactical Supply in February 2017.
Cruz bought the .223-caliber rifle — commonly referred to as an AR-15 — after immediately clearing an instant background check by the gun shop owner through an FBI criminal database. Cruz did not have a criminal history.
“As far as I can tell, this was a clean sale,” the law enforcement official told the Herald, who described the assault weapon as a “civilian version of a military rifle.”