Arrest records show how he fled campus
FORT LAUDERDALE — Accused high school shooter Nikolas Cruz admitted his guilt to detectives Thursday, 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 from the scene at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, north of Miami, 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 stu-
dents, teachers and staff, he fired “well over” 100 shots, according to a law enforcement source. The shooting lasted three minutes.
Hundreds gathered Thursday night in Parkland for a vigil. At one point, crowd members started shouting “no more guns, no more guns.”
One of Cruz’s attorneys said the expelled student accused of killing 17 people at his former high school is “sad, mournful, remorseful” and “he’s just a broken human being.”
After a judge ordered Cruz, 19, held without bond as he faces 17 counts of premeditated murder, defense attorney Melissa McNeil said Cruz was “fully aware of what is going on,” but had a troubled background and little personal support in his life before the attack.
Meanwhile, investigators were scouring Cruz’s social media posts for possible motives. Several social media accounts bearing Cruz’s name revealed a young man who appeared to signal his intentions to attack a school long before the event.
Nine months ago, a YouTube user with the handle “nikolas cruz” posted a comment on a Discovery UK documentary about the gunman in the 1966 University of Texas at Austin shooting that read, “I am going to what he did.”
Other past comments by YouTube users with Cruz’s name reportedly included a remark in September, saying: “Im going to be a professional school shooter.”
At a news briefing in Florida, Robert Lasky, the FBI special agent in charge, confirmed that the FBI had investigated that comment. But he said the agency couldn’t identify the person in question.
In another post on Instagram, where he posted photos of himself in masks and with guns, Cruz wrote anti-Muslim slurs and apparently mocked the Islamic phrase “Allahu akbar,” which means God is great.
Confusion also swirled after the leader of a white nationalist militia said Cruz had trained with his armed group, a claim that could not be immediately verified.
The leader of the Republic of Florida militia, Jordan Jereb, told researchers at the Anti-Defamation League that Cruz had been “brought up” into the group by one of its members, the ADL said in a blog post.
Jereb said the group had no knowledge of his plans for the school attack.
President Donald Trump, in a televised address to the nation, decried the “terrible violence, hatred and evil” embodied by the attack. “No parent should ever have to fear for their sons and daughters when they kiss them goodbye in the morning,” he said, speaking from the White House. He did not call for any tightening of the country’s gun laws.
Earlier, Trump tweeted a call for public vigilance. “So many signs that the Florida shooter was mentally disturbed,” the president wrote on Twitter. “Neighbors and classmates knew he was a big problem. Must always report such instances to authorities, again and again!”
After Cruz’s mother, Lynda Cruz, died Nov. 1, Nikolas and his brother stayed with family friends in Palm Beach County. Unhappy at that home, Cruz asked a former classmate from the school if he could move in with him and his family. He had been living with them in Broward County, about three miles from the school, since Thanksgiving.
“He was a little depressed because his mother had just died, but he seemed to be coming out of it and doing better,” said Jim Lewis, an attorney representing the family.
Cruz had gotten a job working at a Dollar Tree store, and he was going to school at an adult education center to get his GED, Lewis said.
Authorities painted a picture of a gunman who methodically plotted the attack, equipping himself with a gas mask and smoke grenades.
Peter Forcelli, the special agent in charge of the ATF in South Florida, said Cruz had purchased the weapon legally. “Because he’s over the age of 18, he can legally purchase an AR-15.”
Arrest reports said Cruz bought it last year.