Cruz on NRA-funded marksmanship team

The troubled teen who authorities say killed 17 people at a Florida high school excelled in an air-rifle marksmanship program supported by a grant from the National Rifle Association Foundation that was part of a multimillion-dollar effort by the gun group to support youth shooting clubs.

Nikolas Cruz, 19, was wearing a maroon shirt with the logo from the Army Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps program at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School when he was arrested Wednesday shortly after the shooting. Former JROTC cadets told The Associated Press that Cruz was a member of the small varsity marksmanship team that trained together after class and traveled to other area schools to compete.

“He was a very good shot,” said Aaron Diener, 20, who gave Cruz a ride to shooting competitions when they were part of the same four-member team in 2016. “He had an AR-15 he talked about, and pistols.”

The JROTC marksmanship program used air rifles made for target shooting, typically on indoor ranges at targets the size of a small coin. Records show that the Stoneman Douglas JROTC program received $10,827 in non-cash assistance from the NRA’s fundraising and charitable arm in 2016, when Cruz was on the squad.

The shooting team’s equipment came in handy for some students during the chaos of the rampage. Colton Haab told CNN that he led more than 60 fellow students into a JROTC room on campus and, in case the shooter came after them, barricaded them behind Kevlar sheets used by the rifle program. In the end, the students were not targeted by the shooter.

The Virginia-based foundation gave nearly $2.2 million to schools in 30 states in 2016, the most recent year for which its federal tax filings are publicly available. A spokeswoman for the NRA declined to comment on Friday. The top officers of the foundation are all current or former executives of the NRA.