A former
student armed with an AR-15 rifle opened fire at a Florida high school on
Wednesday, killing at least 17 people, officials said, in a harrowing shooting
spree that
saw terrified students hiding in closets and under desks as they
texted for help.
Broward
County Sheriff Scott Israel identified the gunman as Nikolas Cruz, 19, a former
student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland who had been
expelled for “disciplinary reasons.”
Cruz was
arrested without incident in the nearby town of Coral Springs after the
Valentine’s Day rampage and taken to hospital with minor injuries, the sheriff
said.
“We have
already begun to dissect his websites and things on social media that he was on
and some of the things… are very, very disturbing,” Israel said.
“He had
countless magazines, multiple magazines, and at this point, we believe he had
one AR-15 rifle,” the sheriff added.
Israel said
both students and adults had been killed. He was uncertain about the exact
number of people injured, but at least 14 were taken to hospital and two had
died there of their wounds.
The
shooting, one of nearly 20 since the start of the year, will once again throw
the spotlight on the epidemic of gun violence in the United States and the
ready accessibility of weapons in a country with 33,000 gun-related deaths
annually.
“This is a
terrible day for Parkland,” Israel said, speaking of the city of about 30,000
people, located 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Miami.
“My very own
triplets went to that school.”
A teacher at
the school told The Miami Herald that Cruz had been identified previously as a
potential threat to his classmates.
“We were
told last year that he wasn’t allowed on campus with a backpack on him,” math
teacher Jim Gard said. “There were problems with him last year threatening
students, and I guess he was asked to leave campus.”
Cruz was
also said to have been in the Junior ROTC (Reserve Officers’ Training Corps)
program while at school.
A law
enforcement source told CBS News that the gunman pulled a fire alarm before
opening fire, but Israel said he could not confirm that report.
‘Everyone
started running’
Parkland
Mayor Christine Hunschofsky told CNN she had spoken to a number of students
after the shooting erupted shortly after 2:00 pm (1900 GMT).
“They were
very scared,” she said. “And almost in shock when they came out.”
Television
images showed students, some with their hands in the air, being led out of the
school by heavily armed police officers and an armored vehicle filled with a
SWAT team on the scene.
Student
Jeiella Dodoo told CBS News that she and her schoolmates had evacuated their
classroom calmly after hearing what they thought had been a routine fire alarm.
“The alarm
went off so we had to evacuate from our classes,” she said. “Then we heard
gunshots.
“I heard
about six gunshots,” she said, “and then some people started running and then
everyone started running because we were like ‘If it’s real, then just run.'”
Teacher
Melissa Falkowski told US networks that she had helped 19 students squeeze into
a closet with her.
“We were in
there for probably 40 minutes. We were locked in the closet until SWAT came and
got us,” she told CNN.
Police
officers in helmets, bulletproof vests and armed with automatic weapons could
be seen stationed at several points around the sprawling school complex, which
serves nearly 3,000 students.
“Just a
horrible day for us,” said the superintendent of the county’s school district,
Robert Runcie.
“This is
very sad to me and our family too,” 61-year-old Joseph Panikulangara, whose
17-year-old niece Dhiya attends the school, told AFP.
The FBI said
it was assisting local law enforcement with the investigation.
When asked
about security, Hunschofsky said a police officer is always stationed at the
school and there was a “single point of entry.”
– No child
should ‘feel unsafe’ –
President
Donald Trump offered his “prayers and condolences to the families of the
victims.
“No child,
teacher or anyone else should ever feel unsafe in an American school,” he said
on Twitter.
Since the
December 2012 massacre at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown,
Connecticut, where 20 children and six adults were shot dead, warning
procedures and emergency drills have multiplied at US schools.
But since
January 2013, there have been at least 291 school shootings across the country
— an average of about one a week, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, a
non-profit group that advocates for gun control.
“It is
pretty clear that we’re failing our kids here,” said Falkowski, the teacher who
helped shield her students from harm in a closet.
“I’m not
saying the solution is one thing or another, but this does not happen in other
countries the way it happens here.”
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