Florida authorities have charged a 19-year-old man with 17 counts of murder after he gunned down dozens of students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, Florida, a wealthy community about an hour north of Miami.
Nikolas Cruz was booked into the Broward County Jail after doctors cleared him at the same local hospital where his injured victims were transported.
Police say Cruz was expelled from the high school for making threats, and he was ordered not to return to the campus with a backpack. His threats were reported to the local FBI office in Florida, and local authorities were also made aware of his domestic threats before the tragedy.
Cruz was a high functioning autistic (HFA) who lost his adoptive mother to the flu in November. He was staying with a family who took him in after he was expelled from school.
The family encouraged Cruz to take adult education courses, but he refused to get out of bed on Wednesday morning.
“I don’t go to school on Valentine’s Day,” he reportedly said, according to the family’s lawyer. The lawyer said Cruz suffered from depression.
News chopper footage showed horrific images of at least two bodies sprawled on the grounds outside the school.
Cruz shot two students outside the school then went on a shooting rampage inside the school. Police say he used a AR-15 rifle in the attack which lasted 10 minutes. He reportedly pulled the fire alarm to draw students into the hallways where he opened fire on them.
One of those confirmed dead was an assistant football coach who was shot three times when he shielded a student from the gunfire.
“This is catastrophic,” said Sheriff Scott Israel of Broward County, who has three children who graduated from the school. “There really are no words.”
Instagram.com deleted Cruz’s Instagram page which was littered with Islamic extremism and anti-Muslim posts. Police say he recently participated in a YouTube chat on bomb making.
A Reddit.com user posted a link to an archive of Cruz’s now-deleted Instagram.com page.
Another Instagram account that featured a profile of a man wearing a red “Make America Great Again” ball cap was proven to be a hoax.
