The teen gunman who shot dead 17 people at a Florida high school is believed to have set off the fire alarms to draw people out into the halls before he opened fire – and then managed to evade police by pretending to be one of the terrified students running for cover.
Nikolas Cruz, 19, stormed Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland on Wednesday afternoon armed with an assault rifle. He was taken into custody off the school campus about an hour after the shooting broke out.
Broward Sheriff Scott Israel said Cruz was a former student at the school but had been expelled for unknown ‘disciplinary reasons’ last year.
Cruz was armed with at least one AR-15 rifle, had ‘multiple magazines’ and smoke grenades when he stormed the school wearing a gas mask and killed 17 students and staff. The first of the 17 victims has now been identified as 46-year-old athletic director Chris Hixon.
Investigators are now looking into whether Cruz may have pulled the fire alarm to draw people into the halls so he could get a higher death toll.
Nikolas Cruz, 19, was arrested after he stormed Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland on Wednesday afternoon armed with an assault rifle
The suspected gunman was checked out at a hospital after his arrest (above in a hospital gown) and is now being held at a secure location in a public building
A number of students have said they thought they heard the fire alarm right before the first shots were fired and many were in the process of evacuating. The school had already had a fire drill earlier that day, leaving many of the students confused.
‘People were halfway down the stairwell, it just stopped, the alarm stopped. We heard gunshots coming from the first floor… and people were running upstairs. We all got upstairs and into our classroom. As (my teacher) was closing the door he was actually shot and killed right there. The door was left open the whole time so as (Cruz) walked by the door was open. He could have walked in at any time,’ a student named Alex WSNV.
Broward Sheriff Scott Israel said Cruz was a former student at the school but had been expelled for unknown ‘disciplinary reasons’ last year
Authorities quickly started dissecting the shooter’s social media accounts in a bid to piece together a motive for the deadly shooting. Sheriff Israel reported that some of the things the shooter had been posting were ‘very disturbing’.
Traumatized students said that once they heard reports of a mass shooting at the school they knew it would be Cruz, while one teacher said he had been identified as a potential threat to his classmates last year.
Matthew Walker, a 17-year-old student at the school, told WFOR-TV that all his classmates ‘knew it was going to be him.’
‘A lot of people were saying it was going to be him,’ he said. ‘A lot of kids threw jokes around saying that he was going to be the one to shoot up the school. It turns out that everyone predicted it. That’s crazy.’
‘He was going class to class just shooting at random kids,’ he said. ‘Everything he posts (on social media) is about weapons. It’s sick.’
Math teacher Jim Gard, who taught Cruz last year, told the Miami Herald: ‘We were told last year that he wasn’t allowed on campus with a backpack on him. There were problems with him last year threatening students and I guess he was asked to leave campus.’
Another student took to social media claiming Cruz had mental health issues that were ‘ignored by all the adults.
‘He literally had an Instagram where he posted pictures of animals he killed gruesomely and he physically assaulted one of my friends once,’ the student added.
As a high school freshman, Cruz was part of the US military-sponsored Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program at the school.
Cruz was adopted as an infant and raised by Roger and Lynda Cruz, a family member told ABC News. The family says his adoptive mother died a few months ago.
The suspect, wearing a maroon colored top, is taken into custody two hours after opening fire on his high school
The suspected gunman was checked out at a hospital after his arrest (above in a hospital gown) and is now being held at a secure location in a public building
A student, on a stretcher, is loaded into the back of an ambulance after the mass shooting on Wednesday afternoon
Authorities inspect the AR-15 rifle the teen gunman used in the mass shooting on Wednesday
The first victim of the mass shooting has been identified as 46-year-old athletic director Chris Hixon
Sources told CNN that the gunman purchased the rifle in the past year and passed a required background check to obtain it.
Police said the gunman started firing before he entered the school building and left behind a deadly trail.
Twelve of the people shot dead were found dead inside the school building, two more were killed just outside the school, and another was in a nearby street. Two other people died later after being rushed to the hospital.
Police arrived at the scene to find hundreds of students fleeing the school. They later learned the shooter had concealed himself in the crowd and was among those running off the campus.
Investigators were able to identify him after trawling surveillance video. He was arrested about an hour after the shooting first broke out when police cornered him in a nearby neighborhood.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott joined law enforcement agents near the site of the deadly school shooting on Wednesday night and offered his condolences to the victims’ families and survivors.
Cruz had posted multiple photos on his Instagram of him posing with various weapons. Authorities have already started dissecting his social media accounts and reported that some of the things he had been posting were ‘very disturbing’
Shocking: Victims of the shooting were being treated on the sidewalk while the gunman was reported to still be at large and law enforcement officers from multiple agencies were flooding the area
Medical personnel tend to a bloodied victim as they help to evacuate them from the school
An injured female was transported from the school on a stretcher by first responders on Wednesday afternoon
An injured student was loaded into the ambulance by multiple emergency responders as crews tried to help the more than 50 hurt in the shooting
Terrified students barricaded themselves in their classrooms as the shooter prowled the halls, armed with an assault rifle
Students shared pictures of themselves hiding in a classroom after they were advised to stay where they were until police arrested the gunman
Horrifying video, filmed from inside a classroom at the school, captured the moment the shooter, who was wearing a gas mask, burst in and began shooting at his fellow students who were screaming in terror
He said the attack that claimed at least 17 lives was ‘just absolutely pure evil.’
Scott added that he couldn’t imagine what the families of the victims are going through. He also said he would be visiting hospitalized survivors.
Sheriff Scott Israel of Broward County also said at the news conference that 12 of the dead have been identified but some weren’t carrying identification and that slowed confirmation efforts. The families were being notified.
Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi said the state would cover funeral expenses for the victims and counseling for survivors.
Gunfire rang out at the school at 2.25 pm shortly before dismissal time, sparking panic as students barricaded themselves into their classrooms.
Others were seen running out of the building with their hands in the air as police and SWAT teams swarmed the school. Those fleeing the school, in single file, each threw their backpack into a large pile and huddled together under trees across the street.
At around 4 pm, two hours after the shooter first opened fire, police and SWAT teams took him into custody.
Aerial footage showed him wearing a maroon or burgundy colored sweatshirt as he was put in the back of a cruiser by half a dozen of officers.
Meanwhile, a horrifying video filmed from inside a classroom captured the moment the shooter, who was wearing a gas mask, burst in and began shooting at his fellow students as they screamed in terror.
The students were spotted sitting or lying on the classroom floor, trying to avoid being hit, as rapid gunfire was heard nearby. One girl’s hysterical screams were suddenly cut off during the shocking clip.
Desperate parents and relatives of students still locked down in the high school rushed to the scene to find out if their children were among the injured.
One mother, Michelle, whose daughter was inside, said there at least 20 students and teachers still barricaded in the school buildings. The unnamed mom said her daughter sent her a text that said: ‘There’s been a shooting in school… and it’s for real.’
Parents wait for news after reports of a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida
Parents hug their children near the school after the shooting broke out on Wednesday afternoon
Family members embrace after a student walked out from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Wednesday
Speaking outside the police perimeter, she said: ‘She was texting me up until about four minutes ago and now she’s not responding and I’m getting nervous. Last she texted me she was in a building from across where the shooting was at. I’m on pins and needles because she isn’t responding to me now.’
CBS Miami reporter Rick Folbaum said he was exchanging messages with a child still inside, who is hiding in a closet.
‘I’m continuing to text with a student, a young girl who I know well, who is in the building right now who told me that she heard a loud noise and what sounded like gunfire, three shots, he said.
‘She texted: All of a sudden there was a really loud noise…..people are crying in the closet.’
A father named Caesar Figueroa told CBS: ‘My daughter is with a friend and is trapped in a closet. She is afraid to talk out loud. It’s like a war zone here with cops, machine guns, and helicopters. The FBI is here, everyone is here. I told my daughter not to call me because I don’t want anyone to hear her voice.’
Photographs taken by students inside the school showed them crouching behind piles of chairs and hiding behind desks.
The shooter reportedly fled the building when police arrived mixing in with others students leaving the school.
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School is in Parkland – Florida’s safest city last year.
The video showed students being loaded into ambulances or even treated on the ground at the scene.
The school remains on lockdown.
Coral Springs police have advised people to avoid the neighborhood while the active shooter situation is underway.
President Donald Trump has tweeted about the shooting to offer his condolences to the victims.
Majory Stoneman Douglas High School is located in Parkland, west of Boca Raton, in Florida
Students were seen fleeing the building with their hands in the air, as they ran for safety from the gunman
The students sprinted away from the building and gathered at the trees on the other side of the road
Students went in single file from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School as armed SWAT response teams watched on
Staff and students walked single file outside the school as they evacuated after the shooting
Police are responding to the incident at Majory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida
‘My prayers and condolences to the families of the victims of the terrible Florida shooting. No child, teacher, or anyone else should ever feel unsafe in an American school,’ he wrote.
He added that he’d spoken with Florida Governor Rick Scott and ‘we are working closely with law enforcement on the terrible Florida school shooting.’‘
White House deputy press secretary Lindsay Walters said in a statement: ‘The president has been made aware of the school shooting in Florida. We are monitoring the situation. Our thoughts and prayers are with those affected.’
Police asked parents to tell children still inside to ‘remain calm and barricaded until the police come to their room’.
A student, who was not identified, but claims to know Cruz told WSVN he was obsessed with guns and showed him pictures of them on his phone.
‘He’s been a troubled kid and he’s always had a certain amount of issues going on. He shotguns because he felt it gave him, I guess, an exhilarating feeling.’
He added that Cruz made him nervous.
‘I stayed clear of him most of the time. During my time in alternate school, I did not want to be with him at all because I didn’t want to cause any conflict with him because of the impression he gave off.’
The incident comes just a few weeks after a 15-year-old boy opened fire at his rural Kentucky high school, killing two and injuring more than two dozen others.
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