Florida School Shooting: ‘Kids Were Freaking Out’
PARKLAND,
Fla. — A heavily armed young man barged into his former high school
about an hour northwest of Miami on Wednesday, opening fire on terrified
students and teachers and leaving a death toll of 17 that could rise
even higher, the authorities said.
Students
huddled in horror in their classrooms, with some of them training their
cellphones on the carnage, capturing sprawled bodies, screams and
gunfire that began with a few shots and then continued with more and
more. The dead included students and adults, some of whom were shot
outside the school and others inside the sprawling three-story building.
The
gunman, armed with a semiautomatic AR-15 rifle, was identified as
Nikolas Cruz, a 19-year-old who had been expelled from the school, the
authorities said. He began his shooting rampage outside Marjory Stoneman
Douglas High School in this suburban neighborhood shortly before
dismissal time around 2:40 p.m. He then made his way inside and
proceeded down hallways he knew well, firing at students and teachers
who were scurrying for cover, the authorities said.
“Oh
my God! Oh my God!” one student yelled over and over in one video
circulating on social media, as more than 40 gunshots boomed in the
background.
By
the end of the rampage, Mr. Cruz had killed 12 people inside the school
and three outside it, including someone standing on a street corner,
Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said. Two more victims died of their
injuries in local hospitals. The aftermath at the school was an eerie
shrine, with chairs upended, a computer screen shattered with bullet
holes and floors stained with blood.
“This
is catastrophic,” said Sheriff Israel, who has three children who
graduated from the high school. “There really are no words.”
Mr.
Cruz was arrested in Coral Springs, a neighboring city a couple of
miles from the school, about an hour after fleeing the scene, the
authorities said. He had slipped out of the building by mixing in with
crowds of students. In addition to the rifle, Sheriff Israel said Mr.
Cruz had “countless magazines.”
The gunman had clearly prepared for the attack, Senator Bill Nelson of Florida said in an interview after speaking to the F.B.I.
“The
shooter wore a gas mask, had smoke grenades, and he set off the fire
alarm so the kids would come out of the classrooms,” said Mr. Nelson,
citing details he learned from the F.B.I. Several students said they
found it strange to hear the alarm, because they had already had a fire
drill earlier in the day.
Sheriff
Israel said he did not know the gunman’s motive. He said a football
coach was among the dead, and the son of a deputy sheriff among the
injured. Twelve of the 17 dead had been identified by Wednesday night,
he added, noting that not all of the students had backpacks or wallets
on them.
Mr.
Cruz was enrolled at another Broward County school, officials said.
Sheriff Israel said law enforcement officials had already discovered
material on Mr. Cruz’s social media accounts that was “very, very
disturbing.”
Jim
Gard, a math teacher at the school, said Mr. Cruz was in his class in
2016 and appeared to be a “quiet” student. But Mr. Gard also recalled
that “there was concern” about his behavior on the part of the school
administration, which emailed teachers relaying those fears.
Mr.
Gard said that after the shooting, he learned from several students
that Mr. Cruz was obsessed with a girl at the school to the point of
“stalking her,” a point the authorities did not raise in news briefings
near the scene.
The
massacre called to mind the country’s two mass shootings that have come
to be known by the name of the schools: Columbine, the high school
outside Denver where 12 students and a teacher were killed in 1999; and
Sandy Hook, the elementary school in Newtown, Conn., where 20 students
and six adults were shot dead in 2012.
More
than 40 “active shooter” episodes in schools have been recorded in the
United States since 2000, according to F.B.I. and news reports. Two
15-year-old students were killed and 18 more people were injured last
month in a school in rural Benton, Ky. The shootings have become common
enough that many schools, including Stoneman Douglas High, run annual
drills in which students practice huddling in classrooms behind locked
doors.
With the Parkland shooting, three of the 10 deadliest mass shootings in modern United States history have come in the last five months.
Mr.
Nelson said the episode made him relive recent shootings that also
shook the state. “Forty-nine slaughtered at the Pulse nightclub. Another
handful slaughtered at the Fort Lauderdale airport, just a year ago, in
the same county where this took place,” he said. “And that’s just
Florida.”
After
the gunfire had stopped Wednesday afternoon and Mr. Cruz had fled,
students ran out of the school, some in single file with their hands on
the shoulders of those in front of them and others in all-out sprints.
As the students sought cover, law enforcement officers armed with
military-grade weapons swarmed the building. Parents rushed to a local
Marriott hotel to reunite with their children.
“I tried to stay calm. Students were running everywhere,” said Dianna Milleret, a 16-year-old sophomore who heard the gunshots.
Noelle
Kaiser, 17, was in history class when a fire alarm went off. The class
was gathered just outside the building when she heard three distinct
gunshots.
“I am in shock,” she said softly after clutching her mother, Cheryl Kaiser, on the sidewalk outside the school.
Seventeen
patients were treated in three area hospitals, including two who died,
said Dr. Evan Boyar of the Broward Health System. All suffered gunshot
wounds.
“Words
cannot express the sorrow that we feel,” said Robert W. Runcie, the
Broward schools superintendent. “No parent should ever have to send
their kid to school and have them not return.”
Parkland,
an affluent suburb of Fort Lauderdale with a population of about
30,000, is known for its good public schools. Stoneman Douglas High is
among the largest in the Broward school district, with about 3,000
students. The school will remain closed for the rest of the week. Gov.
Rick Scott directed the state to lower its flags at half-staff until
Monday.
“My prayers and condolences to the families of the victims of the terrible Florida shooting,” President Trump wrote on Twitter. “No child, teacher or anyone else should ever feel unsafe in an American school.”
As
the authorities frantically searched for the person responsible, they
asked residents of the city to avoid the area around the school.
For
hours, parents were lined along Coral Springs Drive, calling their
children on cellphones and pacing. Some parents said their children told
them only to text to not make noise. One parent of two daughters at a
nearby middle school said he sat in a bank lobby near the school and
prayed.
The gunfire came as some students were still staring at chalkboards and listening to lectures.
Rebecca
Bogart, 17, a senior, said her teacher was finishing up a discussion of
the Holocaust when she heard a series of loud bangs.
“We
all got on the floor and under the desk,” said Ms. Bogart, who was
still shaking outside the school. “It felt like we were there 10 or 15
minutes and then shots came through the window and the glass shattered.”
She
couldn’t see her classmates fall, but she could see at least five were
bleeding, one in the head and one in the leg. “I was trying to keep calm
and my friend was holding my hand to keep it from shaking,” she said.
When
the authorities arrived, they took out her wounded classmates first.
“There was blood all over the floor,” she said, “You never think
something like this is going to happen to you and then it does.”
