Ex-student arrested after
17 shot dead at Florida high school
They Change the God’s words:
Islam Is Not Terrorist by virtue of Surah Al Maidah, Verses 32 [
5:32 ]. And who is the real terrorist now?
A former student at a Florida high school opened fire in the
school on Wednesday, causing "numerous fatalities" and wounding at
least 14 people before he was arrested by police, authorities said.
PARKLAND, Fla.: A 19-year-old gunman returned to
the Florida high school where he had once been expelled for disciplinary
problems and opened fire with an assault-style rifle on Wednesday, killing 17
people and injuring more than a dozen others before he was arrested,
authorities said.
The violence erupted shortly before dismissal at
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, a placid, middle-class
community about 45 miles (72 km) north of Miami. Television footage showed
images, increasingly familiar in America, of bewildered students streaming out
of the building with hands raised in the air, as dozens of police and emergency
services personnel swarmed the area.
Florida's two U.S. senators, briefed by federal
law enforcement officials, said the assailant wore a gas mask as he stalked
into the school carrying a rifle, ammunition cartridges and smoke grenades,
then pulled a fire alarm, prompting students and staff to pour from their
classrooms into hallways.
"There the carnage began," Senator
Bill Nelson told CNN. Senator Marco Rubio gave a similar account on Twitter.
A chilling cell phone video clip broadcast by
CBS News showed a brief scene of what the network said was the shooting in
progress from inside a classroom, where several students were seen huddled or
lying on the floor surrounded by mostly empty desks. A rapid series of loud
gunshots are heard amid hysterical screaming and someone yelling, “Oh my God.”
The gunman was arrested later outside, some
distance from the school in an adjacent community. CNN, citing law enforcement
sources, said the gunman tried to blend in with students who were fleeing the
school but was spotted and taken into custody.
He was identified as Nikolas Cruz, who
previously attended the high school and was expelled for unspecified
disciplinary reasons, Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said at a news
briefing hours later. Officials spelled his first name differently earlier in
the day before correcting themselves.
As a high school freshman, Cruz was part of the
U.S. military-sponsored Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corp program at the
school, according to Jillian Davis, 19, a recent graduate and former fellow
JROTC member at Stoneman Douglas High.
SUSPECT RECOUNTED AS TROUBLED YOUTH
In an interview with Reuters, she recalled his
"strange talking sometimes about knives and guns," adding, "no
one ever took him seriously."
Chad Williams, 18, a senior at Stoneman Douglas,
described Cruz as "kind of an outcast" who was known for unruly
behaviour at school, including a penchant for pulling false fire alarms, and
was "crazy about guns."
The gunman surrendered to police without a
struggle, Israel said. He was armed with an AR-15-style rifle and had multiple
magazines of ammunition.
"It's catastrophic," Israel said.
"There really are no words." Broward County Schools Superintendent
Robert Runcie called it "a horrific situation,"
Twelve of the dead were killed inside the
school, two others just outside, one more on the street and two other victims
died of their injuries at a hospital, Israel said. He said the victims comprised
a mixture of students and adults.
Authorities at two nearby hospitals said they
were treating 13 survivors for bullet wounds and other injuries, five of whom
were listed in critical condition.
The Valentine's Day bloodshed in the Miami
suburb of gated communities with palm- and shrub-lined streets was the latest
outbreak of gun violence that has become a regular occurrence at schools and
college campuses across the United States over the past several years.
It was the 18th shooting in a U.S. school so far
this year, according to gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety. That tally
includes suicides and incidents when no one was injured, as well as the January
shooting in which a 15-year-old gunman killed two fellow students at a Benton,
Kentucky, high school.
Staff and students told local media that a fire
alarm went off around the time the shooting started, sparking chaos as some
3,300 students at the school first headed into hallways before teachers herded
them back into classrooms, to seek shelter in closets.
One survivor, Kyle Yeoward, 16, a junior, told
Reuters he and about 15 fellow students and a teacher hid in a closet for
nearly two hours before police arrived. Yeoward said most of the shooting
occurred in the building for the school's freshman class.
Anguished parents checked on their children.
"It is just absolutely horrifying. I can't
believe this is happening," Lissette Rozenblat, whose daughter goes to the
school, told CNN. Her daughter called her to say she was safe but the student
also told her mother she heard the cries of a person who was shot.
Televised images showed dozens of students,
their arms in the air, weaving their way between law enforcement officers with
heavy weapons and helmets, and large numbers of emergency vehicles including
police cars, ambulances and fire trucks.
The school had recently held a meeting to
discuss what to do in such an attack, Ryan Gott, a 15-year-old freshman told
CNN.
"My prayers and condolences to the families
of the victims of the terrible Florida shooting," U.S. President Donald
Trump said on Twitter. "No child, teacher or anyone else should ever feel
unsafe in an American school."
(Additional reporting by Steve Gorman, Dan
Whitcomb and Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento,
California; Letitia Stein in Detroit and Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas;
Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Tom Brown and Lisa Shumaker)
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