The teenager accused of using a semi-automatic rifle to kill 17 people at a Florida high school confessed to carrying out one of the nation's deadliest school shootings and carried extra ammunition in his backpack, according to a sheriff's department report released Thursday.
(Susan Stocker/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP, Pool)
Nikolas Cruz told investigators that he shot students in the hallways and on the grounds of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, north of Miami, the report from the Broward County Sheriff's Office said.
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The teenager accused of using a semi-automatic rifle to kill 17 people at a Florida high school confessed to carrying out one of the nation's deadliest school shootings and carried extra ammunition in his backpack, according to a sheriff's department report released Thursday.
Nikolas Cruz told investigators that he shot students in the hallways and on the grounds of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, north of Miami, the report from the Broward County Sheriff's Office said.
As the gunman moved through the school, he fired into five classrooms — four on the first floor and one on the second floor, Sheriff Scott Israel said.
After the rampage, the suspect headed to a Wal-Mart and bought a drink at a Subway restaurant before walking to a McDonald's. He was taken into custody about 40 minutes after leaving the McDonald's, the sheriff said.
The 19-year-old orphan whose mother died last year was charged with murder Thursday in the assault that devastated this sleepy community on the edge of the Everglades. It was the nation's deadliest school attack since a gunman targeted an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, more than five years ago.
"He shot the girl next to me," she said, adding that when she finally was able to leave the classroom, the air was foggy with gun smoke. "I stepped on so many shell casings. There were bodies on the ground, and there was blood everywhere."
"Thank God he didn't," Galvano said.
Authorities have not offered any specific motive, except to say that Cruz had been kicked out of the high school, which has about 3,000 students and serves an affluent suburb where the median home price is nearly $600,000. Students who knew him described a volatile teenager whose strange behavior had caused others to end friendships with him.
He was being held under a suicide watch, Executive Chief Public Defender Gordon Weekes told reporters.
Cruz said he brought more loaded magazines to the school and kept them in the backpack until he got to campus.
This photo was used as the profile picture on the Instagram account of Nikolas Cruz, who was charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder on Thursday, Feb. 15, 2018, the day after opening fire with a semi-automatic weapon in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. (Instagram via AP)
As the gunman moved through the school, he fired into five classrooms — four on the first floor and one on the second floor, Sheriff Scott Israel said.
The shooting lasted for three minutes. The assailant then went to the third floor and dropped his AR-15 rifle and the backpack and ran out of the building, attempting to blend in with fleeing students, Israel said.
(Susan Stocker/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP, Pool)
After the rampage, the suspect headed to a Wal-Mart and bought a drink at a Subway restaurant before walking to a McDonald's. He was taken into custody about 40 minutes after leaving the McDonald's, the sheriff said.
A day after the attack, a fuller portrait emerged of the shooter, a loner who had worked at a dollar store, joined the school's ROTC program and posted photos of weapons on Instagram. At least one student said classmates joked that Cruz would "be the one to shoot up the school."
(Susan Stocker/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP, Pool)
The 19-year-old orphan whose mother died last year was charged with murder Thursday in the assault that devastated this sleepy community on the edge of the Everglades. It was the nation's deadliest school attack since a gunman targeted an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, more than five years ago.
Meanwhile, students struggled to describe the violence that ripped through their classrooms just before the school day ended.
Catarina Linden, a 16-year-old sophomore, said she was in an advanced math class Wednesday when the gunfire began.
(Susan Stocker/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP, Pool)
"He shot the girl next to me," she said, adding that when she finally was able to leave the classroom, the air was foggy with gun smoke. "I stepped on so many shell casings. There were bodies on the ground, and there was blood everywhere."
State Sen. Bill Galvano visited the high school Thursday and was allowed to go up to the third floor, where he was shown bullet holes that marked where Cruz had tried to shoot out the windows at point-blank range. But the high-impact glass did not shatter.
Authorities told Galvano that Cruz apparently wanted to shoot out the windows so he could fire on the students running away from the school. Police told Galvano that it was not that difficult to open the windows.
(Susan Stocker/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP, Pool)
"Thank God he didn't," Galvano said.
Among the dead were a football coach who also worked as a security guard, a senior who planned to attend Lynn University and an athletic director who was active in his Roman Catholic church.
The last of the bodies were removed from the high school Thursday after authorities analyzed the crime scene. Thirteen wounded survivors were still hospitalized, including two in critical condition.
(Susan Stocker/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP, Pool)
Authorities have not offered any specific motive, except to say that Cruz had been kicked out of the high school, which has about 3,000 students and serves an affluent suburb where the median home price is nearly $600,000. Students who knew him described a volatile teenager whose strange behavior had caused others to end friendships with him.
Cruz was ordered held without bond at a brief court hearing. He wore an orange jumpsuit with his hands cuffed at his waist. His attorney had her arm around Cruz during the short appearance. Afterward, she called him a "broken human being."
(Susan Stocker/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP, Pool)
He was being held under a suicide watch, Executive Chief Public Defender Gordon Weekes told reporters.
Wednesday's shooting was the 17th incident of gunfire at an American school this year. Of the 17 incidents, one involved a suicide, two involved active shooters who killed students, two involved people killed in arguments and three involved people who were shot but survived. Nine involved no injuries at all.
As the criminal case began to take shape, President Donald Trump, in an address to the nation, promised to "tackle the difficult issue of mental health," but avoided any mention of guns. Trump, who owns a private club in Palm Beach, about 40 miles from Parkland, said he planned to visit the grieving community.
He did not answer shouted questions about guns as he left the room.
(Susan Stocker/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP, Pool)
Trump, who did not speak publicly immediately after the shooting, weighed in on Twitter early Thursday, calling the suspect "mentally disturbed" and stressing that it was important to "report such instances to authorities, again and again!"
In the case of Cruz, at least one person did report him.
FBI agent Rob Lasky said the FBI investigated a 2017 YouTube comment that said "I'm going to be a professional school shooter." But the agency could not identify the person who made the comment, which was from an account using the name Nikolas Cruz. It was left on a YouTube video of a vlogger and bail bondsman from Louisiana named Ben Bennight.
In a Buzzfeed article , Bennight said he called the FBI, and agents came out to talk with him. They called him again Wednesday.
Officials were also investigating whether authorities missed other warning signs about Cruz's potentially violent nature.
He had been expelled from the school for "disciplinary reasons," according to the sheriff, who said he did not know the specifics.
One student said Cruz had been abusive to his ex-girlfriend and that his expulsion was over a fight with her new boyfriend.
Math teacher Jim Gard told the Miami Herald that Cruz may have been identified as a potential threat before Wednesday's attack. Gard believes the school had sent out an email warning teachers that Cruz should not be allowed on campus with a backpack.
The leader of a white nationalist militia called the Republic of Florida said Cruz was a member of his group and had participated in exercises in Tallahassee. Jordan Jereb said he had only a brief interaction with Cruz a few years ago. The group wants Florida to become its own white ethno-state.
Neither the Leon County Sheriff's Office in Tallahassee nor the Southern Poverty Law Center could confirm any link between Cruz and the militia.
Jereb appeared to back away from his claim later Thursday. Someone posting under his name on Gab, a social media site popular with far-right extremists, complained about getting criticized over a "prank," claimed there was a "misunderstanding" and said he received "a bunch of conflicting information."
Cruz's mother, Lynda Cruz, died of pneumonia Nov. 1, and his father died previously, according to the arrest affidavit.
Two federal law enforcement officials said the Smith & Wesson M&P 15 .223 was purchased legally last year at Sunrise Tactical Gear in Florida.
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — President Joe Biden on Tuesday blamed Donald Trump for Florida's upcoming abortion ban and other restrictions across the country that have imperiled access to care for pregnant women, arguing Trump has created a “healthcare crisis for women all over this country.”
Biden's campaign events at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa placed the president in the epicenter of the latest battle over abortion restrictions. The state’s six-week abortion ban is poised to go into effect May 1 at the same time that Florida voters are gearing up for a ballot measure that would enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution. Biden said that millions of women are facing “pain and cruelty."
“But it’s not inevitable. We can stop it. When you vote, we can stop it," he said.
The president is seeking to capitalize on the unceasing momentum against abortion restrictions nationwide to not only buoy his reelection bid in battleground states he won in 2020, but also to go on the offensive against Trump in states that the presumptive Republican nominee won four years ago. One of those states is Florida, where Biden lost to Trump by 3.3 percentage points.
On Tuesday, he chronicled increasing medical concerns for women in the two years since the Supreme Court ended federal abortion protections.
“There was one person who was responsible for this nightmare," Biden said. “And he’s acknowledged it and he brags about it — Donald Trump.”
Biden said Trump, who has publicly waffled on his abortion views, and of late has said abortion is a matter for states to decide, is concerned voters will now hold him accountable.
“Folks, the bad news for Trump is that we are going to hold him accountable,” Biden said.
At the same time, advocates on the ground say support for abortion access cuts across parties. They're intent on making the issue as nonpartisan as possible as they work to scrounge up at least 60% support from voters for the ballot initiative.
That could mean in some cases, Florida voters would split their tickets, backing GOP candidates while supporting the abortion measure.
“I think that normal people are aware that a candidate campaign is really different than a ballot initiative,” said Lauren Brenzel, campaign director for Floridians Protecting Freedom, which gathered signatures to put the abortion question before voters. “You can vote for your preferred candidate of any political party and still not agree with them on every single issue."
Brenzel continued, “This gives voters an opportunity to have their message heard on one policy platform.”
On the same day the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the ballot measure could go before voters, it also upheld the state’s 15-week abortion ban. That subsequently cleared the way for the new ban on the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy, which is often before women know they are pregnant, to go into effect next week.
Organizers of the abortion ballot measure say they collected nearly 1.5 million signatures to put the issue before voters, although the state stopped counting at just under a million. Roughly 891,500 signatures were required. Of the total number of signatures, about 35% were from either registered Republican voters or those not affiliated with a party, organizers said.
State Rep. Anna Eskamani, a Democrat, said if the abortion ballot initiative becomes branded as a partisan effort, “it just makes it more challenging to reach 60%.” Eskamani, who worked at Planned Parenthood before running for political office, said she is encouraging the Biden administration to focus broadly on the impact of a six-week ban and let the ballot measure speak for itself.
“At the end of the day, the ballot initiative is going to be a multimillion-dollar campaign that stands very strongly on its own,” Eskamani said.
Trump's campaign did not respond to a question on whether the former president, a Florida voter, would oppose or support the ballot measure. In an NBC interview last September, Trump called Florida’s six-week ban “terrible.” But he has repeatedly highlighted the three conservative-leaning justices he chose for the high court who cleared the way to overturn Roe.
Republicans were dismissive of the Biden campaign and the broader Democratic Party’s efforts to use abortion as a political cudgel, arguing that other issues will matter more with voters in November.
“Biden must have forgotten that thousands of Americans have fled from extremist Democrat policies to prosperous and pro-life states like Florida," said Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley.
Still, Trump and other Republicans are aware that voter backlash against increasing restrictions could be a serious liability this fall.
Abortion-rights supporters have won every time the issue has been put before voters, including in solidly conservative states such as Kansas, Kentucky and Ohio. Last month, a Democrat in a suburban state House district in Alabama flipped the seat from Republican control by campaigning on abortion rights, weeks after in vitro fertilization services had been paused in the state.
Nikki Fried, the chairwoman of the state Democratic Party, said Florida will be a competitive state on the presidential level “because of the extremism that has come out of Florida.” No Democrat has won the state on the presidential level since 2012, but state party officials have found some glimmers of political change in vastly smaller races, such as the open Jacksonville mayor’s race last May that saw a Democrat win in what was once a solidly Republican city.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, said at a news conference before the visit that the abortion amendment was written in a way to deliberately mislead voters, an argument that the state Supreme Court disagreed with when it approved the ballot language.
“All I can tell you is Floridians are not buying what Joe Biden is selling and in November we’re going to play an instrumental role in sending him back to Delaware where he belongs," he said.
Associated Press writers Brendan Farrington in Tallahassee and Colleen Long in Washington contributed to this report.
President Joe Biden speaks about reproductive freedom during an organizing event Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla. Biden is in Florida planning to assail the state's upcoming six-week abortion ban and similar restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Joe Biden speaks about reproductive freedom during an organizing event Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla. Biden is in Florida planning to assail the state's upcoming six-week abortion ban and similar restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Joe Biden speaks about reproductive freedom during an organizing event Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla. Biden is in Florida planning to assail the state's upcoming six-week abortion ban and similar restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Supporters cheer as President Joe Biden speaks about reproductive freedom on Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla. Biden is in Florida planning to assail the state's upcoming six-week abortion ban and similar restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
President Joe Biden speaks about reproductive freedom during an organizing event Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla. Biden is in Florida planning to assail the state's upcoming six-week abortion ban and similar restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Joe Biden speaks about reproductive freedom on Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla. Biden is in Florida planning to assail the state's upcoming six-week abortion ban and similar restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
President Joe Biden speaks about reproductive freedom on Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla. Biden is in Florida planning to assail the state's upcoming six-week abortion ban and similar restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Joe Biden speaks about reproductive freedom on Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla. Biden is in Florida planning to assail the state's upcoming six-week abortion ban and similar restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
People listen as President Joe Biden speaks about reproductive freedom on Tuesday, April 23, 2024, at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Fla. Biden is in Florida planning to assail the state's upcoming six-week abortion ban and similar restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Supporters wear shirts with the message "Men 4 Choice" while waiting in line to see President Joe Biden speak during a reproductive freedom campaign event at Hillsborough Community College, Tuesday, April 23, 2024, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
President Joe Biden arrives at Tampa International Airport, in Tampa, Fla., Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Joe Biden greets Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., as he arrives at Tampa International Airport, in Tampa, Fla., Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried makes a selfie photo with attendees waiting to hear President Joe Biden speak during a reproductive freedom campaign event at Hillsborough Community College, Tuesday, April 23, 2024, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
FILE - President Joe Biden speaks during a meeting in the White House, Jan. 22, 2024, in Washington. Biden is traveling to Tampa, Fla., on Tuesday, April 23, just days before the state's six-week abortion ban goes into effect, to make his case against abortion restrictions nationwide. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
Supporters wear shirts with the message "Flip Florida Blue" while waiting in line to see President Joe Biden speak during a reproductive freedom campaign event at Hillsborough Community College, Tuesday, April 23, 2024, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)
President Joe Biden greets Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., as he arrives at Tampa International Airport, in Tampa, Fla., Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
President Joe Biden greets Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., as he arrives at Tampa International Airport, in Tampa, Fla., Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
