On Wednesday February 14, 2018 a school shooting occurred at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.  Around 2:20 P.M. a shooter fired multiple shots in the freshman section of the campus. Within minutes the S.W.A.T. team was on site sweeping the school, over twenty wounded, of the twenty who were wounded seventeen people were killed, thirteen were in the school, four were killed outside the school. Right before the shooting started the fire alarm went off followed by multiple gunshots. Authorities do know that the fire alarm was pulled to cause a mass evacuation of the school for the gunman to shoot at more people. Nikolaus Cruz was arrested as the primary suspect in the shooting, Broward County Sheriff Department in a statement said “a semi-automatic assault rifle may have been used.” When the suspect [Cruz] was taken into custody  “he had one AR-15 style firearm and multiple magazines.” A spokesperson for the sheriff’s department said in a television statement later. Cruz is a nineteen year old former student at Stoneman Douglas,  Cruz was set to appear in court on February 15, 2018, he has be charged with seventeen counts of premeditated murder.

Nikolas Cruz is seen here in his mug shot, Feb. 14, 2018.                                                          Credit: Broward County Sheriff

Nine weeks into 2018 there has already been nineteen shootings in U.S. schools

These are the victims of the Stoneman Douglas school shooting

 Alyssa Alhadeff, 14

 Martin Duque Anguiano, 14

 Nicholas Dworet, 17

 Aaron Feis, 37

 Jaime Guttenberg, 14

 Chris Hixon, 49

 Luke Hoyer, 15

Cara Loughran, 14

Gina Montalto, 14

Alaina Petty, 14

Meadow Pollack, 18

Helena Ramsay, 17

Alex Schachter, 14

Carmen Schentrup, 16

Peter Wang, 15

 

The shooter is said to of had a disturbing childhood. After being adopted, his adoptive father passed away when he was four and his mother passed away last year suddenly from the flu. Former neighbors described him as a ‘broken child’. After the death of his mother he was taken in by the parents of a schoolmate, according to their attorney. He was expelled from Stoneman Douglas, however, the the reasons of the expulsion are unknown at this time. One of his former classmates who grew up with him since the sixth grade said that he [Cruz] would introduce himself as a ‘school shooter’. In an interview with CNN he said “He was very, very strange,” “like if there was someone to shoot up a school it would be him.”

Another schoolmate said “police were called to the house [of Cruz] almost every other week.”  He also recalled a time where Cruz “cornered a squirrel and was trying to throw rocks at it and kill it.” Some of his most alarming behavior was online, there are online posts in which he writes: “I wanna shoot people with my AR-15” and “Im going to be a professional school shooter.” The latter post, made with Cruz’s name attached to it, was reported to the FBI. But FBI officials said they were unable to determine who was responsible.

Nikolas Cruz’s arrignment hearing:

Nikolas Cruz’s arraignment hearing, Feb. 15, 2018.                                                                                      Credit: Miami Herald

-Image and Video credit: Broward County Sheriff’s Department, CNN, Miami Herald