The
attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on Wednesday is the deadliest US school shooting since 2012. Suspected gunman, Nikolas Cruz, opened fire with a semiautomatic AR-15 and "began shooting students he saw in the hallways and on the school grounds", according to court documents.
The 19-year-old who stands accused of
killing 17 people, including students and teachers, reportedly carried a black duffel bag and backpack. He arrived at the High School in an Uber at 2:19, and proceeded to shoot people inside five classrooms on the first and second floors of the freshman building.
He eventually discarded the gun, his vest and ammunition in a stairwell, and after blending in with fleeing students, he was able to escape, authorities confirmed. Cruz was eventually arrested by police without incident as he walked down a residential street at 3:41 pm.
The gunman, who was previously expelled from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, has now claimed to have heard voices inside his head telling him to carry out the massacre.
According to ABC News, law enforcement officers have described the voices heard by Nikolas Cruz as "demons". This comes after Cruz's legal team asserted that the individual suffers from autism and depression, as well as other psychological traumas.
The 19-year-old was a former student of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. He was expelled last year for reasons that have not yet been disclosed. Students reportedly made jokes about Cruz after his expulsion, saying "he's the one to shoot up the school".
Chad Reuters, one of Cruz's former classmates told a local news source that he was an "outcast" who was "crazy about guns".
Certainly, his interest in firearms was apparent on all of his social media platforms - which Broward County Sheriff, Scott Israel, has since described as being "very, very disturbing". Two different Instagram accounts, which have now been deleted, show the individual posing alongside guns and knives.
Speaking to the Miami Herald, Jim Gard, a maths teacher at Marjory Stoneman Douglas said, "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. Fellow pupils have described Cruz’s outbursts towards teachers as well as his threatening behaviour towards other students."
According to CNN, law enforcement had been called to the gunman's family home 39 times since 2010. They were purportedly responding to emergencies regarding a "mentally ill person", "child or elderly person abuse", "domestic disturbance" and "missing person".
In the aftermath of the
incident, both Republican and Democrat politicians were quick to condemn the attack, but many turned the conversation to gun control, or the lack thereof, in the United States.
Florida's Democratic Senator Bill Nelson queried what it would take "for enough to be enough". "Don't tell me tomorrow isn't the appropriate time to debate gun violence. If you're a political leader doing nothing about this slaughter, you're an accomplice," he wrote on Twitter.
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Our thoughts lie with all those affected by this tragedy.
