The teen gunman who shot 17 people at a Florida high school on Wednesday was dressed in a hospital uniform as he was seen leaving the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, after a night of questioning.
Nikolas Cruz, 19, was transferred to the county jail Thursday morning where he will wait until his first court hearing later today.
He is set to be arraigned on 17 counts of premeditated murder – charges that could get him the death penalty if convicted.
This photo provided by the Broward County Jail shows Nikolas Cruz, the teen suspected of killing 17 and injuring at least 20 in a school shooting on Wednesday in Florida
Cruz was dressed in a hospital uniform as he was seen leaving the Broward County Sheriff’s Office early Thursday morning
Cruz will wait at the county jail until later Thursday, when he’s expected to make his first court appearance
Details have already began to emerge about the shooter, who owned an AR-15 rifle, had a troubled past and recently suffered the loss of his adoptive mother.
Authorities offered no immediate details about Cruz or his possible motive, except to say that he had been kicked out of the high school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, which has about 3,000 students.
Authorities quickly started dissecting the shooter’s social media accounts in a bid to piece together the motive. Sheriff Israel reported that some of things the shooter had been posting was ‘very disturbing’.
Students who knew him described a volatile teenager whose strange behavior had caused others to end friendships with him.
Cruz’s mother Lynda Cruz died of pneumonia on November 1 neighbors, friends and family members said, according to the Sun Sentinel . Cruz and her husband, who died of a heart attack several years ago, adopted Nikolas and his biological brother, Zachary, after the couple moved from Long Island in New York to Broward County. Nikolas was an infant when he was adopted.
The boys were left in the care of a family friend after their mother died, family member Barbara Kumbatovich, of Long Island, said.
Unhappy there, Nikolas Cruz asked to move in with a friend’s mobile home in northwest Broward. The family agreed and Cruz moved in around Thanksgiving. According to the family’s lawyer, who did not identify them, they knew that Cruz owned the AR-15 but made him keep it locked up in a cabinet. He did have the key, however.
Sources told CNN that the gunman purchased the rifle in the past year and passed a required background check to obtain it.
Jim Lewis said the family is devastated and didn’t see this coming. They are cooperating with authorities, he said.
Victoria Olvera, a 17-year-old junior at the school, said Cruz was expelled last school year because he got into a fight with his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend. She said he had been abusive to his girlfriend.
‘I think everyone had in their minds if anybody was going to do it, it was going to be him,’ she said.
Nikolas Cruz, 19, was arrested after he stormed Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland on Wednesday afternoon armed with an assault rifle
The suspect, wearing a maroon colored top, is taken into custody two hours after opening fire on his high school
Authorities inspect the AR-15 rifle the teen gunman used in the mass shooting on Wednesday
The suspected gunman was checked out at a hospital after his arrest (above in a hospital gown) and is now being held at a secure location in a public building
Traumatized students said that once they heard reports of a mass shooting at the school they knew it would be Cruz, while one teacher said he had been identified as a potential threat to his classmates last year.
Matthew Walker, a 17-year-old student at the school, told WFOR-TV that all his classmates ‘knew it was going to be him.’
Broward Sheriff Scott Israel said Cruz was a former student at the school but had been expelled for unknown ‘disciplinary reasons’ last year
‘A lot of people were saying it was going to be him,’ he said. ‘A lot of kids threw jokes around saying that he was going to be the one to shoot up the school. It turns out that everyone predicted it. That’s crazy.’
‘He was going class to class just shooting at random kids,’ he said. ‘Everything he posts (on social media) is about weapons. It’s sick.’
Math teacher Jim Gard, who taught Cruz last year, told the Miami Herald: ‘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.’
Another student took to social media claiming Cruz had mental health issues that were ‘ignored by all the adults’.
‘He literally had an Instagram where he posted pictures of animals he killed gruesomely and he physically assaulted one of my friends once,’ the student added.
Another student, who was not identified, but claims to know Cruz told WSVN he was obsessed with guns and showed him pictures of them on his phone.
‘He’s been a troubled kid and he’s always had a certain amount of issues going on. He shot guns because he felt it gave him, I guess, an exhilarating feeling.’
He added that Cruz made him nervous.
‘I stayed clear of him most of the time. My time in alternate school, I did not want to be with him at all because I didn’t want to cause any conflict with him because of the impression he gave off.’
As a high school freshman, Cruz was part of the US military-sponsored Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corp program at the school.
President Trump, who opposes increased gun control, tweeted Thursday morning, saying there were signs that the shooter was ‘mentally disturbed’.
He also entreated Americans to report similar people to the authorities.
‘So many signs that the Florida shooter was mentally disturbed, even expelled from school for bad and erratic behavior.
‘Neighbors and classmates knew he was such a big problem. Must always report such instances to authorities, again and again!’ he wrote.
Staff and students walked single file outside the school as they evacuated after the shooting
Students were seen fleeing the building with their hands in the air, as they ran for safety from the gunman
Medical personnel tend to a bloodied victim as they help to evacuate them from the school
An injured female was transported from the school on a stretcher by first responders on Wednesday afternoon
Just before the shooting broke out at 2:25pm, some students thought they were having another fire drill.
Such an exercise had forced them to leave their classrooms hours earlier. So when the alarm went off Wednesday afternoon shortly before they were to be dismissed, they once again filed out into the hallways.
That’s when police say Cruz, equipped with a gas mask, smoke grenades and multiple magazines of ammunition, opened fire with a semi-automatic weapon, killing 17 people and sending hundreds of students fleeing into the streets. It was the nation’s deadliest school shooting since a gunman attacked an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, more than five years ago.
‘Our district is in a tremendous state of grief and sorrow,’ said Robert Runcie, superintendent of the school district in Parkland, about an hour’s drive north of Miami. ‘It is a horrible day for us.’
The first victims of the shooting have been identified as 46-year-old athletic director Chris Hixon, left, and of the mass shooting has been identified as 46-year-old athletic director Chris Hixon and student Jaime Guttenburg, right
Police arrived at the scene to find hundreds of students fleeing the school. They later learned the shooter had concealed himself in the crowd and was among those running off the campus.
Investigators were able to identify him after trawling surveillance video. He was arrested about and hour after the shooting first broke out when police cornered him in a nearby neighborhood. He had multiple magazines of ammunition on him, authorities said.
Seventeen people were killed and at least 20 wounded – with 14 of them hospitalized.
Twelve of the people shot dead were found dead inside the school building, two more were killed just outside the school and another in a nearby street. Two other people died later after being rushed to hospital.
‘It’s catastrophic. There really are no words,’ said Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel.
The first of the 17 victims have now been identified as 46-year-old athletic director Chris Hixon and student Jaime Guttenburg. According to Local 10 News, her parents Fred and Jennifer Guttenberg said she died in the shooting, while their son, Jesse, made it home.
Students released from a lockdown embrace following following a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2018. (John McCall/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP)
CORRECTS SPELLING TO MARJORY NOT MARJORIE Students are evacuated by police from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., on Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2018, after a shooter opened fire on the campus. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP)
Medical personnel tend to a victim following a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., on Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2018. (John McCall/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP)
Medical personnel tend to a victim following a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., on Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2018. (John McCall/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP)
Terrified students barricaded themselves in their classrooms as the shooter prowled the halls, armed with an assault rifle
Frantic parents rushed to the school to find SWAT team members and ambulances surrounding the huge campus and emergency workers who appeared to be treating the wounded on sidewalks. Students who hadn’t run began leaving in a single-file line with their hands over their heads as officers urged them to evacuate quickly.
Hearing loud bangs as the shooter fired, many of the students inside hid under desks or in closets, and barricaded doors.
‘We were in the corner, away from the windows,’ said freshman Max Charles, who said he heard five gunshots. ‘The teacher locked the door and turned off the light. I thought maybe I could die or something.’
As he was leaving the building, he saw four dead students and one dead teacher. He said he was relieved when he finally found his mother.
‘I was happy that I was alive,’ Max said. ‘She was crying when she saw me.’
Noah Parness, a 17-year-old junior, said he and the other students calmly went outside to their fire-drill areas when he suddenly heard popping sounds.
‘We saw a bunch of teachers running down the stairway, and then everybody shifted and broke into a sprint,’ Parness said. ‘I hopped a fence.’
Most of the fatalities were inside the building, though some victims were found fatally shot outside, the sheriff said.
Sen. Bill Nelson told CNN that Cruz had pulled the fire alarm ‘so the kids would come pouring out of the classrooms into the hall.’
Students released from a lockdown are overcome with emotion following following a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2018. (John McCall/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP)
Parents wait for news after a reports of a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., on Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2018. (AP Photo/Joel Auerbach)
‘And there the carnage began,’ said Nelson, who said he was briefed by the FBI.
The scene was reminiscent of the Newtown attack, which shocked even a country numbed by the regularity of school shootings. The December 14, 2012, assault at Sandy Hook Elementary School killed 26 people: 20 first-graders and six staff members. The 20-year-old gunman, who also fatally shot his mother in her bed, then killed himself.
Not long after Wednesday’s attack in Florida, Michael Nembhard was sitting in his garage on a cul-de-sac when he saw a young man in a burgundy shirt walking down the street. In an instant, a police cruiser pulled up, and officers jumped out with guns drawn.
Gunshots were first heard at about 2.25pm on Wednesday before Cruz, who had escaped among fleeing students, was arrested a short time later in Coral Springs
Majory Stoneman Douglas High School is located in Parkland, west of Boca Raton, in Florida
‘All I heard was ‘Get on the ground! Get on the ground!” Nembhard said. He said Cruz did as he was told.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott joined law enforcement agents near the site of the deadly school shooting on Wednesday night and offered his condolences to the victims’ families and survivors.
Scott said that he couldn’t imagine what the families of the victims are going through. He also said he would be visiting hospitalized survivors.
Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi said the state would cover funeral expenses for the victims and counseling for survivors.
The school will be closed for the rest of the week.
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School is in Parkland – Florida’s safest city last year.
It’s also a lucrative area to live because the schools are so good.
The incident comes just a few weeks after a 15-year-old boy opened fire at his rural Kentucky high school, killing two and injuring more than two dozen others.
It’s the 30th mass shooting of the year.