‘A day of mourning’: Florida school shooting suspect denied bond, charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder
Nikolas Cruz, 19, is the man suspected of fatally shooting at least 17 people at a South Florida high school on Feb. 14. Here's what you should know.
PARKLAND, Fla. — Police on Thursday vowed to make sure that “justice is served” after a gunman wielding an assault-style rifle killed 17 people at a high school here, even as they sought to piece together what could have motivated one of the country’s deadliest school shootings.A day after the shooting rampage, authorities had not publicly announced a motivation for the carnage, but they were digging into elements of the suspected gunman’s troubled past, including a pattern of disciplinary issues and unnerving behavior.
Also on Thursday, FBI investigators were pursuing information suggesting that Nikolas Cruz, the 19-year-old suspect charged with the shooting, might have been associated with a Florida-based white supremacist group. But agents were still trying to determine the extent of his involvement with the group, if any, according to a law enforcement official who asked not to be identified discussing an ongoing investigation.
It was not immediately clear what connection there may be between the shooting rampage and Cruz’s possible connections to the group.
The Anti-Defamation League reported Thursday that a spokesperson for the white supremacist group said that Cruz participated in some of their training exercises. The spokesperson told the ADL that the group did not order or want Cruz to carry out any attack like the school rampage. The Washington Post was not immediately able to reach several of the group’s members on Thursday.
What unfolded was another war zone erupting in a quiet suburban community, as a city known more for its sprawling homes and bucolic parks was transformed by a hail of bullets and a torrent of anguish.
In the aftermath, investigators have sifted through the background of Cruz, who had been expelled from the same school now turned into a crime scene. He had a history of disciplinary issues and a fascination with guns, people who knew him said.
Early Thursday, Cruz was booked on 17 counts of “murder premeditated.” He briefly appeared in court on Thursday and was ordered held without bond. Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel vowed that law enforcement officials would make sure Cruz was convicted on all charges.
“This community is hurting right now … Today’s a day of healing,” Israel said at a briefing Thursday morning. “Today’s a day of mourning.”
Israel said that police have identified all of the victims and planned to release their names later in the day. Some were students, but at least one staff member — a beloved football coach who had attended the school before returning to work there — was among the dead.
The coach, Aaron Feis, shot after throwing himself in front of students, the school’s football team said on Twitter, writing that he had “selflessly shielded students from the shooter” and “died a hero.”
In addition to the 17 killed in the school and outside, another 15 were wounded, authorities said. Three of those remained in critical condition Thursday, while some others were still hospitalized.
Israel said that it was “a pretty good assumption” that the shooter had unspecified mental-health issues.
During a news conference after Cruz’s court hearing, the public defender representing him described the 19-year-old as a “broken young man “ who is “ very saddened” by what happened. Cruz is on suicide watch, he added.
“This is an emotionally broken young man,” Gordon Weeks, the public defender, told reporters. “He has been through a lot of trauma. He has suffered significant mental illness, and significant mental trauma.”
Cruz’s attorneys did not say he had admitted to the shooting, nor did they explicitly deny his involvement.
But while school officials, students and others who knew him had sensed that something was off with Cruz before the attack, none of that was enough to stop the teenager from purchasing the gun officials said was used in the attack.
Cruz bought the AR-15 himself legally, and so far it is the only gun authorities have recovered as part of the investigation, said Peter J. Forcelli, special agent in charge of the Miami field division of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Police arrested Nikolas Cruz, who is suspected of killing 17 people in a shooting rampage at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14.
Federal authorities were looking Thursday into whether Cruz had come up on their radar before. The FBI said that agents investigated a comment on YouTube last year that threatened a school shooting but were unable to identify the person who posted it.
“The comment simply said, ‘I’m going to be a professional school shooter,'” Robert F. Lasky, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Miami division, said at the news briefing Thursday. “No other information was included in that comment.”
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Lasky spoke after BuzzFeed News reported that a YouTube user had contacted the bureau after seeing someone with Cruz’s name post that same message. Lasky said that authorities, who investigated the comment last year and were looking at it again after the Parkland shooting, still do not know if the comment was posted by Cruz.
The tip to the FBI came in the fall of 2017, but when agents checked the name Nikolas Cruz against their internal databases, they could find no other derogatory information on him, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the investigation.
Without anything else to go on, officials felt there wasn’t enough of a legal justification to issue a subpoena to YouTube for the underlying information about that particular account-holder, the official said.
Since being taken into custody, Cruz has made statements to police, according to the official, who declined to elaborate.
Authorities said Cruz fired upon students outside and inside the school before escaping with those who were trying to elude his gunfire. Amid the chaos, he ditched his rifle, “blended in with fleeing students and was able to elude arriving officers,” prosecutors said in a court filing Thursday.
Israel said Thursday that there was an armed school resource officer on the Douglas campus when the shooting occurred, but “he never encountered Cruz.”
Cruz was taken into custody in nearby Coral Springs, not far from the school. A police officer from Coconut Creek, another nearby city, was driving down a residential street when he saw what looked like any other teenager walking down the road.
The teenager was wearing clothes that matched the description broadcast over the police radio, Leonard said, so his training kicked in and he pulled over. Cruz complied with Leonard’s orders and was taken into custody without any problems, the officer said.
The bloodshed inside Douglas, which would remain closed at least through the rest of the week, was staggering even for veteran law enforcement professionals. Forcelli, a homicide detective in New York before he joined ATF, described what he saw as particularly horrifying.
“This is a bad crime scene,” said Forcelli, who was at the school for hours on Wednesday. “I’ve seen plenty of dead bodies. Seeing kids, defenseless kids, piled up, it weighs on you … I can’t imagine the pain the families have. There’s a lot of victims here.”
In televised remarks at the White House, President Trump pledged that his administration would help “tackle the difficult issue of mental health” and said the issue of improving safety in schools would be the top priority during a meeting later this month with governors and state attorneys general.
Former president Barack Obama, who frequently had to address a nation rocked by mass violence during his time in office, wrote on Twitter that “we are not powerless” and called for “long overdue, common-sense gun safety laws.”
We are grieving with Parkland. But we are not powerless. Caring for our kids is our first job. And until we can honestly say that we're doing enough to keep them safe from harm, including long overdue, common-sense gun safety laws that most Americans want, then we have to change.
The threat spoke to the tension still lingering across South Florida as it became the latest region to grapple with a seemingly endless procession of shooting rampages that have cut down Americans in their schools, churches, offices and movie theaters.
Possible red flags in the suspected shooter’s life began to emerge in the hours after he was identified. An Instagram account that appeared to belong to him showed several photos of guns. One appeared to show a gun’s holographic laser sight pointed at a neighborhood street. A second showed at least six rifles and handguns laid out on a bed with the caption “arsenal.” Other pictures showed a box of large-caliber rounds with the caption “cost me $30.” One of the most disturbing appeared to show a dead frog’s bloodied corpse.
Cruz and a half brother were adopted as babies by Lynda and Roger Cruz, according to a relative in New York. Roger died years ago and Lynda died last fall, the relative said. Around Thanksgiving, Nikolas Cruz moved in with the family of a friend from Stoneman Douglas High School, said Jim Lewis, an attorney representing the family.
Cruz was enrolled in a program to obtain a GED, Lewis said. But on Wednesday, he didn’t attend it, telling the family something to the effect of “I don’t go to school on Valentine’s Day,” Lewis said.
After the massacre, Ryan Gutierrez, 18, a senior, left Douglas and walked two miles to a 7-Eleven in Coral Springs — the nearest spot where his parents could meet him. Police cars blocked every other road leading to the school.
His parents had already been reunited with his sister, Nicole, a freshman at the school. As Gutierrez approached, his mom ran up, hugged him hard and started crying. Gutierrez held her tight, comforting her. His father came up and hugged them both.
“This has been so horrible, the most horrible day anyone can imagine,” Gutierrez’s mother, Diana Gutierrez, said, trying to stop her tears. “It’s unreal, just unreal. I still don’t believe it. You don’t think it will ever happen to you and your children.”
Balingit and Berman reported from Washington. David Nakamura, Brian Murphy, Moriah Balingit, Fred Barbash, William Wan, Jennifer Jenkins, Sarah Larimer and Julie Tate in Washington contributed to this report, which has been updated. David Weingrad reported from New York.
