Blog : Florida School Shooting: ‘No Words’ as 17 Die in a Barrage of Bullets

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2/14/2018 7:47 pm

Florida School Shooting: ‘No Words’ as 17 Die in a Barrage of Bullets

A heavily armed young man barged into his former high school about an hour northwest of Miami on Wednesday, opening fire on terrified students and teachers and leaving a death toll of 17 that could rise even higher, the authorities said.

Students huddled in horror in their classrooms, with some of them training their cellphones on the carnage, capturing sprawled bodies, screams and gunfire that began with a few shots and then continued with more and more. The dead included students and adults, some of whom were shot outside the school and others inside the sprawling three-story building.

The gunman, armed with a semiautomatic AR-15 rifle, was identified as Nikolas Cruz, a 19-year-old who had been expelled from the school, the authorities said. He began his shooting rampage outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in this suburban neighborhood shortly before dismissal time around 2:40 p.m. He then made his way inside and proceeded down hallways he knew well, firing at students and teachers who were scurrying for cover, the authorities said.

“Oh my God! Oh my God!” one student yelled over and over in one video circulating on social media, as more than 40 gunshots boomed in the background.

By the end of the rampage, Mr. Cruz had killed 12 people inside the school and three outside it, including someone standing on a street corner, Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said. Two more victims died of their injuries in local hospitals. The aftermath at the school was an eerie shrine, with chairs upended, a computer screen shattered with bullet holes and floors stained with blood.

“This is catastrophic,” said Sheriff Israel, who has three who graduated from the high school. “There really are no words.”

Mr. Cruz was arrested in Coral Springs, a neighboring city a couple of miles from the school, about an hour after fleeing the scene, the authorities said. He had slipped out of the building by mixing in with crowds of students. In addition to the rifle, Sheriff Israel said Mr. Cruz had “countless magazines.”

The gunman had clearly prepared for the attack, Senator Bill Nelson of Florida said in an interview after speaking to the F.B.I.

“The shooter wore a gas mask, had smoke grenades, and he set off the fire alarm so the would come out of the classrooms,” said Mr. Nelson, citing details he learned from the F.B.I. Several students said they found it strange to hear the alarm, because they had already had a fire drill earlier in the day.

Sheriff Israel said he did not know the gunman’s motive. He said a football coach was among the dead, and the of a deputy sheriff among the injured. Twelve of the 17 dead had been identified by Wednesday night, he added, noting that not all of the students had backpacks or wallets on them.

Mr. Cruz was enrolled at another Broward County school, officials said. Sheriff Israel said law enforcement officials had already discovered material on Mr. Cruz’s social media accounts that was “very, very disturbing.”

Jim Gard, a math teacher at the school, said Mr. Cruz was in his class in 2016 and appeared to be a “quiet” student. But Mr. Gard also recalled that “there was concern” about his behavior on the part of the school administration, which emailed teachers relaying those fears.

Mr. Gard said that after the shooting, he learned from several students that Mr. Cruz was obsessed with a girl at the school to the point of “stalking her,” a point the authorities did not raise in news briefings near the scene.

The massacre called to mind the country’s two mass shootings that have come to be known by the name of the schools: Columbine, the high school outside Denver where 12 students and a teacher were killed in 1999; and Sandy Hook, the elementary school in Newtown, Conn., where 20 students and six adults were shot dead in 2012.