The 19-year-old who committed the horrific shooting at a Florida High School on Wednesday was a “troubled former student who loved guns,” the police said.
Nikolas Cruz, 19, was arrested about an hour after a shooting rampage at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel told reporters.
Cruz was carrying a number of ammunition magazines and an AR-15-style rifle, Israel said. “We already began to dissect his websites and the things on social media that he was on and some of the things that came to mind are very, very disturbing,” he said.
Reports say that 12 out of the 17 killed have been identified and investigations are on to identify the rest. Five remain in life-threatening condition on Wednesday night. Ten remain in hospital with injuries that are not life-threatening.
No names have yet been released. Both adults and children were among the dead, Israel confirmed.
Cruz had reportedly been receiving mental health treatment but had not attended the clinic for over a year.
As per reports and children who knew him said that had become a little strange over the past few months and had started posting about killing animals on social media and talked about guns and target practice.
Chad Williams, 18, a senior at Stoneman Douglas High school, remembered Cruz as a troubled classmate from when they attended middle school together. He said Cruz would set off the fire alarm, day after day, and finally got expelled in the eighth grade.
More recently, Williams saw Cruz carrying several publications about guns when they ran into each other at the high school. Williams thought Cruz was there to pick up a younger sibling.
“He was crazy about guns,” Williams told Reuters, speaking by the side of the road near the high school. “He was kind of an outcast. He didn’t have many friends. He would do anything crazy for a laugh, but he was trouble.”
“I would say he was not the most normal or sane kid in JROTC. He definitely had a little something off about him. He was a little extra quirky,” said Jillian Davis, 19, who graduated from the school last year.
Reports further say that fellow students who had studied with him in school had surprisingly predicted that he could “do something” and that some children had been scared of him.
Moreover, fellow students jokingly said that it could be him since he had created trouble before, which turned out to be shockingly true. (With Reuters)
