表态过早是要被抗议示威的。
National Post Staff
February 15, 2018
3:46 PM EST
Nikolas Cruz, an orphaned 19-year-old with a troubled past and an AR-15 rifle, was charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder after Wednesday’s deadly shooting at a Parkland, Florida high school.
Equipped with a gas mask, smoke grenades and multiple magazines of ammunition, he opened fire on students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, who had emerged from classrooms after an alarm went off. Cruz is
reported to have been wearing his uniform from his U.S. Army Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps class when he went on his rampage.
This video screen grab image shows shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz on February 15, 2018 at Broward County Jail in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. MIGUEL GUTTIEREZ/AFP/Getty Images
Who is Cruz, and what led him to this point?
Authorities offered no immediate details about his possible motive, except to say Cruz had been kicked out of the high school, which has about 3,000 students.
It has emerged, however, that the FBI was warned about a suspicious YouTube “school shooter” comment made by a user suspected to have been Cruz in September, and teachers had also been warned not to let Cruz onto school grounds if he was wearing a backpack.
In addition, on Thursday the leader of a white nationalist militia said Cruz was a member of his group and participated in paramilitary drills in Tallahassee.
Jordan Jereb told The Associated Press that his group, the Republic of Florida, wants Florida to become its own white ethno-state. He said his group holds “spontaneous random demonstrations” and tries not to participate in the modern world.
Jereb said he didn’t know Cruz personally and that “he acted on his own behalf of what he just did and he’s solely responsible for what he just did.”
He also said he had “trouble with a girl” and he believed the timing of the attack, carried out on Valentine’s Day, wasn’t a coincidence.
Classmates reported that Cruz was seen around the school in a Donald Trump “Make America Great Again” hat. Instagram confirmed that a profile in which a man in a bandana is seen wearing such a hat belonged to Cruz,
the Daily Beast reported.
Meanwhile FBI agent Rob Lasky said the agency investigated a 2017 YouTube comment posted with the screen name Nikolas Cruz that said “I’m going to be a professional school shooter.” Lasky said the FBI did a database review, but could not determine the time or location of the post, or the true identity of the person making the comment.
Photos from Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz’s Instagram account showed assorted weaponry. Nikolas Cruz/Instagram
Ben Bennight, whose YouTube username is “BenTheBondsman,” posted a video Wednesday saying he had spotted the comment on Sept. 24, took a screenshot, flagged it for YouTube and called an FBI office in Mississippi to report it. He said two FBI agents visited him the next day.
“I knew that I couldn’t just ignore that,” Bennight said. The FBI called him again Wednesday within about two hours of the shooting, and one agent interviewed him in person, he said.
Students who knew Cruz from school described a volatile teenager whose strange behaviour had caused others to end friendships with him. His weapons-themed social media postings — which authorities are now combing over — had drawn particular attention.
One student told local WFOR-TV that
students had even predicted Cruz could be a likely candidate to launch an attack on his one-time schoolmates.
“A lot of people were saying it was going to be him,” the student 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.”
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
Cruz’s mother Lynda Cruz died of pneumonia on Nov. 1, neighbours, friends and family members told 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.
The boys were left in the care of a family friend after their mother died, said family member Barbara Kumbatovich of Long Island.
Unhappy there, Nikolas Cruz asked to move in with a friend’s family in northwest Broward. The family agreed and Cruz moved in around Thanksgiving.
This video screen grab image shows shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz on February 15, 2018 at Broward County Jail in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. MIGUEL GUTTIEREZ/AFP/Getty Images
According to the family’s lawyer, who did not identify them, they knew that Cruz owned the AR-15 but made him lock it lin a cabinet. He did have the key, however.
CNN reported that he had passed a background check to obtain the AR-15, which he had gotten hold of within the past year. U.S. federal law allows people 18 and older to legally purchase long guns, including this kind of assault weapon.
Attorney Jim Lewis told the AP that the family is co-operating with authorities, and had no idea he was planning the shooting.
He seemed like “just a mildly troubled kid who’d lost his mom” during the three months they lived together; respectful and quiet, but also sad because his mother had died, Lewis said.
They had “no indication that anything severe like this was wrong,” Lewis said. “He totally kept this from everybody.”
In this handout provided by Broward’s Sheriff’s Office, suspect Nikolas Cruz poses for a mugshot photo after being arrested February 14, 2017 in Parkland, Florida. Broward's Sheriff's Office via Getty Images
Lewis also said the family was not aware of any other weapons in the gun cabinet he had, and couldn’t talk about how long they knew of the AR-15 because people are looking to sue them now. Photos posted in an Instagram account linked to Cruz show a half-dozen weapons displayed on a mattress and a box of ammunition.
As for Cruz’s behaviour around the school before his expulsion, Matthew Walker, 17, told ABC News that Cruz was a gun and knife enthusiast.
“Everything he posts (on social media) is about weapons. It’s sick,” he said.
This photo posted on the Instagram account of Nikolas Cruz shows weapons lying on a bed. Instagram via AP
Jim Gard, a math teacher who taught Cruz, told the Miami Herald that school authorities had sent teachers an emailed warning.
“We were told last year that he wasn’t allowed on campus with a backpack on him,” he said. “There were problems with him last year threatening students, and I guess he was asked to leave campus.”
I knew him to be passive aggressive but not violent. He was rude to people
Ocean Parodie, 17, told The Daily Beast the shooter had a confrontational personality.
“I knew him to be passive aggressive but not violent. He was rude to people,” Parodie said. “He had an act up like he was tough. He never got into, like, physical fights with anyone, but he did get into verbal arguments. I just thought he dropped out of school, I didn’t think he would do anything. He always kept a low profile.”
“He was definitely not accepted at our school socially. People saw him as someone who was different than the normal people at our school,” Parodie added.
Cruz wore “extreme” patriotic shirts that took issue with Islam, Parodie said.
Kristi Gilroy (right), hugs a young woman at a police check point near the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School where 17 people were killed by a gunman yesterday, on February 15, 2018 in Parkland, Florida. Police arrested the suspect after a short manhunt, and have identified him as 19-year-old former student Nikolas Cruz. Mark Wilson/Getty Images
Parodie’s sister, Milan, described how Cruz, ”(n)ever seemed depressed or sad. He was always a little crazy is the best way to put it … He was peppy but not in a good way, in a crazy way.
“He tried to look creepy or weird, I think. He tried to talk to one of my girlfriends and he said she was cute, but she was weirded out and he was bothering her.”
He tried to look creepy or weird, I think. He tried to talk to one of my girlfriends and he said she was cute, but she was weirded out and he was bothering her
Victoria Olvera, 17, told ABC 7 Chicago that Cruz was abusive to a former girlfriend. Cruz’s expulsion from the school had stemmed from Cruz getting into a fight with the girl’s new boyfriend, the student said.
Cruz is understood to have worked at a nearby Dollar Tree store — former co-workers there told ABC that he was loyal, responsible and always in good spirits.
Broward County Sheriff, Scott Israel (centre), Florida Governor Rick Scott,(right),and Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi,(left), speak to the media about the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School where 17 people were killed yesterday, on February 15, 2018 in Parkland, Florida. Mark Wilson/Getty Images
Mayor Beam Furr said Cruz was getting treatment at a mental health clinic for a while, but that he hadn’t been back to the clinic for more than a year.
“Somebody who has a mental health issue, how in the world they can get within a thousand feet of a gun, I don’t know,”
he told the Miami Herald.
Meanwhile President Trump weighed in on the issue, claiming on Thursday that Cruz likely had mental issues.
“So many signs that the Florida shooter was mentally disturbed, even expelled from school for bad and erratic behaviour,” he wrote on Twitter. “Neighbors and classmates knew he was a big problem. Must always report such instances to authorities, again and again!”
In a national address from the White House, Trump said he planned to travel to Florida meet with victims’ families, explore how to better secure schools and to “tackle the difficult issue of mental health.”
At no point did he mention guns or gun-control measures.
After his capture, Cruz was booked into the Broward County Jail early Thursday, still wearing the hospital gown he was given after being treated for laboured breathing following his arrest. He was later questioned overnight before being booked into jail.
Cruz, who is listed at 5-foot-7 and 131 pounds, is being held without bond. Jail records don’t list an attorney for him.
With files from the Associated Press
