A picture of the Florida high school shooting suspect has emerged of a deeply troubled and violent teenager who tortured animals, had no parents, trained with a white supremacist paramilitary group and was the subject of numerous calls to police. Nikolas Cruz, 19, was charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder. He has admitted to the shooting spree.
Cruz pulled a fire alarm to lure students out of their classrooms and then shot at students pouring into the halls. He eventually dropped his AR-15-style rifle and left the scene with terrified students, blending in to make his escape. Cruz was arrested nearby the school without incident.
Cruz, who had been expelled from the school of 3000 students for disciplinary problems, and his brother were adopted but their adoptive mother died from pneumonia last year.
Ironically, on Valentine’s day, Cruz returned to his former school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, with a vengeance, outfitted with a gas mask, smoke grenades and multiple magazines of ammunition and a semiautomatic weapon. Arriving 10 minutes before the end of the school day, he opened fire after setting off the fire alarm to lure students out of their classrooms. The 17 victims were both students and adults. There were at least 15 wounded, some seriously.
Cruz talked about shooting lizards, squirrels and frogs, said Trevor Hart, who knew him from Spanish class and said he seemed “a little off.” Police were called to his house numerous times and he was seen shooting at a neighbor’s chickens. Cruz had been treated for mental illness but had stopped treatment more than a year before the rampage.
Jordan Jereb, the leader of a white nationalist militia called Republic of Florida, told the Associated Press that Cruz was a member of the group and participated in paramilitary training drills in Tallahassee. Jereb said he didn’t order Cruz to carry out the mass shooting.
On two Instagram profiles, he had a photo of a splattered chameleon in his hand and numerous images of him holding knives, guns, ammunition, a holographic laser sight pointed at a neighborhood street and a dead frog’s bloodied body. In one profile, he called himself “the annihilator.”
Jillian Davis, 19, recalls him as withdrawn and having “a lot of anger management issues.”
Dakota Mutchler, 17, a junior, said he used to be close friends with Cruz, who “started progressively getting a little more weird.” Mutchler recalled Cruz posting on Instagram about killing animals and said he talked about doing target practice in his backyard with a pellet gun.
A Mississippi bail bondsman and frequent YouTube blogger received an eerie comment last year that took on new meaning Wednesday. “Im going to be a professional school shooter,” the post read. The poster’s name: “Nikolas Cruz.”
Ben Bennight said he took a screenshot and reported the post to the FBI. “I wish I could have given them more information but it was just a comment on my channel,” he said.
The FBI said they pursued the report but they were unable to determine the location or true identity of the person making the comment.
“…after the Fall, men chose to follow their own sinful desires; and as the result, crime and wretchedness rapidly increased. Neither the marriage relation nor the rights of property were respected. Whoever coveted the wives or the possessions of his neighbor, took them by force, and men exulted in their deeds of violence. They delighted in destroying the life of animals; and the use of flesh for food rendered them still more cruel and bloodthirsty, until they came to regard human life with astonishing indifference.” Patriarchs and Prophets, page 91.
“As it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of Man.” Luke 17:26.