Nikolas Cruz, the expelled student charged with gunning down 17 people at his former school in Florida on Wednesday, has confessed to the mass shooting, police said on Thursday as they released a chilling account of the carnage.
Other than reports suggesting that he has been “in and out of mental- health treatment” and that has not been to a clinic for more than a year, a clear motive has not yet been established for the calculated mayhem that killed 14 students, two games coaches and a geography teacher.
The leader of a white supremacist group, which calls itself The Republic of Florida Militia, gave a conflicting account about Cruz. After initially saying that Cruz had joined the group, the group’s leader said later that he was not sure if that was true.
More than 1,000 people gathered on Thursday evening for an emotional candlelight vigil to remember the victims, amid chants of “No more guns! No more guns!”
“President Trump, please do something! Do something. Action! We need it now! These kids need safety now!” screamed lori Alhadeff, a grieving mother, who lost her daughter, 14-year-old Alyssa, in the shooting.
“How do we allow a gunman to come into our children’s schoolIJ How do they get through securityIJ What security is thereIJ” she yelled in an emotional outburst in an appearance on CNN. “The gunman -- a crazy person -- just walks right into the school, knocks down the window of my child’s door and starts shooting. Shooting her! And killing her!”
“A knife is stabbed in my heart. I wish I could [have] taken those bullets for you. I will always love you and your memory will live on forever,” she said, remembering her daughter Alyssa who, she said, was “a talented soccer player, so smart, an amazing personality, incredible creative writer, and all she had to offer the world was love”.
Speaking about the nightmare of burying a child, she cried: “I just spent the last two hours putting [together] the burial arrangements for my daughter’s funeral, who’s 14.”
President Trump sought to console the victims in a televised address, promising to work to secure the nation’s schools. And committing himself to tackle the issue of mental health, he said he will meet with the nation’s governors and attorney generals later this month to focus on making schools and children safer.
But Trump’s critics lost little time to point out what he failed to say – the escalating menace of gun violence and urgent need for a sound gun control strategy. Some noted that he did not use the word “gun” or “firearm” even once in his address.
Cruz, who made his first court appearance on Thursday where has been charged with 17 counts of first-degree murder, told police how he arrived at his former school in an Uber, with an AR-15 assault rifle stashed in a black duffel bag, and began firing within a matter of seconds, mowing down students and adults.
“While the exact nature of Cruz’s mental state remains unknown — one relative said he suffered from autism — it is clear the teenager struggled with deep emotional outbursts for years, providing plenty of warning signs preceding the worst school shooting in Florida history,” the Miami Herald reported.