Florida school shooting suspect a troubled ex-student who loved guns

PARKLAND, Fla. — The man accused of opening fire at a Florida high school on Wednesday, killing 17 people, was a troubled former student who loved guns and was expelled for disciplinary reasons, police and former classmates 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, who had been expelled from the school for reasons that have not been made public, was found with multiple ammunition magazines and one 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,” Israel said.

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.”

Jillian Davis, 19, said she was in a school Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps with Cruz in the 9th grade. She remembered him as a quiet and shy young man who would almost change personality when angry. He talked a lot about guns and knives but no one took him seriously, she told Reuters.

“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 Davis, who graduated from the school last year.

Math teacher Jim Gard told the Miami Herald that Cruz had been banned from returning to campus while carrying a backpack.

“There were problems with him last year threatening students, and I guess he was asked to leave campus,” Gard told the newspaper in an interview.

Administrators sent an email to teachers warning them about Cruz, Gard told the paper.

Another student at the school told local WSVN-TV that Cruz was known to have guns at home.

source: interaksyon.com

1 dead in 'civilian-on-civilian' shooting as unrest flares anew in US city over police violence

CHARLOTTE -- A protester in Charlotte, North Carolina was fatally shot by a civilian Wednesday during a second night of unrest after the police killed a black man, officials said.

"Fatal shot uptown was civilian on civilian," the southern US city said in a statement on Twitter. "@CMPD did not fire shot," it added, referring to the police.

Several hundred people taunted riot police in front of a hotel in the city center, during which a man fell to the ground. Witnesses said police brought him into the hotel after he fell, leaving blood on the sidewalk.

Some protesters banged on glass windows, others threw objects at police and stood on cars as police appeared to fire tear gas, prompting demonstrators to run.

"We are calling for peace, we are calling for calm, we are calling for dialogue," Mayor Jennifer Roberts said earlier in the day. "We all see this as a tragedy."

Keith Lamont Scott, 43, was shot dead in an apartment complex parking lot on Tuesday after an encounter with officers searching for a suspect wanted for arrest.

The authorities said 16 officers and several demonstrators were injured in clashes overnight Tuesday following Scott's death, the latest in a string of police-involved killings of black men that have fueled outrage across the United States.

Earlier on Wednesday, presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton weighed in on the violence in Charlotte, which came on the heels of another fatal police shooting of a black man, Terence Crutcher, on Friday in Tulsa.

"Keith Lamont Scott. Terence Crutcher. Too many others. This has got to end. -H," tweeted Democrat Clinton, signing the post herself.

After calling to "make America safe again" in a tweet, Trump suggested later Wednesday that the Tulsa officer who shot Crutcher had "choked."

"I don't know what she was thinking," the Republican said, speaking at an African-American church in Cleveland, Ohio.

Divergent accounts

The Charlotte shooting took place at 4:00 pm (2000 GMT) Tuesday as officers searching for a suspect arrived in the parking lot of an apartment complex.

They spotted a man with a handgun -- later identified as Scott -- exit and then reenter a vehicle, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police chief Kerr Putney told journalists.

Officers approached the man and loudly commanded him to get out and drop the weapon, at which point Scott exited the vehicle armed, according to police.

"He stepped out, posing a threat to the officers, and officer Brentley Vinson subsequently fired his weapon, striking the subject," the police chief said.

However, Putney added that he did not know whether Scott "definitively pointed the weapon specifically toward an officer."

Carrying a firearm is legal under local "open carry" gun laws.

Scott's relatives told local media that he was waiting for his young son at school bus stop when police arrived. He was not carrying a gun but a book when he was shot dead, they said -- an account police disputed.

"I can tell you a weapon was seized. A handgun," Putney said. "I can also tell you we did not find a book that has been made reference to."

Protests turn violent

Anger was simmering in Charlotte, especially over the police chief's assertion that Scott had been armed.

"It's a lie," said Taheshia Williams, whose daughter attends school with the victim's son. "They took the book and replaced it with a gun."

On Wednesday afternoon, 100 students, mostly African-American, participated in a "lay-in" protesting police brutality, singing gospel songs.

"I do this for hope," one protester called out. "I do this because I'm tired of being silent," another said.

One man held a sign reading "Legalize being black."

Protests had swelled Tuesday evening as news of the shooting spread, with demonstrators carrying signs that read "Black Lives Matter" and chanting "No justice, no peace!"

Putney said the situation turned violent, with "agitators" damaging police vehicles and throwing rocks at officers.

Riot control police were deployed and used tear gas to disperse the crowd, Putney said.

A group of protesters nevertheless marched to a major highway early Wednesday, shutting down traffic in both directions. They broke into the back of truck and set goods on fire, according to police.

Series of shootings

A string of fatal police shootings -- from Baton Rouge, Louisiana to St. Paul, Minnesota -- has left many Americans demanding law enforcement reforms and greater accountability.

In the southern state of Oklahoma, Tulsa police chief Chuck Jordan called video footage of Crutcher's deadly shooting on Friday disturbing and "very difficult to watch."

The 40-year-old is seen with his hands up, appearing to comply with police officers before he is shot once by officer Betty Shelby and falls to the ground. Another officer fires his stun gun.

The US Department of Justice said Monday it would conduct a federal civil rights probe into the Tulsa shooting, parallel to an investigation being carried out by local authorities.

source: interaksyon.com

Around 20 dead, 42 injured in Orlando gay bar attack: officials

ORLANDO, Florida - An estimated 20 people were killed at a gay nightclub after a heavily armed gunman seized hostages early Sunday, prompting a police SWAT team to storm the venue, officials said.

"Unfortunately there are people who died from gunshot wounds, maybe around 20, inside the night club," FBI special agent Ron Harper told a media briefing.

He said around 42 injured were taken to three area hospitals.

The gunman has been identified as an citizen of Afghan descent, US television networks reported on Sunday.

Quoting law enforcement sources, CBS News named the shooter as Omar Mateen, who was born to Afghan parents in 1986 and lives in Port St Lucie, Florida.

The network reported that Mateen -- who died in a shootout with police after the hostage siege -- has no apparent criminal history and that authorities are investigating whether he had ties to Islamic extremism.

Police have yet to officially identify the gunman.

'Hostage situation'

"This did turn into a hostage situation," Orlando police chief John Mina said. "At approximately 0500 hours (0900 GMT) this morning, the decision was made to rescue hostages that were in there."

It was unclear whether all the victims were killed by the gunman or if some died in the ensuing shootout with police.

Police said earlier in a Twitter message that there were "multiple injuries". Local media reported that from seven to as many as 20 people had been shot at the Pulse nightclub, but had no further details.

The nightclub urged patrons to "get out" and "keep running" in a post on its Facebook page.

Several patrons had posted on social media that a gunman was holed up inside and holding hostages. One man who said he was inside the club posted that the shooting broke out around 2 a.m. and that he heard about 40 shots being fired.

Police said they had carried out a "controlled explosion" at the club hours after the shooting broke out, but did not say why that was done. They described the scene as a "fluid situation".

Video posted online showed a large number of police and emergency vehicles outside the nightclub. Bomb sniffing dogs were also on the scene, CNN reported.

The nightclub shooting occurred just a day after a man thought to be a deranged fan fatally shot Christina Grimmie, a rising singing star who gained fame on YouTube and as a contestant on "The Voice", while she was signing autographs after a concert in Orlando.

source: interaksyon.com