Nikolas Cruz



Nikolas Cruz (born 1998) is a terrorist and mass-murderer who is responsible for the killing of 17 high school students, along with injuring at least 15 others at his former school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on February 14, 2018.

The Shooting
The following is a partial timeline of the Parkland shooting, from a February 23, 2018 article courtesy of sun-sentinel.com along with writers David Fleshler and Yiran Zhu (time-zone is New York):
 * At 2:21 PM, Cruz enters the school with an AR-15 gun.
 * Shortly after, a freshman student sees Cruz in the second-floor hallway. Cruz spots him and tells him to "get out here". The student flees the scene and warns the assistant football coach† as he shields a female student during the shooting. He was shot and killed.
 * Note: It is believed that Cruz pulled the fire alarm to persuade students to come into the hallways. There had already been a fire drill conducted that school day.
 * From 2:50 PM-3:01 PM, Nikolas Cruz had already fled the school and proceeded to Wal-Mart and McDonald's.
 * Nearly an hour-and-a-half after entering the building, Cruz is arrested in a suburban neighborhood several miles away.

Warning Signs and Aftermath
For two years, Nikolas Cruz had shown warning signs, along with the threat of "shooting up the school" along with allegedly attempting suicide by drinking gasoline along his fascination with guns. On November 29, 2017, according to his then-guardian, he legally purchased a gun from Dick's Sporting Goods, brought "tons" of ammo and pointed the rifle at several people. On January 5, 2018, somebody close to Cruz warned the FBI about his possession of guns and unusual behaviors. Cruz had already been expelled from Marjory Stoneman High School. The fact that authorities were fully aware of Cruz's capabilities astounded the whole world in that no action was taken on him. As of March 3, 2018, he still awaits trial.

Many high school students across the United States have protested in favor of gun control, including survivors of the shooting themselves. Three senators (Two Democrats and one Republican) have introduced a bill trying to ban bump stocks, which was used on Cruz's gun.