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The very latest on the Parkland, Florida shooting

Adam Hernandez
Parkland
Photo: AP

17 people have died and another 15 injured in the aftermath of the Mary Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida making it the deadliest school shooting since Sandy Hook.

Of the 17 victims, only one thus far has been identified as assistant football coach Aaron Feis who is being heralded as a hero who died shielding students from the attack.

The shooter is identified as 19-year-old Nicolas Cruz, a former student at the school who was expelled for disciplinary reasons. Authorities have combed social media postings from the shooter which have turned up to be very disturbing. Some of these postings included expressing a desire to “shoot people” with his AR-15, kill authority figures and die killing a bunch of people.

The shooter – who was arrested without any further incident – was apparently apprehended away from the scene when he was trying to blend in with the crowd. He’s due in court this morning where he’s expected to be charged with 17 separate counts of premeditated murder.

Meanwhile, BuzzFeed is reporting that the FBI may have been clued in on the shooter’s intentions last fall when a bail bondsman noticed a very disturbing comment on YouTube. In that comment from a user with the handle “Nikolas Cruz”, made mention how they wanted to be a “professional school shooter”.

The YouTuber and bail bondsman – 36-year-old Ben Bennight – emailed a screenshot of the comment to the FBI while YouTube deleted the comment from the video thread.

Donald Trump, who made mention that we’d talk about gun control after the Las Vegas massacre (which still hasn’t happened) tweeted the following in the wake of this horrible ordeal.

It’s typical that Trump tries to push the blame to the gunman’s neighbors and classmates rather than point the finger at the legislative branch who’s taken a do-nothing approach to the countries gun problems. Yes it’s always important to report disturbing trends or behavior from individuals, but what’s realistically going to happen to those individuals who may have guns in their possession? As far as we can tell, the FBI didn’t seem to do much when Mr. Bennight reported that disturbing YouTube content to them from an individual who appeared to have the same name as the shooter.

As far as the attack, the gunmen allegedly pulled a fire alarm to begin funneling students out of their classrooms. Meanwhile, terrifying video has begun to emerge from students who recorded their classes sheltering in place as gunshots can be heard in he background.

 

 

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