The bureau, which was already under considerable political pressure because of its investigation into President Trump, faced calls for even more scrutiny following the massacre.

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Mr. Scott said that Christopher A. Wray, the director of the F.B.I., should step down and that the bureau’s failure to act on the tip about Mr. Cruz was “unacceptable.” “Seventeen innocent people are dead and acknowledging a mistake isn’t going to cut it,” Mr. Scott said in a statement. “The F.B.I. Director needs to resign.”

In an unusually sharp public rebuke of his own agents, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Friday that the missed warnings had “tragic consequences” and that “the F.B.I. in conjunction with our state and local partners must act flawlessly to prevent all attacks. This is imperative, and we must do better.”

Robert F. Lasky, the special agent in charge of the F.B.I. field office in Miami, said the agency advised the victims’ parents about the misstep in a conference call on Friday.

“We will be looking into where and how the protocol broke down,” he said.

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‘How does this happen?’ An outpouring of grief as funerals begin.

Under clear blue skies on a Friday morning, the first funeral for victims killed in the Florida high school mass shooting was held.

Alyssa Miriam Alhadeff, 14, was remembered for her joy and kindness, traits that had attracted a wide circle of friends. Hundreds of mourners filled the Star of David Funeral Chapel in North Lauderdale, spilling outside.

Among the youngest victims, Alyssa, an honor student and a player for the Parkland soccer club, was buried in the Garden of Aaron at Star of David Memorial Gardens.

Her mother, Lori Alhadeff, urged Alyssa’s friends to stay in touch, but also let their future success be her daughter’s legacy. “Live, breathe for Alyssa,” she said.

At a synagogue just a mile from where she had been gunned down two days before, Meadow Pollack, 18, lay in a plain wooden coffin, closed in accordance with Jewish tradition.

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Before her were hundreds of mourners, seated in row upon row and crowding every wall and corner: her cousins, her classmates, the governor and so many others. She is survived by many family members, including her brothers and her grandmother Evelyn.

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Her father stood in a black suit before the crowd.

“How does this happen to my beautiful, smart, loving daughter?” Mr. Pollack said. “She is everything. If we could learn one thing from this tragedy, it’s that our everythings are not safe when we send them to school.”

The room heaved with sobbing teenagers, and mourners wheeled out Ms. Pollack’s coffin, to be buried in a nearby cemetery.

‘It’s sad something like that could happen,’ the president said in Florida.

Accompanied by John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff, and Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, the Trumps arrived Friday evening at a hospital in Pompano Beach that took in eight of the shooting victims.

The president and Mrs. Trump, visited the Broward Health North Hospital “to pay their respects and thank the medical professionals for their life-saving assistance,” according to a statement related by a White House spokeswoman on Friday evening.

When asked if he met with victims, President Trump said: “Yes, I did. I did indeed.”

“It’s sad something like that could happen,” he said.

Mr. Trump did not respond when he was asked if gun laws needed to be changed. He then walked into another room.

The Trumps, according to the statement, were also scheduled to travel to the Broward County Sheriff’s office to meet with “the law enforcement officials whose bravery helped save lives.”

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Schools across the nation are on edge.

On Friday, a number of schools had canceled classes and other activities after receiving unsubstantiated threats.

The authorities were still investigating reports of shots fired on Friday morning at Highline College, about half an hour’s drive south of Seattle, said Capt. Kyle Ohashi, a spokesman for the Puget Sound Regional Fire Authority. No physical evidence of a weapons discharge — including shell casings or damage to any structure — had been found, he said. The school said in a statement on Facebook that the situation was cleared about three hours after a lockdown began. Several other agencies, including the federal Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, had also responded.

The Gilchrist County School District in Florida shuttered its schools after receiving an email threat, and the Nutley Public School System in New Jersey also said it would be closed because of a security threat. A high school in Colorado Springs canceled a pep rally.

A school district in Redwater, Tex. decided to close after the superintendent said it received “a rumor about a possible shooter.” And a school in Massachusetts announced it would deploy more police officers and do random security checks throughout the day because of a threatening post on social media.

Schools also wrestled with how to proceed with lockdown drills, which have become as routine as fire drills as students prepare for the possibility of a shooting. Some schools opt to make the drills feel partially authentic — an approach several schools backed off from this week out of fear they would stir already heightened anxieties.

At Dysart High School in El Mirage, Ariz., the principal took extra steps to make sure students knew its previously scheduled drill on Thursday was, in fact, just a drill. The reminder was included in the morning announcements, and she reiterated it on the public address system several times throughout the day, said Zachery Fountain, a district spokesman.

Eureka High School in California postponed its drill that had been scheduled for Thursday, partly because officials were concerned about the mental state of students, said Fred Van Vleck, the district superintendent. Typically, the school doesn’t announce that the lockdown is a drill, telling students only that there could be a drill within a one-week window, he said.

“We determined it was best to allow the teachers the time in the classroom to have the conversations with students, rather than running them through drills at this point,” he said.

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McNeil High School in Austin, Tex., went ahead with its lockdown drill on Friday, but only after an unusual level of communication.

“Normally we would not announce drills to students and parents so the drill is more authentic, however I felt it important to notify our families in advance so as not to cause any fear or panic,” the school’s principal, Courtney Acosta, wrote in an email to parents, according to the Austin American-Statesman.

As a boy, her grandfather survived a mass shooting by hiding in a closet. Now she was doing the same.

During the horror at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, Carly Novell, a 17-year-old senior who is an editor for the school’s quarterly magazine, The Eagle Eye, hid in a closet and thought about an awful family tragedy from before she was born. Her mother had told her about how her grandfather had survived a mass shooting in 1949 in Camden, N.J. His family had not made it.

“My grandfather was 12, and his grandma and his mom and dad were killed while he hid in a closet,” Ms. Novell said. “They heard gunshots on the street, so my great-grandma told my grandpa to hide in the closet, so he was safe. But he didn’t have a family after that.”

Interviewed on Thursday, she said: “I was thinking of him while I was in the closet. I was wondering what he felt like while he was there. My mom has told me he was in shock after it, too — that he didn’t remember how he got to the police station, or anything like that. I didn’t forget anything, but I was in shock and I didn’t understand what was going on.”

Mr. Cruz made his first court appearance.

In an orange jumpsuit and shackled around his hands, feet and waist, Mr. Cruz was asked if he understood the circumstances of his appearance in court. “Yes, ma’am,” he whispered.

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“He’s sad. He’s mournful,” his public defender, Melisa McNeill, said afterward. “He is fully aware of what is going on, and he’s just a broken human being.”

Mr. Weekes, the chief assistant public defender, said lawyers were still trying to piece together the details of Mr. Cruz’s life. He has a “significant” history of mental illness, according to Mr. Weekes, and may be autistic or have a learning disability.

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But Mr. Weekes was not ready to say whether he would pursue a mental health defense.

Howard Finkelstein, the chief public defender in Broward County, said the case would present a difficult question: Should society execute mentally ill people?

“There’s no question of whether he will be convicted of capital murder 17 times,” he said. “When we let one of our children fall off grid, when they are screaming for help in every way, do we have the right to kill them when we could have stopped it?”

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