While some homes and businesses near the quake’s epicenter were damaged, there were no reports of deaths, officials said. About 200 miles away in Mexico City, where an earthquake early warning system sent hundreds of thousands of people fleeing into the streets for safety Friday, only minor damage was reported.
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Residents of the Condesa and Roma neighborhoods of Mexico City, which suffered some of the worst damage in September, ran out into the streets in panic, looking up at the buildings as the earthquake warning system went off. Once in the streets, they searched for signs of damage to their buildings.
Last September’s seismic eruption has left people frightened at the slightest tremor, and the tears in the faces of those who endured the last major quake were easy to spot on the streets.
Many could be heard repeating the words “Oh God, not again.”
Video footage from inside the Mexico City newsroom of a daily newspaper, Milenio, showed employees ducking underneath desks as light fixtures swung wildly.
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The initial 7.2-magnitude shock was followed 57 minutes later by a magnitude-5.8 aftershock.
The epicenter of Friday’s earthquake was between those of a magnitude-8.2 quake on Sept. 8 and the 7.1-magnitude quake on Sept. 19. But from a geological standpoint, all three occurred in the same general area — a so-called subduction zone, where one piece of the earth’s crust, in this case the Cocos Plate, is slowly sliding under another, the North American.
Like other subduction zones around the Pacific and elsewhere, this region is the source of many earthquakes, some of them very strong and destructive. The movement of the two plates relative to each other is very slow — about two to three inches a year — but it causes stresses to build, either at the boundary between the two plates or, as was the case with the September quakes, within one of them. At some point the stresses become too much and the rock formations slip, releasing energy as an earthquake.
Shortly after Friday’s quake, the United States Geological Survey released a brief initial analysis, saying that it occurred “on or near” the boundary between the two plates, and about 55 miles north of the Middle America Trench, where the Cocos begins its slide beneath the North America plate.
In addition to local destruction, strong Mexican earthquakes often cause damage in Mexico City — even if, as in this case, the capital is miles away. Mexico City was built on an ancient lake bed, and the sediments of sand and clay amplify the seismic waves as they arrive from the epicenter.
Depending on the amount of energy released, the depth of the epicenter and its distance from Mexico City, the seismic waves from a quake can affect some buildings in the capital more than others. In the Sept. 19 quake, mostly shorter buildings were knocked down. But in a 1985 quake that killed 10,000 people, most of the buildings that were severely damaged or destroyed were six to 16 stories tall.
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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.
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.
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.
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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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.
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.”
A gunman armed with a semiautomatic AR-15 assault rifle and “countless magazines” killed at least 17 people at his former high school on Wednesday.
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.
Nikolas Cruz, shown with a public defender, was ordered to be held in jail without bond.
By SUN SENTINEL VIA REUTERS on Publish Date February 15, 2018.
Photo by Susan Stocker/South Florida Sun-Sentinel, via Associated Press.
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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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Special Counsel Robert Mueller has dropped another Friday blockbuster with his sweeping indictment of three organisations and 13 Russian nationals for meddling in the 2016 US presidential election.
For the first time the special counsel’s team has taken dead aim at its central mandate in the investigation and laid bare the scope of what it alleges was a multi-million-dollar Russian operation to sow discord in American politics as far back as 2014.
Here’s a look at some of the key passages of the 37-page indictment and what they mean.
“Some defendants, posing as US persons and without revealing their Russian association, communicated with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump campaign and with other political activists to seek to co-ordinate political activities.“
This is the key passage for the White House’s effort to downplay the threat this indictment poses to Donald Trump and his presidency.
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Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, in announcing the indictments, added that there was “no allegation in this indictment that any American had knowledge” of Russian activity.
Critics will highlight the “in this indictment” portion of that statement. While Mr Mueller’s document asserts no Trump-connected individuals knew they were dealing with Russians, this isn’t the end of the investigation.
Skip Twitter post by @realDonaldTrump
Russia started their anti-US campaign in 2014, long before I announced that I would run for President. The results of the election were not impacted. The Trump campaign did nothing wrong – no collusion!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 16, 2018
End of Twitter post by @realDonaldTrump
The president, via Twitter and in a White House statement, insists this is proof that there was no collusion. It’s better to say that there’s no collusion alleged here. That certainly bolsters the White House’s principal argument, but it doesn’t cover any possible indictments to come. What this indictment, if it is substantiated, does do is devastate Mr Trump’s past insistence that allegations of Russian meddling were a hoax.
“They engaged in operations primarily intended to communicate derogatory information about Hillary Clinton, to denigrate other candidates such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump.“
The indictment paints a picture of a multi-year, multi-prong effort to “sow discord” in the US political process dating back to 2014, before Mr Trump entered the presidential race.
The Russians, according to Mr Mueller’s team, familiarised themselves with the US political process and then took action to support – or undermine – a variety of political candidates. They allegedly attacked several of Mr Trump’s rivals in the Republican primary and backed Bernie Sanders, who mounted a populist challenge to Mrs Clinton for the Democratic nomination.
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They also used social media, investigators say, to rally support for Green Party candidate Jill Stein in the general election, including an Instagram account that told black liberal activists to “choose peace and vote for Jill Stein” and that it wasn’t “a wasted vote”.
In several key Mid-western states, the number of Stein votes was greater than Mr Trump’s margin of victory over Mrs Clinton.
“Krylova and Bogacheva, together with other Defendants and co-conspirators, planned travel itineraries, purchased equipment (such as cameras, SIM cards and drop phones) and discussed security measures (including “evacuation scenarios”) for Defendants who travelled to the United States.“
One of the more breathtaking revelations of the indictment was that Russian attempts to influence the US presidential election went well beyond “virtual” efforts on social media. It included actual Russian nationals entering the US under false pretences and posing as Americans to conduct clandestine activities, according to the document.
It’s the kind of espionage activity that harkens back to the Cold War and an indication of the seriousness and sophistication behind the Russian efforts.
“Defendants, together with others known and unknown to the grand jury, knowingly and intentionally conspired to defraud the United States by impairing, obstructing and defeating the lawful functions of the Federal Election Commission, the US Department of Justice and the US Department of State in administering federal requirements for disclosure of foreign involvement in certain domestic activities.“
There had been a line of argument from some Donald Trump supporters that Russian meddling efforts, even if proven, wouldn’t constitute a criminal offence and a connection between Russia and the Trump campaign, if established, wouldn’t be a fatal blow.
Mr Mueller’s indictment lays out a number of ways in which what Russia is alleged to have done constitutes actual violations of criminal statutes – including wire fraud, identity theft and violations of election law.
It seems unlikely in the extreme that any of the individuals named in this indictment will end up facing any trial in the US. The Russian government has already said that the allegations are “absurd”. That is probably not the point. This all matters because it establishes that any Americans who had knowledge of the Russian activity participated in a criminal endeavour and consequently could be vulnerable to prosecution.
No Americans have been named, of course, the investigation isn’t over yet.
“Defendants and their co-conspirators, posing as US persons, communicated with a real US person affiliated with a Texas-based grassroots organisation. Defendants and their co-conspirators learned from the real US person that they should focus their activities on “purple states like Colorado, Virginia Florida.”
This is another of the more remarkable revelations of the extent to which Russian nationals tried to gather information about US electoral process and strategy as part of their alleged attempts to influence the US presidential race.
They contacted actual US political experts, who directed them to target key states in the Electoral College – including Virginia, Colorado and Florida.
It appears, from the indictment, that the Russians paid particular attention to Florida, which Mr Trump would eventually win by a 1.2% margin (Mrs Clinton carried the other two states mentioned).
“Defendants and their co-conspirators updated an internal organization list of over 100 real US persons contacted through organization-controlled false US persona accounts and tracked to monitor recruitment efforts and requests.“
Up until now, much of the attention on Russian election meddling had been focused on their social media efforts – fake Twitter accounts, Facebook adverts and the like. The indictment, however, details much more.
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Hundreds of Americans were allegedly contacted and recruited to support pro-Trump efforts. Individuals were paid to attend Trump events, including one who went to several dressed like Mrs Clinton in prison garb, investigators say. They even allegedly ordered the construction of a mock cage for the Clinton impersonator that could be transported on the back of a flatbed truck.
Rallies themselves were organised and promoted. A Florida-based grassroots activist was allegedly wired money to purchase materials for a Miami event.
All in all, Russian operatives were effectively engaging in – and funding – traditional on-the-ground campaign activities. Mr Trump has asserted that the “results of the election were not impacted”.
While it’s impossible to tell whether Russia’s alleged multi-million-dollar effort tipped the balance to the Republican, it’s much more difficult to say it had no effect whatsoever.
“After the election of Donald Trump in or around November 2016, Defendants and their co-conspirators used false US personas to organise and co-ordinate US political rallies in support of then president-elect Trump, while simultaneously using other false U.S. personas to organise and co-ordinate US political rallies protesting the results of the 2016 US presidential election.“
If the real point of the alleged Russian meddling was to “sow discord” in the US political system, those efforts wouldn’t conclude upon Mr Trump’s election – and, according to the indictment, they didn’t.
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In the days after the election, Russians were playing both sides against each other – encouraging rallies both for and against Mr Trump.
The president’s supporters have cited this as evidence that the Russians were as interested in undermining their man as much as helping him – although that’s undermined by actual communications Mr Mueller cites in the indictment, in which “specialists” were told the organisation supported Mr Trump and Mr Sanders.
What the post-election rallies demonstrate, however, is that the Russian efforts haven’t ended. US intelligence officials, in testimony before Congress earlier this week said essentially the same thing – that the Russians, undeterred, will seek to continue to foment chaos in the days ahead, including during the 2018 US congressional midterm elections.
The question, then, is what the US does – or does not do – to prepare and respond.
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Being the consoler-in-chief requires empathy and the trust of the nation.
Thursday morning at the White House, in the wake of a rampage that left 17 people dead at a Florida high school, President Donald Trump offered a deliberate but emotionless reading of a carefully written speech that lacked any of the typical flourishes of words he’s written himself. He went through the motions, talking about being “joined together in the American family” and addressing scared children, telling them there are people “who will do anything at all” to keep them safe.
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But Trump didn’t appear to group himself among those people, instead suggesting kids turn to teachers, family, police or faith leaders.
“It is not enough to simply take actions that make us feel like we are making a difference. We must actually make that difference,” Trump said.
He said he planned to meet with governors and attorneys general later in the month to discuss ways to keep schools safe but he didn’t make any effort to suggest what the call to action would be, prompting the Democratic Attorneys General Association to issue a statement saying, “We don’t know what the president’s plans are.”
He didn’t mention the word guns.
The overall effect was dutiful, and unmemorable—with nothing like the searing moment of President Barack Obama wiping his eyes at the White House briefing room lectern as he talked about the murder of schoolchildren in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012.
He talked about grief, but showed no sign of it himself.
Trump said he’d visit the families of victims, and canceled an event scheduled for Friday in Orlando—but is still set to spend the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort, 40 miles north of Parkland, where the shooting took place.
“It’s always important for the president to demonstrate he is emotionally connected to America and its problems, and it is critically important for the president to discuss what is happening and show great concerns for victims and community,” said Andy Card, who was chief of staff to President George W. Bush during the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and through many ups and downs in the years after.
Card said he hadn’t seen Trump’s Parkland remarks, but he’d read them, and said they looked good on the page. “We’re all saying we always want him to be careful with his words, and I thought the words that were written were appropriate words and demonstrated sincere concern and angst,” Card said.
But they fell flat on the delivery. Time after time, Trump has effectively demonstrated only one public emotion—rage. Trump rarely seems to get revved up about anything that doesn’t directly involve him.
His genius for going right at guts and grievances is the essence of his political appeal, but the absence of efforts to reach beyond his base has defined his presidency—and contributed to historically low poll numbers for his first year.
“He’s Trump. I don’t think he has a lot of empathy,” said House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.).
Wednesday afternoon and into the evening, as the news of the shooting poured in, advisers pushed Trump to make a statement. As with similar encouragement to condemn former staff secretary and alleged serial wife-beater Rob Porter, Trump resisted.
Instead Trump, who’s defined much of his presidency by doing the opposite of Obama, found himself outdone on the consoler front by his predecessor, who weighed in on Twitter about an hour after Trump finished speaking.
“We are grieving with Parkland,” Obama wrote. “But we are not powerless. Caring for our kids is our first job. And until we can honestly say that we’re doing enough to keep them safe from harm, including long overdue, common-sense gun safety laws that most Americans want, then we have to change.”
The Parkland shooting was one of several since the start of 2018, and one of dozens since Trump’s inauguration.
There are only two other mass shootings that Trump has previously made speeches about.
One was the attack last summer at a Republican baseball practice, during which he declared, “We may have our differences, but we do well, in times like these, to remember that everyone who serves in our nation’s capital is here because, above all, they love our country,” just days before he began again accusing Democrats of destroying the country. The other was the shooting at a country music festival in Las Vegas, which he called “an act of pure evil.”
Though people who have spent time with Trump in private moments say he’s engaged and eager to help—“He was really caring,” Puerto Rico Rep. Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon, who flew with Trump to the island after Hurricane Maria, told POLITICO’s Off Message podcast—his public appearances have reflected little warmth. His most memorable exchange on the Puerto Rico trip involved tossing paper towel rolls into a crowd of needy people; that came after he made a post-hurricane trip to Texas and chose not to meet any storm survivors.
In the hours after the Las Vegas massacre, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said when pressed on gun regulations: “I think that’s something we can talk about in the coming days and see what that looks like moving forward.”
There’s been no such discussion in the 4½ months since, and there’s been no accounting from Sanders or others in the White House about why not.
A year ago, Trump signed a bill repealing a rule the Obama administration put in place after Sandy Hook that prevented people receiving Social Security benefits for mental disabilities from purchasing guns.
On Thursday, hours before his public remarks, he tweeted that “neighbors and classmates” should have reported the shooter earlier—while his son Donald Trump Jr. stoked the flames of anti-deep state fervor within the Trump base, liking a tweet from Townhall columnist Kurt Schlichter that said: “the FBI was too busy trying to undermine the president to bother with doing it’s [sic] freaking job” and track the shooter’s threats online.
Aside from a presidential proclamation lowering flags to half mast, neither he nor anyone else at the White House said anything more about the shooting after his remarks, even after the leader of a white nationalist group in Florida said the shooter had trained with its members, or after CBS News verified an Instagram account belonging to the shooter in which he set a profile picture of himself wearing a red Make America Great Again hat.
Others revisited their familiar scripts. Florida Gov. Rick Scott said in a press conference near Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Thursday morning that he wants to have “a real conversation” with leaders in Tallahassee about “how do we make sure” parents know they can send their children to school safely, and how to keep guns away from people with mental illness.
The Florida Senate on Thursday afternoon postponed a pre-scheduled committee hearing on a bill to loosen background checks for gun purchases.
Capt. Mark Kelly, the husband of former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.) and the co-founder of Americans for Responsible Solutions, said in a call with reporters on Thursday afternoon that watching Trump’s speech, he heard “a lot of words about mourning and grieving and prayers and a lot of other superlatives.”
Kelly added: “I think it really came from the heart that an incident like this would sadden somebody in his position. But I think what was left out was any suggestion of what would be an effective course of action here besides just, say, a visit to Florida.”
Heather Caygle and Nancy Cook contributed to this report.
Broward County Public Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie speaks at a news conference Thursday, as county Mayor Beam Furr (from left), Broward Sheriff Scott Israel, Gov. Rick Scott and FBI agent Robert Lasky look on.
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Broward County Public Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie speaks at a news conference Thursday, as county Mayor Beam Furr (from left), Broward Sheriff Scott Israel, Gov. Rick Scott and FBI agent Robert Lasky look on.
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Updated at 7 p.m. ET
Court documents say the suspect in the shootings at a South Florida high school has confessed to investigators. Nikolas Cruz, 19, has been booked on 17 charges of premeditated murder at Broward County’s Main Jail in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
According to a court filing, “In a post-Miranda statement, Cruz stated that he was the gunman who entered the school campus armed with a AR-15 and began shooting students he saw in the hallways and on the school grounds. Cruz stated that he brought additional loaded magazines to the school campus and kept them hidden in a back pack until he got on campus to begin his assault.”
Cruz made his court appearance less than a day after the shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, which killed at least 17 people and wounded 15 more.
Cruz allegedly fired on unarmed students and teachers at the high school in Parkland, Fla., which had expelled him for disciplinary reasons.
In a late-afternoon news conference, Broward Sheriff Scott Israel gave a timeline of Wednesday’s events. He said that the shooter arrived at the school at 2:19 p.m., and that within two minutes, he began firing into several classrooms. After conducting attacks on the first and second floors, the shooter dropped his rifle on the third floor and ran away by mixing in among the crowd of students fleeing the scene.
Israel said the gunman visited a nearby Walmart and McDonald’s before he was apprehended without incident.
Within an hour, Cruz was in custody, captured by law enforcement off campus.
The sheriff said the shooter arrived at the school by an Uber car, but he said the driver isn’t suspected of being complicit in the shooting.
Peter Forcelli, the special agent in charge for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said that the rifle used in the shooting was legally purchased about a year ago by the shooter.
SWAT teams were on the scene soon after the shooting began, evacuating students from the building. After Cruz was arrested away from the school’s premises, he was taken to a hospital for treatment before being released to police custody.
He faced a judge in court briefly Thursday, and bond was denied.
Suspect Nikolas Cruz, 19, is escorted by law enforcement at the Broward County jail in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Thursday.
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Suspect Nikolas Cruz, 19, is escorted by law enforcement at the Broward County jail in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Thursday.
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Parents and classmates are left to cope with the aftermath.
“No child, no teacher, should ever be in danger in an American school,” President Trump said in a televised speech to the country Thursday morning. “No parent should ever have to fear for their sons and daughters when they kiss them goodbye in the morning.”
“Law enforcement will do everything we can — the FBI, ourselves — to make sure that this person is convicted of all charges and that justice is served,” Israel said Thursday.
Authorities said Cruz began the attack outdoors toward the end of the school day, just as the school’s some 3,200 students were leaving their classrooms.
“This particular individual came onto campus at the time of dismissal,” Broward Superintendent Robert Runcie told reporters, “and that is a fairly open time for the campus.”
The shooter then worked his way indoors using using an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and what Israel described as “countless magazines,” smoke grenades and a gas mask. Then, the fire alarm sounded — which “seemed odd,” NPR’s Greg Allen reports, “because there had already been a fire alarm that day.”
Greg explains what happened next:
“Soon teachers and students got the word: It was a code red. There was an active shooter in the school. In some classrooms, teachers made sure their doors were locked, lights turned off and students hidden in closets or under the desks.
“But thinking it was a drill, one student interviewed on television says her teacher led them out of the classroom before recognizing the danger. As he got them back into the classroom, she said he was shot and killed.”
“It was pretty chaotic, to be honest,” Broward County Mayor Beam Furr told Morning Edition on Thursday. “There were policemen from every one of our cities — we have 31 cities in Broward County, and I believe every force from the county was there. And as I arrived [yesterday] the kids were coming out, and the parents were beside themselves hoping to see their kids.”
The wounded were taken to three hospitals in the area. Representatives of two of those hospitals, speaking at Thursday’s news conference, said five patients remained in their care at midday.
Among the 17 victims were the school’s athletic director, Chris Hixon, and assistant football coach Aaron Feis. The Douglas football program tweeted that Feis, who was an alumnus of the school, “selflessly shielded students from the shooter when he was shot.”
“He died a hero,” the team said, “and he will forever be in our hearts and memories.”
Authorities say they have notified the victims’ families.
Furr is not only the mayor of the county, but he also worked as a teacher in the local school district. He said the rampage Wednesday called to mind some of the kids he had taught in the classroom.
“You keep your eyes on those kids who become disconnected — you know, they’re out on the fringes. And as a teacher, you try to bring them into the fold, so to speak, in one way or another,” he said. “It’s part of our mission to make sure that kids become part of the overall community — and when one gets away, it’s just sad.”
Accounts from some of the school’s teachers and parents have revealed a record of troubled behavior from Cruz, including at least one incident of bullying, a fixation on firearms, and actions that had so alarmed faculty that, a former math teacher of Cruz said, staff had been warned not to allow him back on campus. Furr also told Morning Edition that the suspect had been a client at mental health facilities and had been expelled from the high school for disciplinary reasons.
A screenshot provided by Ben Bennight, showing the message he said he sent to the FBI about the YouTube comment.
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Courtesy of Ben Bennight
Still, it remains unclear how many red flags authorities saw.
“In 2017, the FBI received information about a comment made on a YouTube channel,” Robert Lasky, FBI special agent in charge, noted at the news conference. “The comment simply said, ‘I’m going to be a professional school shooter.’ “
“Who would leave a comment like that?” said Ben Bennight, a bail bondsman in Mississippi, who told NPR that the comment was left on a YouTube video he had posted about the bail bond industry. He says he alerted the FBI, and agents later came to his office to ask him about it, though he had little information to offer because he “didn’t know anything about the individual.”
“I didn’t hear anything else about it until yesterday, when they called and asked to meet with me,” Bennight said.
“No other information was included with that comment which would indicate a time, location or the true identity of the person who made the comment,” Lasky said at the news conference. “The FBI conducted database reviews, checks, but was unable to further identify the person who actually made comment.”
Florida Republican Gov. Rick Scott told reporters that the chief focus among officials is having “a real conversation” about both school safety and mental illness in the community.
“If somebody is mentally ill,” Scott said, “he should not have access to a gun.”
Runcie echoed Scott about supporting and treating the mentally ill and went a step further, saying, “Now is the time for this country to have a real conversation on sensible gun control laws.”
Trump, for his part, did not mention guns or many specifics in his televised speech — but he said authorities plan to tackle issues surrounding mental health. He said he plans to travel to Parkland to meet with families and speak with local officials about how to better secure schools.
He said the country “grieves with those who have lost loved ones in the shooting,” in a statement released earlier Thursday. He also proclaimed that the American flag be flown at half-staff at the White House and public buildings throughout the U.S.
“We will take such action as we’re able to take. We’ve got to reverse these trends we’re seeing in these shootings,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions told the Major County Sheriffs of America conference on Thursday.
“You and I know that we cannot arrest everybody that somebody thinks is dangerous,” he added. “But I think we can and we must do better. We owe it to every one of those kids crying outside their school yesterday and those who never made it out of their school.”
Students have planned a vigil Thursday for their fallen classmates and for the wounded still fighting for their lives.
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An adult film star who has been embroiled in allegations of an affair with President Donald Trump is free to tell her story, her manager has said.
Stormy Daniels is no longer bound by a non-disclosure contract after Mr Trump’s lawyer admitted he paid her, manager Gina Rodriguez says.
Mr Trump’s personal lawyer confirmed in a statement to media he privately paid Ms Daniels $130,000 (£95,000) in 2016.
Ms Rodriguez says that acknowledgement allows her client to speak freely.
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“Everything is off now, and Stormy is going to tell her story,” Ms Rodriguez told the Associated Press on Wednesday.
Her statement comes after Trump lawyer Michael Cohen told the New York Times he paid Ms Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.
“Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms Clifford, and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or indirectly,” Mr Cohen told the New York Times.
He said he told the Federal Election Commission the same after a watchdog group filed a complaint about the payment, claiming that it had served as an “in-kind” political contribution to Mr Trump’s campaign.
Analysis by Anthony Zurcher, BBC Washington
Donald Trump’s lawyer and all-around fixer Michael Cohen has said he doesn’t plan “further comment” on his six-figure payment to Stormy Daniels. His statements, however, raise more questions than they answer.
While he said the money came from his “personal funds” and was not reimbursed directly or indirectly by the Trump Organization or the Trump campaign, that leaves open the possibility that he was compensated by other parties – including Mr Trump himself.
Why, in his generosity, would Mr Cohen give $130,000 to Ms Daniels? The Wall Street Journal has reported that it was in exchange for a non-disclosure agreement about a decade-old affair between Mr Trump and Ms Daniels. Circumstantial evidence – that Ms Daniels had been in contact with media outlets prior to the transfer and has since gone silent – lends credence to this line.
Even though the alleged affair is long since past, a story about possible hush money and an attempted cover-up just weeks before the presidential election is much more dangerous for a White House already on its heels. And if it turns out there’s more to the money trail than has been disclosed, an embarrassing situation could quickly morph into a criminal inquiry.
“The payment to Ms Clifford was lawful, and was not a campaign contribution or a campaign expenditure by anyone,” Mr Cohen said.
The lawyer has previously said Mr Trump “vehemently denies” it occurred.
The revelations on Wednesday follow US media reports that the porn actress known as Ms Daniels was paid to sign an agreement stopping her discussing an alleged affair.
She first said she had a relationship with Mr Trump in a 2011 interview.
In a 2011 interview with InTouch magazine, the actress said she began a sexual relationship with Mr Trump in 2006, shortly after Melania Trump gave birth to his son Barron.
The reports re-emerged in January when the Wall Street Journal reported that she was paid to sign a non-disclosure agreement in the run up to the 2016 election, which prevented her from discussing the alleged liaison.
Ms Clifford was believed to be in discussion with US media about an television appearance to discuss Mr Trump at the time, the report said.
Responding to questions from CNN about why the payment was made, Mr Cohen said: “Just because something isn’t true doesn’t mean that it can’t cause you harm or damage.”
“I will always protect Mr Trump,” Mr Cohen added.
On 30 January, Ms Daniels’ publicist released a statement in her name denying having an affair with Mr Trump.
But many – including Ms Daniels herself – were quick to note that the signature attached to that denial did not bear much resemblance to another copy of her autograph which had been attached to an earlier statement.
That denial had been released by Mr Cohen on 10 January.
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She has since made several public appearances on television and at strip clubs, but has remained tight-lipped when asked directly about Mr Trump in interviews.
Minutes after Mr Trump’s first formal State of the Union address to Congress, she gave an interview to late night comedian Jimmy Kimmel.
In it, she refused to directly answer whether she had signed a non-disclosure agreement, or if she had “ever made love to someone whose name rhymes with Lonald Lump”.