PARKLAND, FLA.—An orphaned 19-year-old who legally owned an AR-15 rifle and was linked to a white nationalist militia group was charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder Thursday morning following the deadliest school shooting in the U.S. in five years.Jordan Jereb, the leader of the white nationalist group the Republic of Florida, told The Associated Press on Thursday that Nikolas Cruz, 19, was a member and had participated in paramilitary drills in Tallahassee. Jereb said he didn’t know Cruz personally, adding that “he acted on his own behalf of what he just did and he’s solely responsible for what he just did.”Jereb says his group wants Florida to become its own white ethno-state. He added Cruz had had “trouble with a girl” and he believed the timing of the attack, carried out on Valentine’s Day, wasn’t a coincidence.Law enforcement officials said Cruz legally purchased the assault weapon used in the attack.Cruz has been charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder in the shooting.Students thought it was just another drill at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School when a fire alarm sounded, requiring them to file out of their classrooms Wednesday afternoon. That’s when police say Cruz, equipped with a gas mask, smoke grenades and magazines of ammunition, opened fire with a semi-automatic weapon, killing 17 people and sending hundreds of students fleeing into the streets.As reactions poured in Thursday, U.S. President Donald Trump focused on the young man’s mental health, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions said he wants the Justice Department to study how mental illness and gun violence intersect, to better understand how law enforcement can use existing laws to intervene before school shootings begin.“It cannot be denied that something dangerous and unhealthy is happening in our country,” Sessions told a group of sheriffs in Washington. In “every one of these cases, we̵ ...
|
