Florida School Shooter Adoptee Of Long Island Couple


Nikolas Cruz was reportedly adopted at birth by a Long Island couple after they moved to Florida.



Nikolas Cruz, the 19-year-old accused of opening fire with an assault rifle at his former Florida high school and killing 17 people Wednesday, was reportedly adopted at birth by a Long Island couple after they moved south. 
Cruz is the son of Roger and Lynda Cruz, the Sun Sentinel reported. Lynda Cruz died in November and Roger Cruz "died many years ago," according to the report.
"Lynda was very close to them," her sister-in-law, Barbara Kumbatovic, who lives on Long Island, told The Washington Post of Nikolas and his younger brother. "She put a lot of time and effort into those boys, trying to give them a good life and upbringing."
Nikolas Cruz opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, Wednesday afternoon, marking a horrific and sadly familiar episode of school violence, according to law enforcement and school officials.
Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said Cruz was taken into custody shortly after the killing spree began just before the end of the school day. The sheriff said 12 people died in the school building, two outside the school and one on the street. Two people died at the hospital from their injuries, the sheriff said. Fourteen people injured in the shooting were being treated at local hospitals.Israel said the gunman was armed with an AR-15 rifle with multiple magazines. The sheriff said the former student's social media accounts contained material that was "very, very disturbing." He had previously been expelled from the high school.
Heavily armed police were seen sweeping the school campus and students were seen running to officers outside the school in Broward County when reports of the shooting were first made.
Broward Schools said in a statement posted to Twitter that close to the school's dismissal around 2:40 p.m., students and staff heard what sounded like gunfire. Students said a fire alarm sounded before the shooting began. The school enacted a "code red" lockdown after the reports of gunfire.
"It's a horrific situation," Superintendent Robert Runcie said in a TV interview. "It's just a horrible day for us."
Israel said the accused shooter was taken into custody without incident and he attended the school at some point but was not a current student. 
"It's catastrophic," Israel said during a brief update to reporters. "There really are no words."
Israel said 12 of the 17 victims had been identified late Wednesday night. He said no names would be released until all families had been notified.

Police watch over Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students as they wait to be reunited with their families after Wednesday's school shooting. Photo by Paul Scicchitano.

Joshua Gonzalez, an 11th grade student at the school, told Patch that when the fire alarm sounded he believed a simple drill was underway.
"I was walking down the stairs when I heard shots and I immediately started to run back inside because obviously that's what anyone else would do," said Gonzalez, 17, as he made his way home from the school.
Sen. Bill Nelson said he was told by federal authorities that the gunman pulled a fire alarm at the school to get students out of their classrooms. The senator said the shooter was armed with smoke grenades and wore a gas mask. Nelson said he wasn't told whether the gunman used any of the smoke grenades.
A student who was not identified told WSVN that he knows the shooter. 
"He's been a troubled kid," the student told the news channel.

15-year-old Richard Thompson of Coral Springs makes his way away from the school with his mother and sister. Photo by Paul Scicchitano.

Fifteen-year-old Richard Thompson of Coral Springs was in his freshman geometry class in room 1256 of the building where the shooter was systematically going from floor to floor and indiscriminately gunning down students.
"He was down the hall from us. The shooter was on the opposite side of the hallway," Thompson said in an interview with Patch.
At first, the 25 other classmates in the room thought it might be a drill but Thompson said he recognized the smell of gun powder from going skeet shooting at a nearby park with his family.
"I didn't want to say it to most people because they would start freaking out," he said, adding that he took cover under a desk and some chairs.
He said his teacher did a good job of trying to keep classmates from panicking under the circumstances.
"A bunch of policeman like with a full armor came to our door," he said. "They knocked and they said 'police.' My teacher let them in. We had our hands up in a row and we just went down the stairs."
But as they were making the way out of the third floor, the students encountered three bodies, which he believed to be that of two students and a teacher.
"One of them was by the bathroom door. One was by one of the classroom doors and one was against the wall," Thompson said. "They told us to look straight, don't look at the bodies."
Alison Shonk, 18, and her mother, Wendy, came from opposite directions on foot along nearby University Drive to a tearful sidewalk reunion as sirens wailed around them. Mother and daughter held each other for several minutes as both stood weeping.
"I was in constant contact with her via text and she was on the other side of the campus so we were both able to stay calm and keep the others around us clam," said Wendy Shonk, still wearing her blue scrubs from the Plantation, Florida hospital where she works.
Her daughter is a senior at the school. For her, Valentine's Day was supposed to be a happy event. The future seemed bright with only four months to go before the senior prom, she said.
Now there will be no return to normalcy.
Alison Shonk said there was an actual fire drill earlier in the day, which added to the confusion when students heard the fire alarm pulled by the shooter to draw students out of their locked classrooms.
"We were hiding in a closet until SWAT came and told us we can move to a different room" Shonk said. "People were crying. People were freaking out. We were getting the news as we were in the closet. A lot of people were texting me and asking me how I was."
Caesar Figueroa says he was one of the first parents to arrive at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. He says he saw police officers bringing out big weapons as they approached the school.
Figueroa's office is only five minutes from the school where he sends his 16-year-old daughter.
"My wife called me that there was an active shooter and the school was on lockdown. I got on the road and saw helicopters, police with machine guns," he said. It was crazy and my daughter wasn't answering her phone."


According to Figueroa, she texted him that she was hidden inside a closet at school with friends: "She was in a classroom and she heard gunshots by the window. She and her friends ran into the closet."
Another parent, Beth Feingold, says her daughter sent a text at 2:32 p.m. saying "We're on code red. I'm fine." But she then sent another text soon afterward saying, "Mom, I'm so scared." The girl was later able to escape the school unharmed.
The school is located right on the Coral Springs/Parkland border. Parkland is about 16 miles from Boca Raton.
Freshman Kyle DuMornay told Patch that he was directly above the shooter in a second-floor study hall when the first shots rang out.
"We had a junior from another class saying, 'dude, there's a shooter downstairs. He's got a gun.' Then we felt the gunshots from the first floor. We felt the vibration. We kind of heard it too. And then the fire alarm went off."
DuMornay said he and the other students crammed into a corner.
"When he reached the second floor, the shots got louder and louder. He fired a few times and he went up to the third floor," DuMornay explained. "Five to 10 minutes later the police come in. They say: "Police. Open up." We didn't know who to trust. We didn't know if that was him or not."
But police weren't waiting for long. They smashed a window and opened the door.
"You have two to three police officers rushing in with their guns and everything, telling us to remain calm," DuMornay said. "Like two minutes later we have a girl crying because her best friend just got shot."
As DuMornay and his classmates were being led out of the building, they passed one of the bodies of the victims.
"When I looked to my left I saw a security guard shot dead," he recalled. "It made me sick to my stomach."
Dozens of heavily armed officers could be seen walking with guns drawn around the large suburban Broward County campus in a tree-lined area of affluent homes as the search for the shooter was underway. A number of parents also arrived on the scene, including some who were in tears.
"The president has been made aware of the school shooting in Florida. We are monitoring the situation. Our thoughts and prayers are with those affected," White House Deputy Press Secretary Lindsay Walters said in a statement.
At 17, David Hogg already knew he wanted to be a journalist before the shooting started. He passed the time conducting video interviews with other students holed up with him in the culinary arts area of the school, about 100 to 150 feet away from where the shooter was firing. Hogg recorded around 30 videos.
"I figured if I died I knew that my phone would survive and the voices of those people would echo on regardless of what happened to us," he said in an interview with Patch. "I was interviewing fellow students to get their perspective because honestly I didn't know what was going to happen to us. We thought it was a drill initially but when we started seeing all the headlines on the news we knew this was not a drill. This was life or death."
Florida Gov. Rick Scott attended a Wednesday night press conference in Parkland. He referred to the school shooting as "pure evil." Scott said he had spoken with President Trump about the school shooting.
"My prayers and condolences to the families of the victims of the terrible Florida shooting," Trump said on Twitter. "No child, teacher or anyone else should ever feel unsafe in an American school."
In a statement, House Speaker Paul Ryan said it is nothing short of true evil to attack innocent children.

The Broward County Medical Examiner arrived soon after the mass shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Photo by Paul Scicchitano.

A prayer vigil will be held Thursday at noon at Parkridge Church in Coral Springs.
As FBI officials announced they have opened a tip line for anyone who has information on the shooting. If you have any information that can help investigators, call 1-800-Call-FBI.
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School is a public school in the Broward County Public Schools district. It has nearly 3,000 students in grades 9-12, according to U.S. News & World Report.
Wednesday's shooting follows school shootings in California, Kentucky and Texas. On Feb. 1, a loaded gun in a student's backpack went off at Salvador B. Castro Middle School in Los Angeles, California. A 15-year-old boy was shot in the head. On Jan. 23, a 15-year-old student armed with a handgun opened fire at Marshall County High School in Benton, Kentucky, leaving two students dead and 17 others hurt. Just a day earlier, a 16-year-old boy armed with a handgun shot a 15-year-old girl in the cafeteria of their Italy High School in Italy, Texas.



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