Florida (February 15, 2018): The death toll in Florida school shooting Rises to 17 on Wednesday evening, said officials.
According to the details, at least 17 people were killed Wednesday in a high school shooting in Parkland, Florida, Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said.
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The suspect, 19-year-old former student Nikolas Cruz, is in custody, the sheriff said. The sheriff said he was expelled for unspecified disciplinary reasons.
At least 14 people have been taken to area hospitals following the shooting, Israel said. Law enforcement responded to reports of a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shortly before 3 p.m.
The shooting sent students and staff streaming out of the school in a panic. Some students said a fire drill earlier in the day added to the confusion.
A student, Kayden Hanafi said he heard two gunshots and saw people running out of another building on campus. As he and his classmates went into lockdown in a classroom, many thought the noise might have been firecrackers. “It’s really a blessing to still be alive,” he said.
Nicole Baltzer, 18, said she was in trigonometry class about 10 minutes before the end of the school day when the fire alarm went off. As students evacuated, she heard six gunshots and everyone started running back inside the school, Baltzer said. “I heard so many gunshots, at least like six. They were very close,” Baltzer said.
A police officer told her to close her eyes as she walked past a classroom with broken glass, telling her “there’s nothing good to see in there,” she said.
Parkland, with a population of 31,000 people in 2016, was named Florida’s safest city last year, according to an analysis by the Washington-based National Council for Home Safety and Security, a home security industry trade association. The south Florida city had seven reported violent crimes and 186 property crimes the previous year, according to the analysis.
Stoneman Douglas High School had an enrollment of about 3,100 students in the 2015-16 year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
As news of the shooting spread, desperate parents gathered near the property searching for their children.
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