PARKLAND, Fla. _ Florida shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz was charged Thursday with 17 counts of premeditated murder as yet another community grappled with grief and horror in the aftermath of a school gun rampage, the deadliest in more than five years.
With new details emerging about the 19-year-old former student's troubled background, President Donald Trump tweeted a call for public vigilance.
"So many signs that the Florida shooter was mentally disturbed," the president wrote on Twitter. "Neighbors and classmates knew he was a big problem. Must always report such instances to authorities, again and again!"
Authorities combed the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, a suburb of Fort Lauderdale, for more clues, struggling to piece together the chaotic and lethal series of events that unfolded Wednesday as the shooter stalked the halls and classrooms with an AR-15 semiautomatic weapon.
A shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.
As during many mass attacks in recent U.S. history, this one was documented by shaky cellphone video and desperate texts sent by those in fear for their lives.
David Hogg, 17, head of the student TV station WMSD, said he started recording videos of students while they were barricaded inside a classroom, "in case we died."
"I didn't know if any of us were going to make it out alive," he said as he stood by police cars and tape in front of the closed school Thursday.
After Cruz's mother, Lynda Cruz, died on Nov. 1, Nikolas and his brother stayed with family friends in Lake Worth in Palm Beach County. Unhappy at that home, Cruz asked a former classmate from the school if he could move in with him and his family. He had been living with them in northwest Broward County, about three miles from the school, since Thanksgiving.
"He was a little depressed because his mother had just died, but he seemed to be coming out of it and doing better," said Jim Lewis, an attorney representing the family.
Cruz had gotten a job working at a Dollar Tree store, and he was going to school at the adult education center to get his GED, Lewis said.
Cruz, who underwent hours of questioning by federal and state authorities before being charged early Thursday, was to appear before a judge later in the day. He was taken into custody Wednesday in nearby Coral Springs about an hour after the shooting, having slipped away among other students after the attack.
Images of students filing from the school in long lines with hands over their heads or on one another's shoulders, and of terrified parents sobbing as they awaited word, have taken on a numbing familiarity in a country that has seen such scenes play out in nearly every corner of the land.
Authorities painted a picture of a gunman who methodically plotted the attack, equipping himself with a gas mask and smoke grenades. Those who knew Cruz _ former classmates, neighbors, acquaintances _ depicted him as an eccentric and sometimes threatening figure. Like a trail of electronic breadcrumbs, social media posts by him showed a fascination with guns.
Former neighbors, whose acquaintance dated back to when Cruz's mother was alive, told the Sun-Sentinel that police were frequently called to the family home after complaints that included harassment and threats against those living nearby.
Wednesday's massacre was the largest death toll in a school shooting since the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Conn., which killed 26 people, 20 of them first-graders. Like so many attacks since, this one appeared to target students along with teachers and staff.
Authorities were looking into the circumstances of Cruz's acquisition of the weapon. The Associated Press on Thursday cited a law enforcement official saying the AR-15 rifle was legally purchased about a year ago. Under federal law, such guns can be legally purchased by people over 18.
The Broward County school district began offering grief counseling for students, staff and others affected by the shooting. Condolences poured in from near and far, including a telegram from Pope Francis, sent to the archdiocese of Miami, in which the pontiff said he was "deeply saddened."
But much of the outside world remains baffled by the grim phenomenon of regularly occurring school shootings, virtually unknown among developed nations.
Moving stories emerged of self-sacrifice and heroism amid the terror.
The school's football program tweeted that Aaron Feis, an assistant coach who also worked as a security guard, had been killed as he attempted to protect students. Feis was a 1999 graduate of the school.
"He died a hero," the tweet said. "He will forever be in our hearts and memories."
Hogg, of the student TV station, said one of the heroes of the day was a janitor he didn't know who turned him and other fleeing students around and herded them into a classroom with help from a teacher.
"They saved all of our lives," he said.
