PARKLAND: A former student at a Florida high school opened fire in the institute on Wednesday, causing “numerous fatalities” and wounding at least 50 before he was arrested by police, authorities said.
At least 17 people were reported dead, according to Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel, following the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School — about 72 kilometres (45 miles) north of Miami — with dozens of police and emergency officials surrounding the building as hundreds of panicked students fled towards the streets.
Nikolaus Cruz, 18, the gunman, surrendered to police quietly, Israel added, offering few details on the shooter’s identity or motive.
“There was a time when he did attend the school,” Israel said. “I don’t know why he left, I don’t know when he left.”
The school had been placed on a “code red” lockdown but had no information on victims, a spokeswoman for the county sheriff’s office said.
“There are numerous fatalities. It’s a horrific situation,” Broward Country Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie told reporters. He said the school district had gotten no warning of a potential shooter and that there was no evidence of more than one shooter.
US President Donald Trump, who was also briefed on the matter shortly after the incident, offered his condolences to the victims, saying “no child, teacher or anyone else should ever feel unsafe in an American school”.’
Floridian Senator Bill Nelson, while speaking to NBC News, said there are a “number of fatalities” in the school shooting. He cited a school official.
Panicked parents checked on their children.
“It is just absolutely horrifying. I can’t believe this is happening,” Lissette Rozenblat, whose daughter goes to the school, told CNN. Her daughter called her to say she was safe but the student also told her mother she heard the cries of a person who was shot.
“She was very nervous. She said that she could hear the person who was shot crying out for help,” she told CNN. “My daughter is safe and I am very grateful.”
Florida’s WSVN-TV had earlier reported that at least 20 people were injured.
Live television showed dozens of students running and walking away from the school, weaving their way between large numbers of emergency vehicles including police cars, ambulances, and fire trucks.
Others, in the television images, were being led out of the school by heavily-armed police officers and an armoured vehicle filled with a SWAT team arriving at the scene.
One injured victim was seen being placed into an ambulance on a stretcher.
Local FOX-10 TV reported that five people were seen being treated by paramedics.
The shooting was the latest in a deadly series of attacks at U.S. schools. A 15-year-old gunman in January killed two students at a Benton, Kentucky, high school.
The school had recently held a meeting to discuss what to do in such an attack, Ryan Gott, a 15-year-old freshman told CNN.
Israel, the sheriff, struggled to describe the scene: “It’s catastrophic. There really are no words.”
