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Video Surfaces of Nikolas Cruz, Who Bought 7 Rifles In Past Year, Fighting Classmates In 2016
The clip appears to show the suspected school shooter Nikolas Cruz fighting with a group of boys outside the high school.
Cell phone footage appearing to show school shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz getting into a fight with a group of classmates in the courtyard of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida has surfaced. The footage is reportedly from September 2016, according to Law & Crime.
As WPLG reports, Cruz appears to be the boy wearing a white T-shirt and khaki pants in the clip. WPLG has confirmed with school records that Cruz was suspended that month for two days.
"Every day we're learning something more and more about the killer," Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said.
Over the past year, Cruzpurchased seven rifles legally, according to CBS News.
Also according to CBS, the FBI apologized for mishandling a tip about Cruz that it received in January. That tip was specifically about Cruz’s ability to possibly carry out a school shooting. Last fall, someone tipped off the FBI after a YouTube user with the name "Nikolas Cruz" posted a comment, "I'm going to be a professional school shooter" on a video, BuzzFeed News reported. In another YouTube comment, he allegedly wrote, “I whana [sic] shoot people with my AR-15," "I wanna die Fighting killing sh*t ton of people" and "I am going to kill law enforcement one day they go after the good people."
On his Instagram page, Cruz brandished multiple guns: a shotgun and a BB gun. In another Instagram post, he showed off long knives, CNN reported. Cruz was allegedly obsessed with firearms and reportedly bragged about killing animals. He also allegedly once brought knives to school, reported The New York Times. According to NBC News, he had recently been expelled from the school. Cruz was disciplined by the school five times.
Cruz allegedly killed at least 17 people inside his former school on Valentines Day, where he wounded about 14 others.
Howard Finkelstein, Cruz's court-appointed lawyer, said, according to WPLG: "This kid, in his own way, was screaming out in every way the mind knows how to scream out. He did everything including saying, 'I want to go and shoot people in school.' I don't know what you can do more than that to get somebodies’ attention.”
