The Mississippi bail bondsman who alerted federal investigators last year to suspicious behavior by the suspected Florida school gunman is speaking out as the FBI faces accusations that it dropped the ball. As CrimeOnline previously reported, Ben Bennight contacted the bureau in September to report a YouTube comment by someone named Nikolas Cruz — the …
Nikolas Cruz, the teen accused of killing 17 people during a brutal school shooting in Parkland, Florida, on Wednesday, wants to offer a guilty plea in an attempt to avoid the death penalty, according to his lawyer. The Sun Sentinel reports that public defender Howard Finkelstein, who’s representing 19-year-old Cruz, said that a trial would essentially be …
By MICHAEL BIESECKER and COLLIN BINKLEY, Associated Press The troubled teen authorities say killed 17 people at a Florida high school excelled in an air-rifle marksmanship program supported by a grant from the National Rifle Association Foundation, part of a multimillion-dollar effort by the gun group to support youth shooting clubs and other programs. Nikolas Cruz, …
Tipster warned in JANUARY that Cruz could be targeting a school
A relative of Nikolas Cruz, the man accused of killing 17 in Wednesday’s Florida school shooting, said she believes that Cruz’s mental health deteriorated last year after his adoptive mother died of pneumonia. Linda and Roger Cruz, an older couple, adopted Nikolas when he was an infant. Linda’s sister-in-law, Barbara Kumbatovic, told The Washington Post …
By TERRY SPENCER, KELLI KENNEDY and TAMARA LUSH, Associated Press PARKLAND, Fla. (AP) — The teenager accused of using a semi-automatic rifle to kill 17 people at a Florida high school confessed to carrying out one of the nation’s deadliest school shootings and concealing extra ammunition in his backpack, according to a sheriff’s department report released …
Student: “He started going after one of my friends, threatening her, and I cut him off from there”
The shooter, who was equipped with a gas mask and smoke grenades, set off a fire alarm to draw students out of their classrooms shortly before the school day ended, officials said.
