“We were told last year that he wasn’t allowed on campus with a backpack on him,” math teacher Jim Gard told the paper. Cruz was in his class last year.
He said, “There were problems with him last year threatening students, and I guess he was asked to leave campus.”
The Broward County School District Superintendent, however, didn’t know of any concerns raised about Cruz.
“We received no warnings,” Superintendent Robert Runcie said. “Potentially there could have been signs out there. But we didn’t have any warning or phone calls or threats that were made.”
Fourteen wounded people were transported to area hospitals, Israel told a press conference said. He added that police were still searching the school for victims.
Students hid in classrooms until they were rescued by police in tactical gear, friends and family members said.
McKenzie Hartley, 19, who identified herself as the sister of a student at the school, described the scene in a text message to Reuters: “She heard him shooting through the windows of classrooms and two students were shot.”
“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, Reuters reported.
