What we know about suspected Florida shooter Nikolas Cruz

Nikolas Cruz.
(Image credit: MIGUEL GUTTIEREZ/AFP/Getty Images)

On Wednesday, a gunman entered Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and killed 17 people with a semiautomatic rifle. The suspected shooter is 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, who was a former student at the school.

During his time at Douglas, Cruz was reportedly suspended for having bullets in his backpack. Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel told reporters Wednesday that Cruz was expelled last year for "disciplinary reasons." Teachers at his former high school had reportedly been warned not to let Cruz on campus after his expulsion, and a former classmate told the Miami Herald that "from past experiences, he seemed like the kind of kid who would do something like this."

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Kelly O'Meara Morales

Kelly O'Meara Morales is a staff writer at The Week. He graduated from Sarah Lawrence College and studied Middle Eastern history and nonfiction writing amongst other esoteric subjects. When not compulsively checking Twitter, he writes and records music, subsists on tacos, and watches basketball.