Fear returns to American streets
The White House reported that President Donald Trump has been informed of the event. Minutes later the president reacted on Twitter to say that no child or teacher or anyone else should feel unsafe in a US school. According to FBI records, since the massacre at Columbine High School in 1999 (15 dead including the two teenage shooters) until 2016, there had been fifty bombings or attempts of a firearm attack in US schools that left 141 dead. On January 6, 2017, a little over a year ago, a shooter, Esteban Santiago Ruiz, killed five people and wounded six others at the Fort Lauderdale airport, less than an hour's drive from Stoneman Douglas High School.
The United States has lived the last nightmare of its unstoppable chain of massacres with firearms, this Wednesday, February 14. In the quiet town of Parkland, with only 30,000 residents, about an hour's drive north-west of Miami, Florida, a shooter opened fire at Stoneman Douglas High School, leaving blood and horror behind, killing at least 16 people.
As the CNN chain advances based on police information, an unknown number of wounded have been transferred to hospitals in the area and local media suggest that it could reach half a hundred. The bullets began to sound past two o'clock local time. About an hour and a half later, the Sheriff of Broward County, where Parkland is located, reported that the shooter had been arrested and taken by ambulance to a hospital.
According to the Associated Press, the young man Nicolás Cruz, 18, is responsible for the massacre. The attacker fired inside and outside the institute, and was arrested outside the center. Local media indicate that it could be an alumnus who had previously aroused fears at the institute for his threats to other students - to the point that he would have been forbidden to enter the center with a backpack.
Images of the arrest show the suspect, dressed in a red shirt, pants and black boots, being immobilized by police officers. When the shooting started, the school was close to finishing its academic day. The Stoneman Douglas Institute has around 3,200 students. It is one of the largest in Broward County, a wealthy urban area of the Miami metropolitan area. "It's a terrible situation, a horrible day for us," said county school director Robert Runcie.
Immediately, once the shooting was over, the school activated its emergency red code and a multitude of local and federal agents arrived at the place. The fence to the shooter lasted more than an hour. The authorities established a security perimeter and prevented the families of the students from approaching the risk area, overflying by helicopters. In the images of local television, dozens of students left the institute with their hands up and in line, escorted by agents armed with semi-automatic weapons and bullet-proof vests.
An indeterminate number of students and teachers were trapped inside the school and received orders from the police to barricade themselves where they were, until agents arrived to help them. Recordings of the interior of the center broadcast by social networks show scenes of panic and shouts between the explosive sound of the bursts of high-caliber shots.
