Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Deadly school shooter’s teen victim tells horror story

Episode Date: February 15, 2018

How were warning signs that a student was planning a massacre at a Florida high school missed? Nikolas Cruz, who is charged with 17 counts of murder, allegedly boasted on social media that he was "going to be a professional school shooter,” yet he was still allowed to purchase an AR-15 rifle investigators say he used in his assault on the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Nancy Grace talks with a student who was barricaded in the school during the attack, along with a panel of experts including private investigator Vincent Hill, psychoThe analyst Dr. Bethany Marshall, child welfare law specialist Ashley Willcott, prosecutor Wendy Patrick, & reporter John Lemley. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on Sirius XM Triumph, Channel 132. Around 2.30 p.m., the Broward County Sheriff's Office responds to reports of a shooting with multiple injuries at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Oh my God! I have the gunshot victim. He's by the entrance to West Glades on the west side of the school. Kids were freaking out. Some kids froze. Some kids were on their phones. SWAT teams go from room to room, securing areas before allowing students and teachers to evacuate. Does he know where the shooter is?

The Broward County Sheriff says at least 17 people are dead. 17 people. It's insane. It's unnecessary. There's no words to describe how I feel right now. I was shaking. I was panicking. It was just all about panic about the school. Like so many millions of parents every morning drop their children at school or the bus stop, and you don't think twice about it, well, today I am. A deadly school shooting goes down in Florida. Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. In the last hours, the scene of a deadly mass shooting. Why? Listen to this. 17 Julia 5. I have the gunshot victim.

I have the gunshot victim. He's by the by the entrance to West Glades on the west side of the school. The virus is being notified. Does he know where the shooter is? We don't know, but we're entering the building. We're in front of the 13th building, building 13. 17, Kilo 4, myself are entering. Does anybody have bolt cutters? I can get this kid out of the fence.

He's stuck in the fence. I need bolt cutters. The coach is with him. See if he can help him over the gate. With me now, a little girl, a young girl, Michelle, who was barricaded trying to save her own life inside the school. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories.

Thank you for being with us. With me, Vincent Hill, Ashley Wilcott, Sarah, Michelle, Dr. Bethany Marshall, Wendy Patrick, and John Limley. I want to go first to Michelle. Michelle Dittmeier, barricaded in the school. Michelle, what happened? So we were in class. There was about, like, 20 minutes left in school, and the fire alarm went off. And we're all thinking, like, what is happening?

Because we had a fire drill earlier today. And in my class, like, the students were trying to convince my teacher that we don't have to go because school's ending soon. But she said, no, it's an emergency, we have to go. And if that student didn't try and convince my teacher, I probably would have ran towards the area where the shooter was, because that's where my evacuation zone is.

But since it was a little later, there's a security guard downstairs telling us to run the other way. At that moment, I still thought it was a fire drill. So I ran out of the red gate, but then our assistant principal told me to come back inside and go in the auditorium. And as I'm walking in, my aunt calls me

because my uncle is an emergency personnel, so he knew the news right away. And they let me know what was happening. Every single person around me, including the teachers, thought it was an active shooter drill because they were told we were going to have one soon just so we can know what to do in that situation. And I was the only person there who knew that it was not a drill and I had to tell everybody know like let everybody know to like tell their family members they love them because there is a shooter it's real and I wait a minute wait a minute Michelle how old are you I'm 17. I cannot imagine at 17. I mean, Ashley Wilcott at 17, I was still watching cartoons. I'm still riding my bike outside.

I just can't imagine at that young age knowing you're in a school with a school shooter. And it's a whole different thing when you just see it on the news and think, oh my gosh, this is so horrible. But when you have family directly affected and you see the videos, it is frightening, traumatic, and no 17-year-old should have to go through it. But they also need to realize i mean this is severe trauma they now have gone through at a young age of 17. michelle so you find out because you have a relative in law enforcement or emergency personnel and you start telling everybody guys this is real what what what was happening around you what was everybody doing and saying everybody was just like acting calm like it wasn't serious. And they were telling everybody, like, even the teachers were saying, like, it's just a drill.

Like, remain calm. And I had to tell the teacher. I'm like, it's not real. My aunt just called me and let me know what was happening. And, you know, we just need to stop speaking and get down and lay quiet. So that way he doesn't know that we're in here and i it broke my heart having to tell all these people that it was on campus like i was the one who had to do it and i just sat there on the auditorium floor shaking for the whole entire two

hours that i was there what did you? What could you hear in the background? There was a security guard in our room so he was like giving us updates about what's happening and like there's just a bunch of cops outside and they would come in and scream at us to get down because some students weren't and then cops came in to like search behind the stage and it was just all very scary of everything that was happening so you were lying you were lying on the floor how were you barricaded yeah like we were um in between the seats of the auditorium on the floor take a listen to what we have obtained. Sound of the shooting.

Joining me right now with the latest, John Limley, Crime Stories investigative reporter. John, what do we know about the shooter Nicholas Cruz right now? The teen who storms Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland on Wednesday afternoon. We know he's armed with an assault rifle. What more do we know? Nancy, just in the past hour, we found out that he has been charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder. His name is Nicholas Cruz. He was booked into jail in Broward County. He had been expelled from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, which is a small little city about an hour north of Miami,

which on Wednesday became the site of one of the deadliest shootings in modern U.S. history, adding to the growing toll of mass killings on school grounds. For months, students, teachers had been told that if he was to enter the campus, step foot on the campus, especially with a backpack, that students, teachers were to immediately alert security because he had been posting for quite some time, especially on Instagram, photos of this arsenal of weapons he had at 17. These posts about how he was going to take down law enforcement, how he was going to shoot up the school. And as we now know, that is exactly what he did. I don't understand this, how everybody at school knew about a teen boy having an arsenal and posting about shooting up the school but the

parents didn't know and another thing i don't understand joining me is wendy patrick california prosecutor if the school knew about it how come the parents didn't know about it you know what if i had a gun in this house it would be out in the trash dump pronto how did they not know about it if the school knew about it and another thing wendy patrick when you post photos and threats about blowing up the school that is what we call in the law a terroristic threat and that is a felony why was this kid just walking free making all these threats wendy yeah one of the things n, you and I know from our careers is it is tricky when you talk about how to analyze things that are posted online and distinguishing between

free speech that is completely offensive and crime, threatening crime, something that's actionable, something that can be acted upon. You know, the problem, one of the problems, I should say, with cases like this is, first of all, we have to assume people saw what was being posted online, because let's face it, that's a minute well wait wait wendy we just heard that from limley that the school was already on alert if they saw the the guy come on campus so they knew right but that's only the first step secondly they've got to analyze whether or not it's something they can go arrest somebody for so it sounds like it stalled with the first step people saw this they knew about it uh they knew that he was a threat and they actually worked administratively the question now is was there sufficient evidence and we're now seeing it we're

going to be seeing more of it to actually decide well this is something we can charge criminally and then we'll be able to arrest him we can can get a restraining order. So it seems like it's stalled between steps. Boy, it did it. And when I hear stall, that's the worst thing you want to hear with me is Michelle Dittmeier, who actually a teen girl who had to barricade herself in the school

as one of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history goes down. To Michelle Dittmeier also joining me, her little friend, Sarah Derby. Michelle, did you know this guy or know of him? I have seen him around school before, but he got expelled before I was in the school for a long amount of time, but everybody like at the school would call him and like just kind of knew he was creepy and psychotic. I mean. When you say kind of knew he was creepy and psychotic, I mean, I'm hearing all the warning signs that the school should have been on alert. When you say everybody knew he was creepy and psychotic okay what do you mean by Michelle

I had people in my high school class which was very small that we thought were way one guy in particular way high strong very emotional um would break down was on the football team and would break down before a game, sobbing and crying. I mean, it was just, I guess, stressed out, and you knew then, and sure enough, it's followed throughout his life. I mean, you know. Michelle, tell me about this guy. When you say creepy and psychotic, I mean, was it the way he dressed?

Was it the way he acted? Was it something he said? What about him? Kind of like all of those, but I mean, the school did do everything they could. They wouldn't let him bring a backpack on school. They expelled him because of behavioral issues. For all of I know, the school followed every procedure correctly, and they are not to blame for this at all. You know, I think she's right to a large degree. With me, a little teen girl, Michelle Dittmeier, her memory of high school is not the senior prom or running for student body office her memory is lying down hiding behind a barricade hoping she would live to see her parents again to see her family again after one of the worst mass shootings in u.s

history in a school goes down we understand that a math teacher jim guard who taught cruz last year says quote we were told last year he was not allowed on campus with a backpack. There were problems with him last year, threatening students. He was asked to leave campus. Apparently he had been suspended. You know, other students claim, quote, I knew it was going to be him. To Dr. Bethany Marshall, LA psychoanalyst joiningalyst joining us you know i've had so many victims say i knew this was going to happen i talked about it we knew this was going to happen everybody knew bethany i find it very difficult to believe this guy was not already behind bars i don't care if he's just a teen i'm surprised too nancy and know, all of these school shooters, in fact, mass shooters in general, always brag about it to somebody. They write a letter, they post online,

they have pictures of themselves on Instagram and Facebook. They predict their own crimes. So these do not come from out of the blue. It's very easy to tell who is going to become a mass shooter because they do not keep it to themselves even though often there are loners they do share their thoughts and so the idea that somebody just snaps or you know all of a sudden they just go crazy and grab a bunch of guns is not a very sound way to think about all of this. They contemplate it unconsciously and consciously for months, if not years. Well, I'm not looking for anybody to blame. That's not what I'm about. I'm trying to figure out why this happened, what could have been done to prevent it so it won't happen again and to me they're all the

signs vincent hill private investigator joining me i mean online this guy shared photos of him brutalizing animals he literally had posted on instagram pictures of animals he killed gruesomely he physically assaulted other students and from what i'm understanding vincent made threats on the school i mean when you tell a kid you can't come on the school with a backpack it's because you think they've got a gun in it i mean how how can it be argued now the school wasn't on notice when they already told the guy, you can't come to school with a backpack because there may be a gun in it? Yeah, absolutely, Nancy.

And I think Wendy touched on this. You have to question what you can make arrests for, what you can investigate on social media, because people live vicariously through social media. But I think there's a much bigger issue that no one's touching on. Yes, the school was on notice. Yes, the school said he can't come on with the backpack, but you're talking about a very large structure that holds about 3,200 people

with two school resource officers. That is a lot of ground to cover, a lot of bodies to watch to try to prevent one person from getting onto that school. So we need to start talking about how do we secure our schools better to prevent this? Or if it does start to happen, how do we make it go away a lot faster than what we saw yesterday? And more quickly, with less lives taken, also with me in addition to Michelle Dittmeier, who had to barricade herself in the school as the shots rang out. Is Sarah Derby her friend?

Michelle, what was going through your mind as you're in there barricaded, knowing there's a shooter stalking the campus, opening fire right at that moment? My mind was blank. I just was thinking about all my family members. I was trying to not let my grandma in New York know, but the news reached there. I didn't want my family members to worry about me, even though they would. And honestly, that's all I was thinking about was all the people outside of that school that I might never see again. Can you even imagine the desperate parents of these students still in lockdown, rushing to the scene to find out if your child is one that was shot dead?

I can barely even put words to it. Sarah Derby, what is your recollection of what happened, dear? I can barely even put words to it. Sarah Derby, what is your recollection of what happened, dear? Like, disgusted. I was driving home, and we got a call, and they said there's been a shooting at Stoneman, and so I automatically get on the phone to call Michelle, because we had been texting five minutes before any of this happened. Like, we were in contact all day, and she didn't answer.

And I was like, okay, maybe her phone's dead because her phone's never charged. I was going through these things, and I called my other friend Samantha, and she said, no, this is real. This is happening. And my first instinct was truly, like, I started, like, head booking at home. Like, I was like, I have to get home. I have to get home. Like, I have to get home. I have to get home. Like this is, I have to do something. And it's just like this other feeling of like, both like disgust and just

like anger that like someone like I know, multiple people I know this close have to deal with something that, like you said, her senior year is not going to be the same. That's what I thought. Like now her senior year is just to tell someone that she survived a mass shooting, which should never have happened. 17 dead. When a teen boy opens fire with a semi-automatic rifle at a Parkland, Florida, high school, 14 others wounded, five of those have suffered life-threatening injuries or are in critical condition right now. The teen boy, Nicholas Cruz, concealed himself in a crowd fleeing Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. He clearly had planned this, even wearing a gas mask to cover

his face when he went in. Can you imagine your child sitting at school looking up and seeing a man with a gas mask covering his face wielding a semi-automatic weapon. He took Uber to campus. That's how we know how he got there. 17 dead, 14 wounded, 5 in critical condition right now. This guy wielding an AR-15 semi-automatic. On YouTube, he says, I'm going to be a professional school shooter. I'm going to be a professional school shooter. And nobody knew. If the school told him not to bring a backpack, then to you, John Limley, they hadn't told his parents of the problem? He's posting photos of guns online, John? Well, that's the thing, Nancy. We have learned in the past several

hours a little bit about Nicholas's home life. His father died about 13, 14 years ago. His mother died in November of this past year. And people are beginning to wonder if this really set in motion what happened yesterday in Parkland. Listen to this. He's been a troubled kid and he always had like a certain amount of you know issues going on. He shot guns because he felt that it gave him I guess an exhilarating feeling. I don't know how to explain it. How did you know about his guns? He showed me personally through his phone and stuff like that. I was I stayed clear of him most of the time during

my time in an alternate school. I didn't want to be with him at all because his fellows were like, I didn't want to cause any conflict with him because it's the impression he gave off. You were in alternative school with him? Yes, I actually got kicked out my junior year and then went into alternative school, OCLC, and that's where I met him again after getting kicked out my junior year, meeting him there. I want to thank our partner who is making our investigation into the Florida school shooting possible

as we speak with one of the team victims and her friend. It's LegalZoom. LegalZoom, thank you for making our investigation possible. Everyone's talking about small businesses, and that means the National Small Business Month at LegalZoom is at just the right time, whether you're starting out or already have a business. 2018 offers you an incredible opportunity because new tax laws include the most significant changes for business owners in the last 30 years. LegalZoom can help you understand what it means to you. LegalZoom, not a law firm, but a nationwide network of independent lawyers to help you get on and stay on the right track

with tax professionals and attorneys to answer all your questions. They understand what you need to tap into the right resources and run your business. That's why they're using their 16 years of experience to provide business owners with all the tools they need to start and run their business the right way. Over the next few weeks, we will unfold how LegalZoom can help you during National Small Business Month. Don't miss this. Check out LegalZoom.com today. Get special savings when you enter code N, N-A-N-C-Y, in the referral box at checkout. LegalZoom, where life meets legal. LegalZoom.com. Thank you. And now, back to Florida.

To those of you just joining us, in the last hours, the single worst mass shooting at a school in U.S. history has gone down. Imagine getting the call that your child's school is in lockdown because there is a, quote, active shooter. You get there, the school's barricaded, and there's a shooter inside to john limley crime stories investigative reporter explain to me what happened how parents found out that their children were barricaded behind school walls with a gunman in there with an ar-15 wearing a gas mask what are the parents supposed to do sit outside in the parking lot and twiddle their thumbs? Nancy, to gain a sense of just how this horrific day unfolded, I think it's good just to hear how an ordinary day began. The middle of the week, it's Wednesday. Students are already thinking about the weekend, but it's also Valentine's Day. Students are exchanging cards,

balloons, little stuffed animals. In many ways, it's a day that you and I would recall from our growing up years. Of course, we know it ends far from that. Students had a little excitement around 9 a.m. As we've heard, there was a fire drill. Everyone followed procedure, left the building, walked to their designated safe spots, then went back to classes. The rest of the day, fairly unremarkable until just a few minutes before the final bell was set to ring. David Hogg is a 17-year-old student at Stoneman Douglas High School. He was in an environmental science class. The teacher had just passed out worksheets before they were set to go home. And right at 2.30, David and his classmates heard a loud bang.

Everyone looked at each other. They thought, that sounded a lot like a gun. David's teacher quickly closed the door, and within seconds, that's when the fire alarm goes off. Everyone, students and teachers, thought it was strange to have two fire drills in the same day, but didn't question it. They got up, started walking to the evacuation zone, just as they had done several hours before. As David's class is walking away from the classroom, they see this tsunami of people running toward them. They turned and followed the crowd down the corridor. What they didn't realize was they were heading straight toward a shooter. Just after David's class had left the building, a code red had been announced

right after the fire alarm. That means, of course, an active shooter on campus. Luckily for David and his classmates, there was a heroic janitor that stopped them as they were running down the hall. The man warned them that they were heading straight for the gunman. After they turned around, Ashley Kurt, the teacher in charge of the culinary program there at the school, funneled the crowd into her classroom. And within within 30 seconds she had 30, 40 people in there. The lights were switched off. One girl had a panic attack, was given water, but David said everyone was relatively calm. Then to make it all sink in, just what danger they were in, that's when news of the shooting started filtering through on the students' phones.

In fact, there was one student that was live casting what was going on in one of the nearby classrooms. And, of course, at this point, all they could do was sit huddled in that dark classroom and wait. To Michelle Dittmeier, who lived through this, at first you thought, as you were telling us earlier, that this was just a drill, just a practice. But you thought it was odd because you'd already had one fire drill that morning. Tell me again, when you learned there was going to be another practice drill, what happened? Well, we were like after winter break, all the teachers came up like with new procedures and went through every single class, like classroom they had, every single class period I had, every single teacher told us what to do in every single situation that could possibly happen. And we were told we were going to have a drill so we know what to do.

And everybody just thought it was a drill and remained calm and i was the only person who knew before the media knew and everything about what happened and i was trying to tell everybody like it's not real like i mean it is real it's not a drill and I'm just crazy. You know, Sarah Derby, you're seeing the fallout on your friend and everyone else that lived through this. Explain how all the students, their children in the eyes of the law, are responding and reacting, Sarah. It's weird because everyone here, especially in Coral Springs, which neighbors Parkland, everyone knows someone that goes to Stoneman. You go to the mall and there's 12 Stoneman Douglas kids that you could name off. And so now everyone's just in the same thing, all like,

what happened? Like, what is this? And it's just like a tense feeling because I have friends from my school. I go to Fort Laud from my school i go to fort in fort lauderdale they go to school and they all texted me and they said please tell me you don't know someone that was in the school please just please that and i'm like i can't you know it would cool swings and parklands a small community we all know each like you all know something that goes to stoneman douglas so now it's hitting like thinking that every like people you know people you see on the street were sitting in a building fighting for their life for a reason that there's no reason for it to have to be done

i'm looking at this guy sarah and michelle i keep looking at this teen boy cruise the the universal response is from students and teachers i wasn't surprised well if they suspected this was going to happen why was he there he had already been kicked out of two other schools this is what I know from another student that had a couple of classes with Cruz quote I got paired with him for a project he started talking to me about his life how he had been held back twice, already expelled from two schools. He liked to do reckless things. He enjoyed hunting. I never got close to him because I always had a feeling there was something wrong.

Well, we know that now. Michelle Dittmeier, what do we know about the students that lost their lives? Two of them are actually in my graduating class that I know of. One I've known since elementary school. He lives in the neighborhood right next to me and I just can't even imagine how all their very close friends and family are gonna like how they are gonna cope from this and it's just gonna be so weird to be at graduation at prom with these people that aren't gonna be there anymore and one of them was in my classroom and that class is never gonna be the same i i can only imagine ashley ashley wilcott I can only imagine what the parents are going through this morning. And Ashley, I don't believe that the school is innocent in this because all the students are saying, well, he was psychotic.

He was weird. He'd already been told not to come to school with a backpack. So how did he get in? How in between classes did he get in aren't schools supposed to be locked you know that's interesting i asked that specific question it is an open campus quite frankly nancy many many public schools throughout our nation are open campuses meaning people can come in and out so is that going to change in the future perhaps here's the other issue i have not just for the school but for anyone who knows this child as a parent i would be saying listen if you threaten to hurt or kill

yourself or someone else it is grounds to be what we call 10 13. that means put in a mental institution facility for treatment so they can treat you and it's somewhere that you are not able to get out and do things to actually hurt people. There were so many red flags in this case so why didn't that happen? Why didn't someone say hey he really is threatening to hurt people and he seems to be a little crazy we need to get him some real help so that he could be in a facility where he would be unable to actually carry out his threats. Why didn't that happen? Well, Wendy, I think earlier this morning they did report that late last year he was under the care of psychiatric doctors. So obviously there was something there last year that people saw that

he needed help for. Unfortunately, it did not solve this case here. You know, I'm going back to this, to Dr. Bethany Marshall. Video emerging from inside the school has one little girl crouched under her desk, holding her hands up to her her mouth clutching her hand over her mouth as gunshots are blaring in the background you see children crying screaming bangs in the background police cars outside in a school i mean i'm not numb to it yet. When I hear this, it's overwhelming to me. And I don't understand why it keeps happening. I know, Nancy, and I saw one, some footage that one of the children had taken where there was a person who had been shot on the ground and all you could see was his legs with sneakers on it. And you knew he was either mortally wounded or just in a distressing situation. And,

and so the trauma that they went through is not only what they had to see and hear, but it's that this, there's this unanticipated intrusion of something that is difficult to organize mentally when you're in it at the moment. In other words, it's probably very disorienting. There's bodies everywhere. You're hearing the pop, pop, pop sounds. You don't know if it's a drill. You don't know where the gunman is. I just keep thinking, you know, in the moment, how could they have even understood clearly what was happening to them? But you're, you're asking about the gunman.

I keep wondering about a copycat syndrome. I mean, I know that, you know, historically, there have been so many young people who have mental illness or who are sociopathic or this guy was orphaned, you know, had, you know, early attachment. I know. I get it. The father passed away when he was younger, about 14. The mom just passed away in November. He was living with a nearby family who said they'd had no problems with him whatsoever. But he goes online and says, posting, quote, I'm going to be a professional school shooter. I mean, Wendy Patrick, he's already been expelled from school. He's been multiple times. He's been kicked out of other schools. He's been told don't come to school with a backpack. I mean, why is he getting into school?

Yeah, I think, Nancy, we're going to come up with the same answers to the questions we asked after a couple other school shootings, including, by the way, some shootings in the community, like the San Bernardino case. Remember where there were red flags, but people were afraid to be the ones to blow the whistle. There is this reluctance among people that perhaps know somebody that they don't want to be the one that is responsible for getting somebody arrested, for locking them up. When we live in a society where that shouldn't be,

we shouldn't be fearful of that. And we also have to remember, and a couple of you made this great point, when you talk about the fear of copycats, it's both provocation and predisposition. In other words, seeing what this young man posted online wouldn't spur law-abiding, untroubled students to grab guns and do the same.

It is that sort of inspiration and encouragement to like-minded young people that are already predisposed. So we hope that anybody that sees anybody else posting and tweeting the kind of material this young man was will be empowered and encouraged to actually. You know what, Andy? Really? What good is it doing? Because now sources are claiming that the FBI was alerted six months ago to YouTube user Nicholas Cruz for his comment, I'm going to be a professional school shooter. Okay? The FBI knew six months ago.

You know what? I've got to say to that, they can all stuff it right up their nose because now there are 17 dead while they and local law enforcement and the school twiddled their thumbs. That's overwhelming to me. If this report is true, that they knew six months ago, I mean, Ashley Wilcott, there's no excuse for this. No, there's not. And when you know when those threats, they're real, right? We know we live in a day and age where school shootings happen more often than they should. So these are not idle threats. No child says this, and it's something they shouldn't consider or shouldn't handle. Let me just add at this point, Nancy, there is also following this a school not too far from this current school in Parkland that a child has now said and made a threat.

Just watch out. And if you do anything to me on Friday, guess what? I'm coming after you. There's a prime example of that has to be taken seriously, which the school is doing because these things happen. You have to arrest individuals for making the threats. Right now, police are speaking. Listen. Sadly, there have been copycat threats made today at other schools. We will respond to every threat, every threat we receive. We will not classify it as a copycat or a prank call. We will respond in full and investigate it.

Any call that is made fictitiously, any fake call, any call that's made to take out resources at a time like this and place them in places where we don't need to be, we will do the full power of the sheriff's office. We'll investigate this and charge anyone accordingly with the maximum charge we possibly could for doing something so horrific, so pathetic. Governor Scott is going to come up and speak, and then you're going to hear from Special Agent in Charge of the FBI.

I'll return to the microphone and answer some questions. I think it's noteworthy that at our next press conference, I will be releasing a timeline based on investigation and video that we've captured as to what happened yesterday. And I'd like to take you through it in chronological order. We're not ready to do that at this time. But when we are, we will be back here and we will release that. Now I'd like to introduce Florida's governor, Rick Scott. Thank you, Sheriff.

I want to thank everybody in the sheriff's department for all their hard work to make sure, one, this individual, we have justice, and two, to make sure this never happens again. So I think everybody up here is going to say the same thing. Our hearts and prayers are with these families, the families that lost a loved one, the families that have loved ones still in the hospital. I had the opportunity to visit with some of those families last night. And then also we want to make sure this never happens again. The next week in Tallahassee, I'm going to sit down with state leaders. We're going to have a real conversation about two things. How do we make sure when a parent is ready to send their child to school,

that in Florida that parent knows that child is going to be safe? Number two, how do we make sure that individuals with mental illness do not touch a gun? We need to have a real conversation so we have public safety for our schools in this state. I've spoken with the Speaker, Richard Corcoran, Senate President Joe Negron. They're committed to provide the resources and have a real conversation about how do we make sure that we have public safety. I want to make sure that my children, my grandchildren, yours, everybody in this state can wake up and be safe. I'm going to stay here and do everything I can. I know all the state

resources are going to do here. I know the attorney general, everyone's going to work hard with the sheriff's department, the school district to do everything we can to go forward. But the violence has to stop. We cannot lose another child in this country to violence in a school. There's many families grieving right now. We've got to grieve with them, mourn with them, but give them their space. There'll be a time that they'll want to sit down and tell their story. But right now, as you talk to individuals, and we went through this with the Pulse attack, they want their own time to grieve. So I want to thank everybody from the Sheriff's Department,

to FDLE, to the federal government for everything they're doing, the school district for everything they're doing to keep people safe. I want to thank the Attorney General for the victim advocates that are coming down here to be helpful. Good morning. My name is Rob Lasky. I'm the Special Agent in Charge of the Miami Division of the FBI. First of all, I want to express my heartfelt condolences to the victims, the families, the friends, the entire community who suffered this senseless and cowardly act. The FBI continues to stand by the Broward County Sheriff's Office, support them, and give them every resource they need to investigate this heinous crime. In 2017, the FBI received information about a comment made on a YouTube channel. The comment simply said, I'm going to be a professional school shooter.

No other information was included with that comment, which would indicate a time, location, or the true identity of the person who made the comment. The FBI conducted database reviews, checks, but was unable to further identify the person who actually made the comment. Again, as a native South Floridian, my heart goes out to the victims, the families, and friends, and the entire community. Thank you. We are bringing you the very latest out of Florida and joining us, a little girl who was barricaded in that high school. The scene of the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history. With me, Sarah Derby and Michelle Dittmeier. Michelle, when you learn that the FBI knew six

months ago, according to sources, about this guy, this teen boy, and you know your friends have been shot, I can only imagine that adds to your grief that people knew about this. Do you think the school knew about it? Did teachers and other students, they seem to be a little bit afraid of him. I mean, yeah, we were all a little afraid of him, but like, I never knew he commented stuff like that. I never saw his Instagram until after the shooting. Not many of us were aware of all the stuff

he was posting online. And like I said earlier, as far as I'm concerned, the school followed his disciplinary as well as they can because they just had accusations. They didn't have hard evidence of it. And I don't blame anybody at the school it's terrible if the FBI did know about it but I understand what you're saying because Ashley every teacher that I would say almost every teacher and

principal that I've ever come in contact with truly only had the best intentions. You know, I was a teacher, but teach student, my student teaching before I got into law school waiting. And that was what I was going to do if I didn't make it into law school. And I don't recall any teacher, whether you approved of their methods or not that i ever knew that didn't care about doing the right thing for the students and sometimes i think teachers care too much they for instance want a student that is having problems you want to help them you don't think oh they're going to come commit mass murder you think what can I do to help this student? So it's really a double-edged sword when you say the school knew.

Well, obviously they knew he had problems because they told him he couldn't come on school with a backpack. He had already been kicked out. He had been expelled. He had been held back twice. And all those were things that were happening while the mom was still alive because the mom just passed away a couple of months ago. I don't know how hard I want to come down on the school, but I guarantee you, those 17 students' parents aren't feeling that way this morning.

Right. No, I think it's a system issue for schools overall. It's our criminal justice system because you raised it at the beginning of this show, and that is when individuals threaten to kill other people it is terroristic threats and so why is there no arrest why is there no action against that individual to prevent what happens the family's distraught to john lindley i'm trying to find out what we know about Nicholas Cruz. What do we really know about him? I know he was holding down a job at, I think, a Dollar Tree, and they never had a problem with him. The family he was living with said they didn't have a problem with him. What

more do we know? We know mostly this young man by his Instagram posts. One of the most chilling is back in the past few months, he posted an advertisement for an AR-15 with the price, all the details there. And he was essentially asking his Instagram followers what they thought, if this was a good gun, if he should buy this gun. And it was just within weeks that he actually did purchase one of these guns, that AR-15 that took the life of what we now know, 17 adults and children. Authorities have not yet released the identities of the victims. There are a couple of names that are posted on different sites, but I don't feel comfortable reading those because I'm not sure of the sources. However, the school's football program did post that football coach Aaron Feiss was among the dead

and that he actually threw himself in front of students as bullets were hailing down on Wednesday. To make this even more tragic, this school was his alma mater. We also know that he had made very, very disturbing threats on social media, that he bragged about guns, that people were afraid of him. To me, that's a very real and present danger, and I'm stunned that he had not already been arrested or brought down, especially on basically on his threats on social media. 17 murdered at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where this teen boy allegedly opens fire with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle

with countless extra magazines of ammunition. Why? He had been threatening students, had been asked to leave. Senior staff had emailed teachers to warn them he was not allowed on campus with a backpack for reasons. Students even had joked about Cruz being a future killer. It was just a big joke. Well, it's not a joke to me. It's not a joke now.

People that stated they had been friends with him said he had begun getting progressively more odd, more weird, boasting about killing animals, doing target practice in the backyard, going after another girl, threatening her. It just seems like it's too much to have been ignored, Ashley. No, I agree with you, Nancy. And again, I don't think it's individual issues. These teachers throw themselves in front of their students to protect them. I think it's a system issue because there should have been an arrest. There are charges that are specific to the kinds of things he was doing, the threats he was making.

So there are resulting criminal charges, but they didn't happen. And if they had happened, he could be in jail instead of shooting up a school. At this hour, as we search for answers, our prayers with the victims and their families, as our search for justice goes on. Michelle Dittmeier, Sarah Derby, especially to you. Thank you. Nancy Grace Crone Story signing off.

Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.