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Suspect In Deadly Florida High School Mass Shooting Identified

MIAMI (WWJ/CBS NEWS/AP) - Nicolas Cruz, the suspected gunman who open fire in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, was a former student who had allegedly threatened students in the past reports CBSMiami.com.

Jim Gard, a teacher at the school, told CBS4 news partner The Miami Herald they had problems with Cruz, 19, last year and he was asked to leave the campus. He seemed to recall an email sent out earlier warning teachers that Cruz had made some threats and wasn't allowed on the campus with a backpack.

A Florida sheriff says that 12 of the 17 confirmed deaths in Wednesday's shooting attack on a high school were found in the school.

Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel says the attack began outside the school Wednesday afternoon.

He told reporters that authorities subsequently found 12 people dead in the building and two more dead just outside the school and one more in a nearby street. Israel says two other people died later under medical treatment.

Israel says the suspect, a 19-year-old former student of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, is in custody. He says the male suspect was checked out at a hospital after his arrest and is now being held at a secure location in a public building.

The suspect was captured by police outside of the school. It's believed that he escaped the school by blending in with other students who were trying to escape according to sources.

The shooting at a South Florida high school sent students rushing into the streets as SWAT team members swarmed in and locked down the building. Police were warning that the shooter was still at large even as ambulances converged on the scene and emergency workers appeared to be treating those possibly wounded.

School Superintendent Robert Runcie said there were no warnings that something like this would happen.

Parent John Obin says his son, a freshman at the South Florida high school where the shooting erupted, was in class when he heard several shots. The father says his son advised that teachers quickly rushed students out of the school. He adds the boy told his father that he walked by two people on the ground motionless - and apparently dead - as students rushed outside.

Obin says: "This is a really good school, and now it's like a war zone."

Stay tuned to WWJ Newsradio 950 and [LISTEN LIVE]  for more on this story.

 

© Copyright 2018 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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