Florida School Shooting: ‘No Words’ as 17 Die in a Barrage of Bullets

Sheriff Israel said he did not know the gunman’s motive. He said a football coach was among the dead, and the son of a deputy sheriff among the injured. Twelve of the 17 dead had been identified by Wednesday night, he added, noting that not all of the students had backpacks or wallets on them.

Mr. Cruz was enrolled at another Broward County school, officials said. Sheriff Israel said law enforcement officials had already discovered material on Mr. Cruz’s social media accounts that was “very, very disturbing.”

Jim Gard, a math teacher at the school, said Mr. Cruz was in his class in 2016 and appeared to be a “quiet” student. But Mr. Gard also recalled that “there was concern” about his behavior on the part of the school administration, which emailed teachers relaying those fears.

Mr. Gard said that after the shooting, he learned from several students that Mr. Cruz was obsessed with a girl at the school to the point of “stalking her,” a point the authorities did not raise in news briefings near the scene.

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The massacre called to mind the country’s two mass shootings that have come to be known by the name of the schools: Columbine, the high school outside Denver where 12 students and a teacher were killed in 1999; and Sandy Hook, the elementary school in Newtown, Conn., where 20 students and six adults were shot dead in 2012.

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More than 40 “active shooter” episodes in schools have been recorded in the United States since 2000, according to F.B.I. and news reports. Two 15-year-old students were killed and 18 more people were injured last month in a school in rural Benton, Ky. The shootings have become common enough that many schools, including Stoneman Douglas High, run annual drills in which students practice huddling in classrooms behind locked doors.

With the Parkland shooting, three of the 10 deadliest mass shootings in modern United States history have come in the last five months.

Mr. Nelson said the episode made him relive recent shootings that also shook the state. “Forty-nine slaughtered at the Pulse nightclub. Another handful slaughtered at the Fort Lauderdale airport, just a year ago, in the same county where this took place,” he said. “And that’s just Florida.”

After the gunfire had stopped Wednesday afternoon and Mr. Cruz had fled, students ran out of the school, some in single file with their hands on the shoulders of those in front of them and others in all-out sprints. As the students sought cover, law enforcement officers armed with military-grade weapons swarmed the building. Parents rushed to a local Marriott hotel to reunite with their children.

“I tried to stay calm. Students were running everywhere,” said Dianna Milleret, a 16-year-old sophomore who heard the gunshots.

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Noelle Kaiser, 17, was in history class when a fire alarm went off. The class was gathered just outside the building when she heard three distinct gunshots.

“I am in shock,” she said softly after clutching her mother, Cheryl Kaiser, on the sidewalk outside the school.

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Seventeen patients were treated in three area hospitals, including two who died, said Dr. Evan Boyar of the Broward Health System. All suffered gunshot wounds.

“Words cannot express the sorrow that we feel,” said Robert W. Runcie, the Broward schools superintendent. “No parent should ever have to send their kid to school and have them not return.”

Parkland, an affluent suburb of Fort Lauderdale with a population of about 30,000, is known for its good public schools. Stoneman Douglas High is among the largest in the Broward school district, with about 3,000 students. The school will remain closed for the rest of the week. Gov. Rick Scott directed the state to lower its flags at half-staff until Monday.

“My prayers and condolences to the families of the victims of the terrible Florida shooting,” President Trump wrote on Twitter. “No child, teacher or anyone else should ever feel unsafe in an American school.”

As the authorities frantically searched for the person responsible, they asked residents of the city to avoid the area around the school.

For hours, parents were lined along Coral Springs Drive, calling their children on cellphones and pacing. Some parents said their children told them only to text to not make noise. One parent of two daughters at a nearby middle school said he sat in a bank lobby near the school and prayed.

The gunfire came as some students were still staring at chalkboards and listening to lectures.

Rebecca Bogart, 17, a senior, said her teacher was finishing up a discussion of the Holocaust when she heard a series of loud bangs.

“We all got on the floor and under the desk,” said Ms. Bogart, who was still shaking outside the school. “It felt like we were there 10 or 15 minutes and then shots came through the window and the glass shattered.”

She couldn’t see her classmates fall, but she could see at least five were bleeding, one in the head and one in the leg. “I was trying to keep calm and my friend was holding my hand to keep it from shaking,” she said.

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When the authorities arrived, they took out her wounded classmates first. “There was blood all over the floor,” she said, “You never think something like this is going to happen to you and then it does.”

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