On February 14, 2018, 19-year-old Nikolas Jacob Cruz walked into his former school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida, and fatally shot seventeen people—fourteen students and three teachers—while wounding another seventeen. Cruz fled the scene on foot by blending in with the students and was arrested without incident approximately one hour and twenty minutes later in nearby Coral Springs. Police and prosecutors investigated "a pattern of disciplinary issues and unnerving behavior". The incident is the deadliest mass shooting at a high school in US history, surpassing the 1999 Columbine High School massacre.
Students at Parkland founded Never Again MSD, an advocacy group that lobbies for gun control. On March 9, Governor Rick Scott signed a bill that implemented new restrictions to Florida's gun laws and also allowed for the arming of teachers who were properly trained and the hiring of more school resource officers.
The Broward County Sheriff's Office received widespread criticism for its handling of the police response, both for not following up on multiple warnings about Cruz despite a lengthy record of threatening behavior and for staying outside the school instead of immediately confronting him. This led to the resignations of several police officers who responded to the scene, and the removal of Sheriff Scott Israel. A commission appointed by then-governor Scott to investigate the shooting condemned the police inaction and urged school districts across the state to adopt greater measures of security.
On October 20, 2021, Cruz pleaded guilty to all charges and apologized for his crimes. The prosecution sought the death penalty, and a four-month death penalty trial was expected to commence in January 2022. After suffering numerous delays, in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the trial commenced on July 18, 2022. On October 13, 2022, a jury unanimously agreed that Cruz was eligible for the death penalty, but deadlocked on whether it should be imposed, resulting in a recommendation to sentence him to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. On November 2, 2022, Cruz was sentenced to life without parole, in accordance with a Florida law requiring the court not to depart from the jury's recommendation. The unanimity required to impose the death penalty has since been overturned by a bill signed by Governor Ron DeSantis, partly as a result of Cruz's sentencing.
Incident
Context
The shooting took place at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, an affluent suburb about 30 miles (48 km) northwest of Fort Lauderdale and 45 miles (72 km) northwest of Miami.
On February 14, 2018, Nikolas Cruz, the shooter, was dropped off at the school by an Uber driver at 2:19 p.m., 20 minutes before dismissal time. According to a police report, Cruz was carrying a rifle case and a backpack. He concealed an AR-15–style semi-automatic rifle and multiple magazines. He was spotted and recognized by a campus monitor, who radioed a colleague that he was walking "purposefully" toward Building 12. The campus monitor did not declare a Code Red lockdown but sent a radio message to a colleague inside Building 12, which Cruz had entered. The school's policies did not specify clearly who could order a lockdown, and staff had been trained not to order a lockdown unless they saw a gun or heard shots being fired.
Cruz entered Building 12, a three-story structure containing 30 classrooms typically occupied by about 900 students and 30 teachers, at approximately 2:21 p.m.
Upon entering the building, Cruz rapidly assembled his weapon at the base of a stairwell adjacent to the first floor classrooms. As he did so, a student named Christopher McKenna encountered Cruz and Cruz informed him:
"[You'd] better get out of here, something bad's about to happen." McKenna fled the building and notified staff members of the unfolding threat.
Mass shooting
As Cruz entered the first floor hallway, he saw and fatally shot three students—Martin Anguiano, Gina Montalto, and Luke Hoyer—who were in the hallway outside room 1215. They were killed at 2:21 p.m., and Cruz shot and wounded a fourth student in the hallway, 15-year-old Ashley Baez. He fired through the windows of four closed classroom doors, killing six more students and wounding thirteen others.
Due to gunshot reverberation within the hallways, the fire alarm within the building activated, causing confusion because there had been a fire drill earlier in the day. Students were unable to seek shelter at "hard corners"—areas of a classroom that people could safely hide at if a gunman peered through the window of a door—because many of the classrooms in Building 12 lacked one, and furniture otherwise obstructed potential safe spaces.
As the shooting unfolded, employees did not call a "Code Red" because of their confusion over who had the authority to do so. At about 2:21 p.m., a staff member eventually activated a lockdown, but only after discovering one body and hearing gunfire. An armed school resource officer of the Broward County Sheriff's Office was on campus when the shooting broke out, and he remained outside between Building 12 and the adjacent Building 7.
After killing two staff members near the first-floor stairwell, Cruz went to the second floor and fired into two empty classrooms. On the third floor, he shot and killed five students and another staff member, who all had been stranded in the hallway; he shot and injured three other students and two teachers. Next, he went into a teachers' lounge where he attempted but failed to shoot out the hurricane-resistant windows facing the yard in order to target students and staff fleeing below.
Cruz had carved swastikas onto the ammunition magazines that he left at the school, and
two of those killed and another four who were injured were students in a Holocaust History class. The teacher, Ivy Schamis, was teaching a class lesson on combating hate when Cruz fired shots into her classroom. However, according to Schamis, Cruz was unaware that he was shooting into a class on the Holocaust.
After Cruz stopped shooting, he dropped his rifle on the third floor of the building and left the scene by blending in with fleeing students. He walked to a fast-food restaurant, stopping at a mall to get a soda on the way, and lingered before leaving on foot at 3:01 p.m.
Of the seventeen fatalities, fourteen were students and three were faculty members. Cruz fired 139 shots during the shooting: 70 on the first floor, 2 in the stairwell, 6 on the second floor, and 61 on the third floor.
Arrest
At about 3:41 p.m., police stopped Cruz 2 miles (3.2 km) from the school in the Wyndham Lakes neighborhood of Coral Springs and arrested him as the suspected shooter. He was then taken to a hospital emergency room with "labored breathing." After 40 minutes, Cruz was released back into police custody and booked into the Broward County Jail.
The shooting lasted for about six minutes in total, and all of the victims were shot within just under four minutes. School surveillance camera video showed Cruz as the shooter, and he was also recognized by eyewitnesses. While SWAT paramedics were inside the building, additional paramedics from the local Fire-Rescue department repeatedly asked to enter the building. These requests were denied by the Broward Sheriff's Office, even after the suspect was arrested.
Victims
Casualties
Killed on first floor:
Killed on third floor:
Injured:
Seventeen people were killed, and seventeen more were wounded. Three of the wounded remained in critical condition the day after the shooting, and one remained by the second day.
Fatalities
Fourteen of the fatalities died inside the building; three others died in or en route to the hospital.
Geography teacher Scott Beigel was killed after he unlocked a classroom for students to enter and hide from Cruz. Aaron Feis, an assistant football coach and security guard, was killed as he entered the building in response to reports of the ongoing shooting. Chris Hixon, the school's athletic director, was killed as he ran toward the sound of the gunfire.
Student Peter Wang was last seen in his Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (JROTC) uniform, reportedly holding doors open so others could escape. At their respective funerals, Wang, Alaina Petty, and Martin Duque were all posthumously honored by the US Army with the ROTC Medal for Heroism, and Wang was buried in his JROTC Blues uniform. On February 20, Wang was posthumously admitted to the United States Military Academy.
Alyssa Alhadeff was the captain of the Parkland Soccer Club. On March 7, 2018 she was honored by the United States women's national soccer team prior to a game in Orlando. Her teammates and family were invited to the game and presented with official jerseys that featured her name.
Meadow Pollack was a senior who was shot four times; upon being initially wounded seconds after Cruz had fatally shot Scott Beigel, Pollack crawled toward a classroom door, where a 14-year-old freshman named Cara Loughran—also wounded by Cruz—had sought refuge. Cruz located Pollack and Loughran and discharged his weapon five more times, killing both girls.
Injuries and survivors
Sixteen students and two teachers were wounded in the shooting. The last victim to remain hospitalized, 15-year-old Anthony Borges, was discharged from the hospital on April 4. Borges was shot five times after reportedly attempting to barricade the door of a classroom. Upon his release, Borges issued a statement that criticized the actions of Broward Sheriff's deputies, Sheriff Scott Israel, and School Superintendent Robert Runcie. His family has filed notice of its intent to sue the school district for personal injury to cover costs related to his recovery. Borges was honored with a humanitarian award at the 2018 BET Awards.
Teacher Ivy Schamis was presented with USC Shoah Foundation's inaugural Stronger Than Hate Educator Award in 2019. During her acceptance speech at the award ceremony, Schamis honored victims Nicholas Dworet and Helena Ramsay, who died in her class during the shooting.
Suicides
Immediately after the shooting, trauma counselors met with teachers, students, and their families. Survivors of the shooting, teachers and students alike, have struggled with survivor's guilt and other symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). On March 17, 2019, thirteen months after the shooting, 19-year-old Sydney Aiello, who survived the shooting, died by suicide. She was reportedly terrified of being in a classroom and also had been treated for survivor's guilt and PTSD. Less than one week later, on March 23, 2019, 16-year-old Calvin Desir, another survivor of the shooting, also died by suicide. In December 2025, nearly eight years after the shooting, Donovan Metayer committed suicide at age 26 because of trauma associated with the event; he had been suffering a "years-long battle with schizophrenia" according to his family.
Perpetrator
Summary
Nikolas Jacob Cruz was born on September 24, 1998, in Margate, Florida, and was adopted at birth by Lynda and Roger Cruz. Both his adoptive parents died when he was young: Roger at age 67 on August 11, 2004, when Cruz was 5; and Lynda at age 68 on November 1, 2017, leaving Cruz orphaned at age 19. This was three months before the shooting. Since his mother's death, he had been living with relatives and friends. At the time of the shooting, he was enrolled in a GED program and employed at a local Dollar Tree.
Cruz had behavioral issues since preschool, and was eligible for special education services alongside an IEP. According to The Washington Post, he was "entrenched in the process for getting students help rather than referring them to law enforcement". He was transferred between schools six times in three years in an effort to deal with these problems. Cruz returned to Stoneman Douglas High School two years later but was expelled in 2017 for disciplinary reasons. As he could not be expelled from the Broward County School system completely, he was transferred to alternative placement. A former classmate said Cruz had anger management issues and often joked about guns and gun violence, which included threats of shooting up establishments.
The Florida Department of Children and Families investigated him in September 2016 for Snapchat posts in which he cut both his arms and said he planned to buy a gun. At this time, a school resource officer suggested he undergo an involuntary psychiatric examination under the provisions of the Baker Act. Two guidance counselors agreed, but a mental institution did not. State investigators reported he had depression, autism, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, psychologist Frederick M. Kravitz later testified that Cruz was never diagnosed with autism. In their assessment, they concluded he was "at low risk of harming himself or others". He had previously received mental health treatment, but had not received treatment in the year leading up to the shooting.
Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel described Cruz's online profiles and accounts as "very, very disturbing". They contained pictures and posts of him with a variety of weapons, including long knives, a shotgun, a pistol, and a BB gun. Police said that he held "extremist" views; social media accounts that were thought to be linked to him contained anti-black and anti-Muslim slurs. In February 2017, Cruz legally purchased an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle from a Coral Springs gun store, after having passed the required background check. Prior to the purchase he had similarly obtained several other firearms, including at least one shotgun and several other rifles. At the time of the shooting, in Florida, it was legal for people as young as 18 to purchase guns from federally licensed dealers, including the rifle allegedly used in the shooting. The minimum age requirement has since been raised to 21.