DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus Another School Shooting, Parkland, Florida

Anyways, you luck out.

I am done with my tea.

So I am going to bed.

I may fight about this tomorrow. Or not.

I have kids, and have raised two nieces. So before you open your mouth again, keep my family out of it.

secondly, you still refuse to tell me your vast knowledge of the situation and how you know what mental help these parents gave or did not give. please do tell what this kid received or did not receive? And at what point then are the parents not at fault eve? 19,20,25,30,35. Should the vegas killers parents be held accountable for his actions? But please, do not try to deflect again, what knowledge of the situation and help or lack of help, do you know these parents gave? I ask you for the 3rd or 4th time, its been so many i have lost count.

What to Know About Alleged Florida School Shooter Nikolas Cruz

By JOHN PATRICK PULLEN and CASEY QUACKENBUSHUpdated: February 15, 2018 12:40 AM ET Originally published: February 14, 2018


Authorities say they have taken 19-year-old former student Nikolas Cruz into custody in connection with the deadly shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Wednesday.

The school shooting suspect was reportedly arrested “without incident” an hour after leaving the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School grounds.

Seventeen people were killed and more than 14 were injured in the Parkland, Florida school shooting.

Authorities believe the suspected shooter worked alone. More than 3,200 students attend ninth through 12th grade at the high school, which is staffed by approximately 130 teachers.

Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel confirmed in a evening news conference that Cruz is a former student of the high school who was expelled for disciplinary reasons, Fox News reports. Sen. Bill Nelson also told Fox that Cruz was wearing a gas mask during the shooting and may have been carrying smoke bombs.


Accounts from Peers

In an interview Wednesday evening with CNN, Marjory Stoneman Douglas math teacher Jim Gard, who had Cruz as a student in 2016, was surprised to hear the news of his arrest. “He was a quiet kid in class, I never had any problems with Nick,” Gard said.

However, speaking to the Miami Herald, Gard said that he believed an email from the school administration had circulated among teachers, warning that Cruz had made threats against other students. “We were told last year that he wasn’t allowed on campus with a backpack on him,” Gard said. “There were problems with him last year threatening students, and I guess he was asked to leave campus.”

Superintendent Robert Runcie of the Broward County School District told reporters outside the school they had received no concerns about Cruz. “We received no warnings,” he said. “Potentially there could have been signs out there. But we didn’t have any warning or phone calls or threats that were made.”

A student named Nicholas Coke interviewed on the scene by WSVN-7 described Cruz as a “loner.” “He had a lot of problems in middle school,” Coke said.

“He’s been a troubled kid,” an unidentified student who said he knew Cruz told local media. “And he’s always had a certain amount of issues going on.”

“All he would talk about is guns, knives and hunting,” former classmate Joshua Charo, 16, told the Miami Herald. “I can’t say I was shocked. From past experiences, he seemed like the kind of kid who would do something like this.”

Emerging Social Media Profile

Authorities have begun looking into what they describe as Cruz’s social media profile, findings which Sheriff Israel described to reporters as “very, very disturbing.”

Unverified images on social media accounts cited by multiple media sources appear to show a man holding firearms, wielding knives, and showing a collection of guns on a bed.

A student who fled Wednesday’s attack, Daniel Huerfano, told AP he recognized Cruz from an Instagram photo where he posed with a gun in front of his face.

A 17-year-old junior named Dakota Mentcher also recalled to AP that Cruz had posted Instagrams about killing animals. Mentcher said Cruz would also talk about doing target practice in his backyard with a pellet gun.

“He started going after one of my friends, threatening her, and I cut him off from there,” Mentcher said. “I think everyone had in their minds if anybody was going to do it, it was going to be him.”

Life at Home

Cruz was adopted by Lynda and Roger Cruz when he was an infant, ABC reports. According to Kathie Blaine, the cousin of Cruz’s adopted mother who lives in New York, Lynda died of the flu in November. Blaine also said Cruz’s adoptive father died 13 years ago of a heart attack, according to ABC.

Helen Pasciolla, a retired neighbor who lives in the Cruz family’s former neighborhood in Parkland, told the New York Times that Cruz and his brother, Zachary, who was also adopted, had regular behavioral problems. Pasciolla said their mother would sometimes call the police to come over and talk to the boys.

“I think she wanted to scare them a little bit,” Pasciolla said to the Times. “Nikolas has behavioral problems, I think, but I never thought he would be violent.”

Since the death of his mother, Cruz moved in with a friend’s family who lives in Broward, the Miami Herald reports. Cruz began working at a dollar store and attending a school for at-risk youth.

Broward County Mayor Beam Furr told CNN the suspected shooter was getting treatment from a mental health clinic for a period of time. “It wasn’t like there wasn’t concern for him,” Furr said. “We try to keep our eyes out on those kids who aren’t connected … Most teachers try to steer them toward some kind of connections. … In this case, we didn’t find a way to connect with this kid.”

http://time.com/5159134/who-is-the-florida-shooter-parkland-nicolas-cruz/

That's it young man. I am going to count to 3 and you better stop. If not I am going to stand you in the corner for 30 seconds.

The FBI Was Warned About A School Shooting Threat From A YouTube User Named Nikolas Cruz In September

In September, a YouTube user named Nikolas Cruz left a comment on a video stating: "I'm going to be a professional school shooter." The video's creator alerted both the FBI and YouTube.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/briannasacks/th...gD7Y#.bjlZ7AYpD

This could be a watershed moment for congress and the NRA.

They can't solve societies Ills but they can address the availability of AR 15's and other such weapons..

I'm so sad for these kids and the parents. 17 souls lost.


it's odd also, but growing up in Rural PA, kids drove the family pickup truck to school all the time, quite often, there was a gun rack in the back with a gun in it.

"A gunman cannot be allowed to breach entry points."

"There must be metal detectors and armed guards manning each entry point."

This is a terrible idea.

These are schools not combat zones. And 99.99% of all schools never have a problem.

As swish would say:

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

So sad, more dead kids.

Get the statistics, cliches, and memes ready..

Oh and don't forget to send thoughts and prayers first.

bang, bang
splish, splash
thoughts/prayers
rinse, repeat.



"There is something deeply hypocritical about praying for a problem you are unwilling to resolve."
Miroslav Volf

I wasn't replying to you, I was just posting an article and your post was the last one posted.

Whenever I reply to someone I usually use the quote option.

No offense, old friend..........but, this problem far exceeds gun control.

In fact, the constant emphasis on gun control every time a situation like this occurs only derails us from getting to the core problems w/our youths and schools.

I am not a gun advocate at all. However, the problems won't be solved by something so easy as passing gun legislation.

It would take a monumental effort to attack this issue head on. There are no easy solutions and a lot of the needed decisions would be scorned by many. I believe that many of the policies in place in today's schools actually nurture the undesirable behaviors.

Clem, I'm not some tough-talking, conservative, redneck. The problems w/dealing w/troubled youths in our schools are very real.

One more thing, the mass murders obviously get a lot of media attention, but the number of teen suicides is increasing dramatically, especially for girls where the rate has almost doubled since the early 2000s.

We have a real problem here and it seems that people want to ignore it and deflect it onto something else.

You must understand something, my friend:
I said absolutely nothing about gun control.

In fact, I believe as you do. I also believe that that this issue is so multi-faceted it will probably never be adequately addressed.

I guess it was the "bang, bang" thing.

I only addressed you because I respect your intelligence and rationality. This is a very important issue to me and I could write volumes on it. I've been reluctant to share some of my specific thoughts and ideas on what is currently being done and what should be done because I haven't found this forum the most open-minded venue. I don't think we can categorize what's going on and start taking sides, but I'm smart enough to know that is exactly what would occur if we were to get into the discussion.

j/c

I agree with Eve, this is ALL parenting. Here's my experience; married twice to single mother's, (I do not have biological kids of my own) and having dated several single mother's I have noticed a problem of epidemic proportions. I am not going to blame only mother's as father's are also the problem.

Parents do not want to hear concerns raised about their children. They talk freely about other kids but when you say something about theirs, man o man a war breaks out.

Coincidentally, both of my marriages started out with a 4 yr old boy. My 1st marriage I stayed because of the boy. I told my wife if I could divorce you and take custody of him, I would. When he turned 18, I divorced her. He's 30 now, hasn't spoke to his mother in over 10 yrs but calls or texts me daily. Hmmm....wonder why?

My 2nd marriage, I left after 4 yrs. I told my wife that she has her head so far up her kids ass she has no clue about what else is happening around her. I'm not going to get into specifics because it will sicken you. I had a conversation with her mother about the problem. Her reply was she knows her daughter over compensates and gave all kinds of BS excuses why. I said to her the REAL problem is that the family structure has been destroyed in this country and she's proof of it.

How many times have you heard single mothers say I don't need a man or a single father say this? They're both right but what they fail to recognize is that your child DOES! Dumb asses!

This isn't just on the parents, and I know the mom just passed away recently. The students at the school are mostly commenting this was 100% expected. They all figured this kid would do this exact thing. None of them are surprised.

Sooooo....our kids need to say something when they see something. If he had bombs, guns and swastika graffiti in his locker, owned a ton of firearms, he was threatening kids and generally being "creepy" about killing things on social media, our kids (or whomever is seeing that behavior) needs to tell this stuff to teachers and the principal.

I saw a Facebook video this morning, I don't know how to link it here. But the guy, Sean Whalen, wants to empower the kids of this generation to speak up more. The signs were there.

I still don't think this is a gun issue (while I admit a system should be able to sniff these guys out and keep guns from their hands). However, no amount of gun control is perfect. He could have bought guns off someone else illegally. My point, if the signs were there about this kid and nobody took action, that was the preventable point.

Heck, everyone wants to create more "gun free zones" to prevent shootings. This monster didn't care the school was a "gun free zone". He did it anyway. Heck, he knew he'd have the only gun in the area. He was banking on it.

I see that the indoctrination has gotten to you....I never want to hear you criticize or rant against anyone that groups gays, blacks, Hispanics or any of the other special minorities in a negative light.

You are correct that kids need to say something. However, too many kids JOKE about crap like this and your asking other kids to decipher what is a real threat and what is a joke.

Everything you say about other kids commenting they predicted this is true but there is ALWAYS evidence of the same indicators at HOME. The problem is, parents, adopted parents, foster parents, guardians or whomever has responsibility FAIL to acknowledge the indicators.

My kid wouldn't do something like this but yours would. That's what I hear from parents. All the while the social media posts, websites visited by their kid go unchecked.

I also find it hard to believe that all these kids that predicted this never said nothing to their parents. My 13 yr old stepson tells me EVERYDAY what happens at school. Why, because I ask him, how was your day buddy? He always starts with another fight, another bomb threat was found written on the bathroom wall etc... then he talks about classwork.

Interesting link.

I would suggest people click on it, then click on any of the red dots. It will give details on each incident.

https://www.dailywire.com/node/27165#

In the wake of the horrific school shooting on Wednesday at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in South Florida, various news outlets, seemingly trying to convince the public that an astronomical number of school shootings have occurred in 2018, promulgated the claim that the Wednesday shooting was the 18th school shooting since January 1, 2018, by running with that narrative at the top of their articles.

Here are some examples:

ABC News: “There have been 18 school shootings in the first 45 days of 2018, according to a nonprofit group.”


New York Daily News: “There have been 18 school shootings so far this year, including one that claimed 17 lives at a Florida public school Wednesday.”

WUSA9: “Within the first couple months of 2018, there have now been 18 school shootings across the United States.”

But that narrative was gleaned from the anti-gun group Everytown for Gun Safety. Here are some facts, in order to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to the facts:

Twice, someone shot themselves on school grounds; one incident, on January 3, featured a man shooting himself in a former school’s parking lot; on January 10 a teen killed himself in an Arizona elementary school bathroom.

Four times, a bullet was fired through a school or dorm’s window: on January 4, a gunshot was fired at a high school in Seattle through an office window; no one was hurt. On January 10, a shot was fired shattering a California State University classroom window. No injuries were reported. The same day, in Texas, a bullet was accidentally fired through a classroom wall at the Grayson College Criminal Justice Center. No one was injured. On January 15, a bullet traveled through a residential hall’s dorm room. No injuries were reported.

On January 25, a Mobile, Alabama, high school student fired a gun on campus. No one was injured. On January 26, in Dearborn, Michigan, shots were fired from a car in a parking lot; no injuries were reported.

On February 5, in Maplewood, Minnesota, a third-grader pulled the trigger on a cop's gun. No one was injured. On February 8, in New York, a shot was fired inside Metropolitan High School. No one was injured.

Here are the cases where someone was injured other than the shooter:

January 22, Italy, Texas: a teenage girl was wounded by shots from a semi-automatic handgun. The same day, in Gentilly, Louisiana, a 14-year-old boy was injured in a shooting. February 1, Los Angeles, California: five children were injured in an accidental shooting. February 5, Maryland: a teenager was shot and injured outside of a high school.

The fatalities:

January 20, Winston-Salem, North Carolina: A football player was shot and killed. January 23, Benton, Kentucky: Two people were killed and another 15 were shot at Marshall County High School. January 31, a fight broke out at a Pennsylvania high school; a 32-year-old man was shot and later died.

So of the 17 “school shootings” before Wednesday’s shooting; three students died; roughly 30-35 were injured.

Those numbers are still more than zero, which is what we would all hope for, but the efforts to paint the latest shooting, which was truly horrible, as a another in a series of mass shootings compressed so closely in time is simply not an accurate reflection of reality.

Perhaps there is a way to reconcile these viewpoints.

Is there some kind of non-intrusive technology that would alert the system if a student were to bring a gun past a checkpoint? I'm not talking about TSA style security in schools. I just mean some kind of scanner that detects metal, and has some kind of algorithm that can differentiate between normal stuff people carry versus an arsenal.

I'm not sure if this exists. If it doesn't, somebody should make it-- I'm going to be that annoying "ideas" person and leave the details to the engineers.

They are good points and good questions. I've advocated "hardening" the schools to a certain degree for years. I'm sure it's come up on here as well.

How to balance security vs privacy is a perplexing topic. I have to agree that we're not doing enough to protect our kids though.

There are thousands of retired LEO's that would volunteer their time to help protect the school grounds.

Maybe that application process needs it's own vetting, but I'd feel better knowing all the schools in my area had at least one retired LEO walking the school grounds with a firearm watching for this crap.

We protect our banks with armed security guards, why not provide the same service for our kids?

A few points/questions on this... then what?

So some kids say this kid is acting out.. what do the authorities do about it if he hasn't broken any laws as of yet? Do you confine him? Do you just "keep an eye on him"? Is the fact that he's acting weird enough to allow the authorities to start digging through his stuff?

I'm not asking to be sarcastic because I do think that kind of first-hand information is important but it leaves me with the question, what do we do once we have that information (from a moral and a legal perspective)...

And kids have been trained to not mention "weird behavior".. they have been trained in the "I'm ok, you're ok" mindset that we are all entitled to be ourselves and be as weird or quirky as we want and do whatever we want and nobody is allowed to judge anybody elses weirdness... and if you say something to an authority figure about another kid acting weird, YOU are the one who could face consequences... I'm not sure many of them know how to turn that off when it bridges from "normal" weirdness to potentially dangerous...


Punch nobody expects perfect.. people expect effort, they expect change, they expect SOMETHING other than prayers and empty shouting matches as we wait for it to happen again. Because it will....


I have to admit that the one argument I hear every time this happens is "We already have laws against it... so if somebody is willing to break the law, what else can we do?"

In 2001, Richard Reid snuck explosives onto a plane in his shoes... there were already laws against blowing up airplanes.. there were already laws against even having explosives on planes... yet nobody said, "we have laws, nothing else we can do." We did something. Everybody now takes their shoes off at the airport and it's a minor inconvenience but people have adapted.

So this guy, who killed 0 people, managed to get a law changed and made stricter to prevent even another attempt of what he tried to do... There are 10s of thousands of gun deaths each year in this country and some maintain that there is nothing else we can do legally to prevent it... I really struggle to rationalize that in my brain...


Gun free zones don't work (I'm also of the opinion that they don't hurt much either), stricter gun laws in isolated areas like DC or Chicago don't work...

It's about proximity... if I can drive out of the city 10 minutes and buy whatever I want and take it back in.. then it won't have any impact.

Ironically, this is the starting point - we're human. Everybody wants to be accepted in a world that does it's best to chastise them.

As a society, we've succeeded in clearing a path to create the perfect beast.

Grade school kids struggle with acceptance. They are made fun of because they are "different" or "don't fit in".

When they're old enough, we expose them to social media. Middle School - and now they're feeling the full wrath of "virtual anonymity" in those bringing the attack. Look at this forum... there are about ten posters, if given the opportunity, might just punch each other right in the face the first time they meet. Joking, we have the ability to separate what goes on here and put things in perspective. But not little Johnny Rambo, he's been put in this box for years and he's lost touch with the real world because he's crawled in a shell to avoid it.

You can usually connect the dots and see that these "perps" had a long history of being outcasts. And most have shown the signs of wanting and willing to fight back, many in a very disturbing way. Everybody at every level ignores the signs. This is where we as a society have failed.

We let our kids be their own guardians by age twelve. Dinner around the table is "There's pizza in the kitchen!" We ignore signs as a society. We legislate ways into a deeper mess, everybody pointing fingers at "what's wrong". We glamorize guns, we glamorize killing. We stir this pot of $h*t soup and expect that the taste will change if we just add a few more spices. The recipe is broken we need to start all over with a new list of ingredients.

Gun Laws, Help Groups, Intervention, Bullying... they're all 20-20 hindsight discussion topics every time this happens... and they will not tame the perfect beast.

Columbine sets the bar. The fame, the bloodbath, the body count. "Aim high young man, you can have your name in lights. Hollywood and the world at large will keep it there forever" And it will...

Eloquent:


We Fail.

In California, one family was caught imprisoning and abusing their children over the course of several years. As a result of that one instance, the state is pushing a new law proposal which would require families of home-schooled children to be interviewed and have their homes inspected at regular intervals.

So, the answer here should be obvious. Home inspections and interviews of all families of public school children.

Of course, people have a problem when it's their own liberties that are being infringed for the safety of others ...

j/c...

Florida lawmakers repeatedly denied pleas for more school-safety money

In the link, there is pie chart that illustrates how the money is allocated for the 'Safe Schools' program in FL. What is unfortunate is just how little of that money is actually spent on behavior-driven intervention, bullying intervention and suicide prevention.

For example, of the total $64.4M only $61,191 was spent on bully-intervention and only $8,505 was spent on suicide prevention.

This country has a serious mental health problem that is being neglected.

Just mentioning gun control is a waste of time in the U.S.A.

Are public school children hosting classes at their homes?

Well we meet once again in a school shooting thread.
Been doing this since 1999 over Columbine.

Same people talking the same law changes, mental health treatments, taking away guns, fixing society, on and on.

In the meantime, schools that have added armed guards and hardened security measures are forced to read about the horrors at schools that don't have that same common sense.

See you at the next one, bye now.

I actually agree with that. I just doubt school administrators would be able to find the budget to actually do something like that.

Right, and that mindset has to change. It's okay to say, "that kid is acting different and you may want to watch him."

As for what happens after watching, maybe simply bringing him in for a talk. I think most would agree this is a cry for help or he wants attention, so get him some help or attention before it's too late.

Maybe a school counselor could have helped. I don't know. Heck, maybe a school counselor did talk to this kid, I/we don't know that yet.

As for your other points, all fair and worthy. How does a new gun law prevent this situation? As most of my gun friends say, "if they only enforced the gun laws already on the books..."

Prayers and thoughts are the best we can do?

I can appreciate the preventive measures you folks are talking about but they solve nothing. If a kid wants to shoot up a school he'll find a way to do it.

Everybody is ignoring my post about the parents. That just solidifies my point, parents don't want to hear criticisms about their child.

We have a kid in our middle school (New Smyrna Beach middle school). He's 13 and he parallels this Nickolas Cruz. I've known him since he was a Tiger Scout (7 yrs old). He's being raised by his grandparents because the father is unknown and the mother is a serious drug addict. This kid is a loner, rarely speaks when you talk to him and a very slow learner.

I'm on the board of review for the Boy Scouts with 2 other parents. When we interview him for next rank we're taken aback with what we witness. You ask him a question and he'll give you a stare that's horrifying then he'll start smacking himself in the head. It's a consensus among all adults that know him, something is wrong and if there ever was a kid to shoot up a school, it's him.

The grandparents get offended when we voice our concerns. We've tried everything to get this kid to be involved with others to no avail. My question is, what the hell can we do when the damn people responsible for his well being won't listen?

We all fear New Smyrna Beach Middle School will be the next news story.

Confirmed the shooter was a member of a white nationalist group.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/leade...school-53115589

Not a surprise, right?