Parkland Floriday Shooter Was Wearing a Red Make America Great Again Hat

PARKLAND, Florida—Nikolas Cruz, the man defendant of killing 17 people in a Florida loftier schoolhouse, was a member of a "white separatist paramilitary proto-fascist organization," a leader of the grouping told The Daily Beast.

Cruz, 19, is accused of opening burn within Marjory Stoneman Douglas Loftier School in Parkland, Florida. Jordan Jereb, a captain of the Republic of Florida, said Cruz trained with the group (equally first reported past the Anti-Defamation League).

Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said Thursday evening that the merits is "not confirmed at this time" but "we are looking into that." After previous mass shootings, the alt-right has spread disinformation online nearly declared perpetrators.

Jereb claimed Thursday morn Cruz was a part of the Republic of Florida.

"This is a difficult subject area," he said. "I've been taking calls all 24-hour interval on it. I'thousand many things, but I'm not a liar. I can't lie. He was part of our organisation. He wasn't particularly active in it, just at some indicate he came to Tallahassee with I believe the Clearwater RoF. I know he didn't live in Clearwater, simply I think that was the company he clicked up with."

Later taking a moment to check notes, Jereb confirmed Cruz came to Tallahassee with the "secretive cell" from Clearwater.

"They called him 'Nick,' they didn't telephone call him 'Nikolas,'" he said.

"I've been in the same room every bit the guy but I don't know the guy," he said. "I don't know precisely what he believes. I know he knew full well he was joining a white separatist paramilitary proto-facist arrangement. I know he knew that much."

RoF was recently operating in Tallahassee and attempting to court new members, co-ordinate to a local news report from concluding year. The group posts videos of training montages on the internet with members in fatigues brandishing weapons.

YouTube

"I'm not trying to glorify information technology, but he was pretty efficient in what he did," Jereb said. "He probably used that training to do what he did yesterday. Nobody I know told him to do that, he but freaked out."

Cruz received at least one of his guns through the white supremacist group, according to Jereb.

"I call back somebody bought him a Mosin–Nagant, just that'southward bolt action. He had a semi-automatic in the school," Jereb said.

Cruz bought the AR-xv rifle authorities say he used at the school in February 2017, the ATF said in an affirmation filed Thursday.

Jereb said Cruz "seemed similar merely a normal, disenfranchised, young white man."

While no motive has been described by police, Jereb speculated that Cruz may have allegedly committed the massacre out of hatred for Jews or women.

"There'south a very real sense of feminism being a cancer. That could've played into what he did, but we have female members of RoF," Jereb said, adding that "we're non a large fan of Jews. I think there were a lot of Jews at the schoolhouse that might take been messing with him."

Terminal year, an alleged school shooter in New Mexico also expressed alt-correct ideology online, as The Daily Beast previously reported.

Hate in High School

Seven classmates of Cruz told The Daily Beast he expressed extreme political views and disturbing behavior when he attended the high schoolhouse he is now defendant of attacking with a high-powered rifle.

"The ane person I would await to do it did information technology," said Julianna Sivon, who said she sabbatum next to Cruz in English language class last twelvemonth. "He loved talking about his guns. He just didn't seem right, simply he didn't seem similar he would do something this big."

Kamrie Bazal, 19, and Damar Osouna, 19, said they knew Cruz in school and that he talked about about guns but they did not suspect he would kill. Daniel Journey, 18, said Cruz was a troublemaker who was kicked out of grade once for not bad windows.

Nyla Hussain, a sixteen-twelvemonth-onetime junior, said her practiced friend sabbatum next to Cruz in biology course terminal twelvemonth and that he would regularly evidence her photos of dead animals.

"Whoever he sat next to in class he would show pics of animals that he hunted," she said.

Ii classmates said they saw Cruz wearing a "Brand America Great Once again" hat.

"I saw him clothing a Trump hat," said Sebastian Gonzalez, a 19-year-old who graduated in 2017.

Ocean Parodie, a 17-yr-onetime junior, said Cruz was politically extreme.

"For example, he would dethrone Islamic people as terrorists and bombers. I've seen him wear a Trump hat," Parodie said.

Josh Charo, a 16-year-former junior who was in JROTC with Cruz, said he oft expressed racist beliefs.

"He would always talk almost how he felt whites were a bit higher than everyone," Charo said. "He'd exist like, 'My people are over hither industrializing the world and starting new things, while your people [meaning blacks and Latinos] are just taking upwards space.'"

A Trigger-happy Life Online

Cruz wore the Trump hat in a photo on an Instagram business relationship the company said belonged to him. Over his face he wore a cherry-red, white, and blue bandanna. On that account and some other one, Cruz posted photos of guns, knives, anti-Muslim slurs, and a picture of a toad he killed.

On YouTube, a person past the same name spewed hateful commentary about anti-fascists.

Cruz also celebrated Elliot Rodger, the gunman who killed 7 people at the Academy of California, Santa Barbara in 2014 and who is considered a hero of the fringe men's rights movement.

"Elliot rodger will not exist forgotten," Cruz commented on one video one yr ago. He also commented on a CNN video called "Is our culture to blame for Elliot Rodger'due south rants?"

The FBI said on Thursday it had received a warning from a YouTube user most a "nikolas cruz" who wrote in a comment, "I'one thousand going to be a professional school shooter." FBI field agents interviewed the tipsters, just the bureau's special amanuensis in charge in Parkland said the FBI was unable to identify the user.

Neighborhood Terror

Rhonda Roxburgh told The Daily Beast she had run-ins with Cruz when she lived with her parents, who were neighbors of the Cruz family.

One summer twenty-four hours in 2013, Cruz slammed his backpack into the rear door of Roxburgh'due south car as she passed his house on her way to piece of work. She stopped the vehicle and got out to face up the teenager.

"I said, 'You can't destroy people's property. What were y'all doing?'" Roxburgh recalled. "He was snarky and laughing, and didn't desire to wait at me."

Later on that day, Roxburgh knocked on his mother Lynda Cruz's door and told her what had happened. "She said, 'No, no, no. Non my Nikolas.' She was pretty much in deprival there was any issue with him at that signal in time," Roxburgh said.

As Roxburgh spoke to Lynda Cruz, Nikolas was walking through the yard and toward the street. She confronted him again on her way home.

"When he looked at me, that private is a very, very cold, cold person. He did not care what I was talking about. He did not intendance what he did. I realized I was wasting my time with this child," said Roxburgh, 45, who now lives in N Carolina.

Cruz was known to kill squirrels and birds with a pellet gun, and neighborhood cats would disappear, Roxburgh said. She said she one time caught him jabbing a stick down a rabbit hole nearly his forepart 1000.

At one point, Cruz walked his dog to a neighbour's pen of piglets and tried to have the pooch attack them. "He was just a menacing child, to be quite frank," said Roxburgh, who lived in the neighborhood from 2009 to 2015.

"If you knew he was killing animals, what else could he do? You got that sense that there was no emotion at all, unfortunately," Roxburgh added. "Everyone was on the sentry for him. Everyone knew at that place was an issue."

Roxburgh oftentimes saw Cruz and his brother, Zachary, together early on. In 2012, the siblings were the best of friends and were seen together in the street.

Past 2014, the brothers "were definitely separate," Roxburgh said. Nikolas would sit on the curb waiting for the bus, alone, with children 30 to 40 anxiety abroad from him.

"They would never really collaborate," she said of the siblings. "Something happened at that place." Zachary Cruz would ride his skateboard by his blood brother as he waited at the bus finish.

Meanwhile, Roxburgh said broken furniture—a damaged hutch, bookcase, and mattress—was oftentimes placed at the curb exterior the Cruz family domicile. "I was thinking to myself, 'They must non have any furniture left,' because information technology was out there quite frequently," she said.

Police were also chosen to the business firm often, Roxburgh said.

"Some of the other people in the neighborhood [said], 'Boys will be boys.' There was something else at that place, much darker than that," Roxburgh said.

As for Cruz'southward alleged right-wing link, Jereb claimed afterwards Thursday the media tricked him into identifying Cruz.

"It's easy for them to misrepresent what I say. Are you really going to arraign ME for the lying jew media?" he wrote on Gab, a social media site favored by the fringe correct. Jereb did not reply to a further request for comment.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Eye, more than 100 people have been killed or injured by perpetrators influenced by the alt-right since 2014.

Editor'southward Note, two/15/18, half-dozen:15 p.yard.: This story has been updated throughout.

—Gideon Resnick and Elisha Brown contributed to this report

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Source: https://www.thedailybeast.com/nikolas-cruz-trained-with-florida-white-supremacist-group-leader-says

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