AN INDIAN American student is among those injured in a shooting in a Florida school where a a former student armed with a rifle opened fire, killing at least 17 people.
Fifteen people were killed at the school itself and 17 were taken to hospital, two of whom died of their wounds, the police said. One of those killed was a football coach, and one student injured was a deputy sheriff's son.
Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel identified the gunman as Nikolas Cruz, 19, a former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland who had been expelled for "disciplinary reasons," but was currently enrolled in Broward County Public Schools.
Among students at the Parkland school are a many Indian-American pupils and at least one student from the community was injured in the incident.
An Indian-American student, a ninth grader, suffered minor injures after he was hit by splinters. He is being treated at a hospital.
“This is a sad day for the country and the community. We all Indian-Americans are praying for the victims,” said Shekar Reddy, whose friend's son was among those injured in the mass shooting.
Cruz, whose fellow students described him as "troubled," was arrested without incident in the nearby town of Coral Springs after the Valentine's Day rampage and taken to hospital with minor injuries, the sheriff said.
He had mixed in with students fleeing the school before being caught, officials said.
"We have already begun to dissect his websites and things on social media that he was on and some of the things... are very, very disturbing," Israel said.
"If a person is predisposed to commit such a horrific event by going to a school and shooting people ... there's not anybody or not a lot law enforcement can do about it."
Israel said both students and adults had been killed, 12 of whom have now been identified.
A teacher at the school said Cruz had been identified previously as a potential threat to his classmates.
"We were told last year that he wasn't allowed on campus with a backpack on him," math teacher Jim Gard said in a Miami Herald interview.
"There were problems with him last year threatening students, and I guess he was asked to leave campus."
Cruz was also said to have been in the Junior ROTC (Reserve Officers' Training Corps) program while at school.
(Agencies)
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