How Is It That The Parents And Others Did Not Know He Was A Time-bomb. Guns Don’t Kill But Idiots With Guns Do. “We Have Banned Murder and Cocaine But But Are Still Here”
He preened with guns and knives on social media, bragged about shooting rats with his BB gun and got kicked out of school — in part because he had brought bullets in his backpack, according to one classmate. He was later expelled for still-undisclosed disciplinary reasons.
The portrait of Nikolas Cruz, suspected of fatally shooting 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland and wounding 15 others at his former school, is a troubled teen with few friends and an obsessive interest in weapons. Administrators considered him enough of a potential threat that one teacher said a warning was emailed last year against allowing him on the campus with a backpack.
Parkland school shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz arrives at Broward County Jail on Thursday, February 15, 2018. Reliable News Media
Late Wednesday, detectives were digging into the past of the 19-year-old who had no previous arrests but had displayed plenty of troubling behavior before officers took him into custody after what ranks as the third-deadliest school shooting in American history.
“Our investigators began dissecting social media,” Broward Sheriff Scott Israel told reporters. “Some of the things thatcome to mind are very, very disturbing.”
Cruz, who was arrested soon after the shooting and taken to BSO headquarters, could face multiple state charges of first-degree murder and attempted murder.
At Stoneman Douglas High, he was part of the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps during his freshman year, classmates said. Charo said he spoke little and “was into some weird stuff.”
“He used to tell me he would shoot rats with his BB gun and he wanted this kind of gun, and how he liked to always shoot for practice,” Charo said.
Cruz’s Instagram page, identified by friends as his but which has since been removed from the popular site, underscored his love of weapons.
In the images, he sported dark bandanas over his face and beanies and baseball caps on his head.In one post, he wielded knives between his fingers as though they were claws. In another, he showed off a small black handgun.
“Pistol fun a– f–k” he wrote in that post.
One post on his Instagram was for an online ad for a Mossberg Maverick 88 slug shotgun. Another post showed the definition of “Allahu Akbar” — an Arabic phrase meaning God is great. Federal authorities, however, said Wednesday that they did not believe the shooting was connected to terrorism.
On Wednesday, police said, he was armed with an AR-15 rifle.
Friends said he spoke little of his relatives. He and his brother were adopted when they were young by Lynda and Roger Cruz, of Long Island, New York, according to relatives. They raised the boys in Parkland.
Roger Cruz died over a decade ago and Lynda struggled with the boys, said Barbara Kumbatovich, a former sister-in-law. “She did the best she could. They were adopted and had some emotional issues,” she said.
Kumbatovich said she believed Nikolas Cruz was on medication to deal with his emotional fragility. “She was struggling with Nikolas the last couple years,” she said.
After his mother died, Cruz moved in with a friend, whose family in Broward took him in and even gave him own bedroom. He worked at a dollar store and went to a school for at-risk youth, said Fort Lauderdale attorney Jim Lewis, who is representing the family.
Cruz had his AR-15, but the family asked that gun remain locked up in a cabinet, Lewis said. On Wednesday morning, Cruz slept in and gave only a cryptic reason why.
“He said, ‘It’s Valentine’s Day and I don’t go to school on Valentine’s Day,’” Lewis said.
The family had no idea what was going to happen, Lewis said. “Nobody saw this coming,” Lewis said. “They’re shocked.”
Charo, his former classmate, said Cruz had earlier been suspendedfrom Stoneman Douglas High for fighting — and also because he was found with bullets in his backpack. Sheriff Israel said at a news conference that Cruz had been expelled for “disciplinary reasons” but he did not provide any details of what led to that action.
Math teacher Jim Gard remembered that the school administration earlier sent out an email warning teachers about Cruz.
“We were told last year that he wasn’t allowed on campus with a backpack on him,” said Gard, who had him in class. “There were problems with him last year threatening students, and I guess he was asked to leave campus.”
Drew Fairchild, a Stoneman Douglas High student stranded at the Marriott Heron Bay, where students were taken after the shooting, said he shared a class with Cruz during their freshman year.
“He used to have weird, random outbursts, cursing at teachers,” Fairchild said. “He was a troubled kid.”
The parent of another student agreed, saying his son, Daniel, had warned him about Cruz.
“If you were to pick one person you might predict in the future would shoot up a school or do this, it would be this kid,” said John Crescitelli, quoting his son.
Superintendent Robert Runcie told reporters on Wednesday afternoon that he did not know of any concerns raised about the student. “We received no warnings,” Runcie said. “Potentially there could have been signs out there. But we didn’t have any warning or phone calls or threats that were made.”
Runcie, citing federal student privacy laws, declined to discuss the suspect’s school record. But he confirmed that Cruz was still a Broward schools student, despite having been kicked out of Stoneman Douglas High.
Another former classmate, Nicholas Coke, called Cruz a “loner” who left the school and moved away a few months ago. Coke said he recalls an incident in middle school when Cruz kicked out a glass window and ran out of his classroom before getting caught.
“He had a lot of problems in middle school,” Coke said. “You never think anyone you know is going to do something like this.”
CNN May Layoff 50 Employees Because Fake News Sucks.
CNN is preparing to lay off up to 50 employees mostly from its digital projects, after another ratings debacle for 2017 and a subsequent failure to reach expected ad revenue targets, a report says.
The news of the layoffs came from Vanity Fair’s Joe Pompeo, who reported on February 12 that CNN “is targeting big savings on the digital side” by shedding employees who work in the cabler’s “premium businesses including CNN Money, video, product, tech and social publishing.”
It appears that some of the initiatives that CNN chief Jeff Zucker has touted as the future of the network are being re-tooled and scaled back.
According to Pompeo:
Several high profile digital initiatives are being scaled back, including CNN’s virtual reality productions and its efforts on Snapchat, where CNN recently nixed a live daily webcast after just four months. CNN’s business-oriented MoneyStream app, as BuzzFeed reported earlier this month, is in the gutter as well. A team that works on the digital extensions of documentary-style TV shows, such as Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown and Lisa Ling’s This is Life, as well as the Brooke Baldwin series American Woman, is also being reorganized.
Tucked down in the story, Pompeo related what some of those revenue losses look like saying, “CNN missed its target by tens of millions of dollars, according to a person with knowledge of the numbers…”
This news comes two months after the tabulations for cable news ratings were released for the 2017 cable TV season, numbers that showed CNN coming in third place behind extremist, left-wing network MSNBC.
For a cable news network that was once considered the top name in cable news to come in third behind the partisans at MSNBC must be particularly galling.
As Breitbart’s John Nolte reported in December, the 2017 review not only found that CNN had come in last place, but even its primetime viewership eroded by double digits. And this was as second place MSNBC’s ratings soared, and ratings champ Fox News held tight to its top cable news spot.
CNN was in third place in total daily viewers by nearly 100,000 viewers behind second place MSNBC.
FNC: 1,501,000 (up eight percent)
MSNBC: 885,000 (up 47 percent)
CNN: 783,000 (up four percent)
Finally, it is clear that at present, ratings champ Fox News has nothing to fear from its competition. In 2017 Fox attracted almost as many viewers throughout the day as MSNBC and CNN combined. Fox News also doubled CNN’s growth (eight percent, compared to just four percent).
Under the leadership of Jeff Zucker, CNN has continued to struggle as the odd man out, commonly falling to last place in nearly every viewing hour.
When did mass shootings become a normal part of American life? There’s an entire generation growing up in fear that their school will be next. My thoughts are with families of victims & first responders in FL, but I also know that thoughts are not enough. It’s time for action.
BREAKING: At least 15 people are dead following shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, law enforcement officers on the scene tell @ABC News. http://abcn.ws/2GaFaYf
NEW: Parkland, Florida, high school shooting suspect appeared “to have pulled the school fire alarm causing chaos and then began shooting,” law enforcement source briefed on shooting tells CBS News http://cbsn.ws/2sxJGOs
Police respond to report of shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Florida
Authorities are investigating an incident at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida
He’s been a troubled kid and has always had a certain amount of issues going on. He shot guns because he felt it gave him I guess — what’s the word I’m looking for — an exhilarating feeling… He showed me [his guns] personally through his phone and stuff like that I stayed clear of him most of the time during my time in alternate school I didn’t wanna be with him at all because I didn’t wanna cause any conflict with him because that’s the impression he gave off.
5:05 p.m.:
Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel says the suspected shooter is was arrested without incident. They are still not sure if all the kids are out.
The Miami Heraldreports on the identity of the suspected shooter:
The former student suspected of opening fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland may been identified a potential threat to fellow students in the past, according to one teacher.
The 19-year-old ex-student, who has been detained by Broward police, has not been publicly identified as a suspect. But a law-enforcement source identified him as Nicolas Cruz.
…
“We were told last year that he wasn’t allowed on campus with a backpack on him,” said math teacher Jim Gard, who said Cruz had been in his class last year. “There were problems with him last year threatening students, and I guess he was asked to leave campus.”
Parents of students, please go to the Marriott Heron Bay located at 11775 Heron Bay Blvd in Coral Springs. Please wait to go to the staging area until everything is clear. @browardsheriff#StonemanDouglasHighSchool#Parkland
Brother of student in Florida school: “She was trembling. She was just in complete denial and complete shock, she couldn’t even — she was numb. The way to describe it, the messages her voice gave off, was that this isn’t reality.” http://nbcnews.to/2EsYjs3
Police apprehend suspect in shooting at Florida high school, report several fatalities http://on.wsj.com/2ErWNpV
Florida Police Respond to Report of Active Shooter at High School
A shooting at a Florida high school Wednesday sent students rushing out into the streets as police swarmed in and locked down the building. Ambulances converged on the scene as emergency workers…
“It’s a day that you pray, every day I get up, that we will never have to see.” Broward County Public Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie calls for the community to come together after a shooting at a high school in Parkland, FL. http://cnn.it/2CkB0Lc
School official says there are “numerous fatalities” after high school shooting in Parkland, Fla.; sheriff says “at least 14 victims”, their condition unclear. http://apne.ws/mXM7jsi
The Latest: Official: ‘Numerous fatalities’ in school attack
PARKLAND, Fla. (AP) — The Latest on a shooting at a Florida high school (all times local): 4:25 p.m. A school official says there are numerous fataliti
CNN reports that law enforcement sources say at least two were killed in the school shooting. Sources also report that the suspect is believed to be a student at the school.
4:28 p.m.:
Members of the establishment media are already earning the low opinion the public has of them:
JUST IN (warning, disturbing video): Cell phone video inside the school as shots were going off at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High http://cbsn.ws/2ErNC8Z
MORE: Male in red shirt appears to be handcuffed and apprehended by police officers in Parkland, Florida, following shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School http://cbsn.ws/2sxJGOs
My prayers and condolences to the families of the victims of the terrible Florida shooting. No child, teacher or anyone else should ever feel unsafe in an American school.
#BSO is working a developing incident regarding a report of active shooter located at 5901 Pine Island Rd, Parkland. Here’s what we know so far: deputies are responding to reports of a shooting at Stoneman Douglas High. There are reports of victims. PIO will be on scene 3:15pm.
WSVN reports “at least 20 people have been injured.”
During live broadcast, Fox News reported that police have ascertained “a person of interest” in the incident. That person is a student who was in class earlier today and is now “on the run.”
Left-wingers at Google are engaged in a relentless effort to demonetize Breitbart News from its AdSense platform and are linking advertising clients to the anti-Breitbart, far-left pressure group Sleeping Giants.
Previously, Google employees have contacted Breitbart News to reveal an atmosphere of indoctrination and intimidation, driven by leftist zealots at the company.
Current and former employees at Google now tell us that those same zealots are trying to use the company’s immense power against Breitbart News. In addition to placing pressure on management to take action against the site, they are also working to undermine Breitbart’s reputation with advertisers.
Breitbart News has obtained a screenshot (withheld to protect our source) that shows Google ad account manager Aidan Wilks advising another company – a client of Google’s – that advertising on Breitbart may impact their “brand safety.”
In the screenshot, Wilks can be seen linking Google’s client to the website of Sleeping Giants, a far-left organization that has repeatedly targeted Breitbart and other conservative-leaning news sites with false claims of racism and bigotry.
The screenshot also shows Matthew Rivard, another employee at Google, advising colleagues that Wilks’ message was a “nice template” for those who wished to “call out” the issue to clients. Rivard recommends that the message should be repeated for “other key accounts.”
Until April 2017, Rivard held the position of head of industry for performance advertising at Google. This made Rivard one of the go-to people for Google’s advertising clients. Rivard’s Linkedin page currently lists him as head of industry for branded apparel and e-commerce.
Harmeet Dhillon, the Republican national committeewoman for the California GOP and attorney for James Damore, who has also seen the screenshot, said that other Google AdSense users should be concerned about secret blacklisting.
“This communication from Google’s advertising department raises troubling questions about whether the company’s ideological bias extends beyond the employment claims covered in our lawsuit, to Google’s business practices toward AdWords publisher users as well,” said Dhillon.
“If there are indeed concerted efforts at Google to undermine the advertising revenue of disfavored publishers (an allegation YouTube is already facing in court through its abrupt demonetization of Prager University videos), then this conduct may give rise to additional legal claims. At a minimum, AdSense users may question whether they are being targeted for secret blacklisting as described here.”
Open Letter
According to multiple sources, leftist employees sent an open letter to Google’s management calling on them to demonetize Breitbart, which amassed over seven hundred supporters across the company. Conservatives at Google launched a counter-petition, which attracted over two hundred supporters.
Breitbart News has seen a copy of the anti-Breitbart letter, confirming its existence. The letter called for the removal of Breitbart from AdSense, and for the “blocking of all Google-served ads” on Breitbart.com.
The open letter accuses Breitbart of “hate speech”:
Googlers hold a diverse set of political, social, and economic perspectives, but respect and openness bind us together. The hate & bullying Breitbart incites toward Muslims , LGBTQ people , and women is incompatible with those shared values.
Among the authors of the open letter was Google employee Jeff Lakusta, who runs the technical support team behind the company’s ad buying platform.
The other authors were comms employee William Fitzgerald, senior software engineer Pierre Fite-Georgel, and the now-former employee Tim Chevalier, who Breitbart News exposed as a supporter of political violence and the “Antifa” domestic terroristorganization. Support for Antifa is widespread at Google, who have so far refused to issue a statement to us condemning political violence.
Although Google’s management did not cave in to the open letter, leftists have reportedly not stopped their efforts to demonetize Breitbart. According to one source, anti-Breitbart employees at the company are “literally keeping a spreadsheet” about the site.
“They have people trawling each article on the site [Breitbart] to see if they can find comments that might violate their policies in order to justify not trafficking ads.”
Fake News Panic
Another former Google employee spoke of an all-hands meeting at Google’s Mountain View headquarters in May, in which senior management stated that “for the last 6 months” they had been “committed to solving the fake news problem.”
This insider found the poorly-concealed political bias amusing.
“Hmmm, what happened 6 months [from May] to cause Google to suddenly become focused on fake news?”
May, of course, was exactly 6 months from the election of Donald Trump.
The people who are running Google’s “fake news” detection algorithms are “strongly biased,” claims one other source.
This bias revealed itself recently, in Google’s botched attempt to place “fact-check” messages next to “disputed” stories from news outlets.
The feature was abruptly canceled after a Daily Caller report revealed that it almost exclusively targeted conservative news sites, including Breitbart News, often by incorrectly attributing claims to their stories.
FBI Director James Comey held a secret Oval Office meeting with President Barack Obama two weeks before Trump’s inauguration and may have deliberately misled Congress about it, according to an email sent by National Security Advisor Susan Rice that GOP Sens. Chuck Grassley and Lindsey Graham partially unclassified.
The meeting — which Comey never previously disclosed to Congress — occurred in the White House on Jan. 5, 2017. It included Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Rice deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, and Comey. The topic of the meeting was potential Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
By failing to inform the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence about the meeting in his June 8, 2017, testimony, Comey may have deliberately and intentionally misled Congress about his interactions with the former president, especially a meeting so close to Trump entering the White House.
“President Obama had a brief follow-on conversation with FBI Director Comey and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates in the Oval Office,” Rice wrote in an email written the day before the inauguration.
The National Archives gave Grassley and Graham “classified and unclassified emails” about the meeting.
Previously, Comey contended he only met with the Obama twice, once in 2015 and another “to say goodbye in late 2016,” according the former FBI director’s June 8, 2017, testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
“I spoke alone with President Obama twice in person (and never on the phone) – once in 2015 to discuss law enforcement policy issues and a second time, briefly, for him to say goodbye in late 2016,” Comey’s opening statement read.
Grassley and Graham stated on their websites they “were struck by the context and timing of this email, and sent a follow up letter to Ambassador Rice.”
“It strikes us as odd that, among your activities in the final moments on the final day of the Obama administration, you would feel the need to send yourself such an unusual email purporting to document a conversation involving President Obama and his interactions with the FBI regarding the Trump/Russia investigation,” the two senators told Rice.
“In addition, despite your claim that President Obama repeatedly told Mr. Comey to proceed ‘by the book,’ substantial questions have arisen about whether officials at the FBI, as well as at the Justice Department and the State Department, actually did proceed ‘by the book,’” they continued.
Rice is scheduled to testify before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary on Feb. 22.
Grassley co-authored the letter to Rice as chairman of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary and Graham as chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism.
If Muslim women are not fighting in the war they will not be shot right? If you are a terrorist why should I feel sorry for you?
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said on Tuesday that female rebels should be shot in the vagina, so as to render them “useless.”
Duterte made the remarks in front of a crowd of about 200 former rebels on Tuesday, suggesting his soldiers be given “new orders.”
“We won’t kill you. Will we just shoot your vagina so that…if there is no vagina, it would be useless,” Duterte said.
The comments immediately sparked a wave of backlash from human rights organizations around the world. Christine Palabay, secretary-general of the Philippine rights group Karapatan, named the leader as a “frothing-in-the-mouth fascist.”
“His recent comments and pronouncements are but the latest of the series of these madman’s display of tyranny, lunacy and machismo,” Palabay said. “Duterte has distinguished himself as a frothing-in-the-mouth fascist who incites the worst violations of international humanitarian law.”
