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Nikolas Cruz charged in Florida High School shooting

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Society
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An alleged gunman accused of killing at least 17 people when he opened fire at a Florida high school as panicked students fled the bloodbath, was charged Thursday with 17 counts of premeditated murder.

Nikolas Cruz, 19, arrived at Broward County Jail early Thursday morning after investigators questioned him for hours. The 19-year-old, who was a former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, was taken into custody “without incident” Wednesday by Coconut Creek police in a Coral Springs neighborhood, located just a few miles from the high school itself.

Police said Cruz, who was identified as the only possible gunman, was taken to the hospital earlier because he “exhibited labored breathing.”

Cruz concealed himself in the crowd and was seen running out of the school with hundreds of terrified students, authorities said.

The carnage, however, had already taken its toll.

Noah Parness, 17, told the Associated Press the fire alarm went off for the second time in the day at around 2:30 p.m. Parness said students were calmly filing out of the school when he suddenly heard several pops.

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"Everyone was kind of just standing there calm, and then we saw a bunch of teachers running down the stairway, and then everybody shifted and broke into a sprint," Parness said. "I hopped a fence."

An unidentified student described the gruesome scene in an interview with Fox News.

"The police came through the hallway to get us and in the hallway, I saw a big pile of blood, like, kind of smeared as if they were dragged away, and I saw two girls probably dead in the hallway," she said. "And then, coming down the stairs, there was some more blood and outside the building there was another guy – I think it was a teacher – who was, [I’m] pretty sure was dead."

The motive behind the massacre was not immediately clear. Lawmakers and officials suggested the shooting may have been planned.

Sheriff Scott Israel, from Broward County, said at an evening news conference the suspect carried an AR-15 rifle and had “countless magazines.” He did not specify how many shots were fired.

"It's catastrophic. There really are no words," Israel said.