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Indian-American teacher hailed for saving students during Florida shooting

Published on 16 February, 2018
Indian-American teacher hailed for saving students during Florida shooting

New York, Feb 17 (IANS) A quick-acting Indian-American maths teacher is being hailed for saving the lives of her students during the shooting rampage at a Florida high school that left 17 dead.

When an alarm sounded for the second time on Wednesday afternoon, Shanthi Viswanathan shut the doors to her algebra classroom, made the students crouch on the floor and covered the windows, keeping them out of the reach and sight of the gunman, the Sun-Sentinel reported.

"She was quick on her feet. She used her knowledge. She saved a lot of kids," Dawn Jarboe, the mother of one of Viswanathan's students, told the newspaper.

When an elite police contingent known as a SWAT team came and knocked on the door asking her to open it, "Viswanathan took no chance that it wasn't a trick by the gunman to get in" the newspaper said.

"She said, 'knock it down or open it with a key. I'm not opening the door,'" Jarboe quoted her as telling the police.

"Some SWAT guy took out the window and cleared our room," Jarboe's son, Brian, texted his mother, the newspaper said.

A former student of the school, Nikolas Cruz, barged into Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland on Valentine's Day and killed 15 students and two staff members with an AR-15 automatic rifle.

No motive has been established as of Friday afternoon for the killings. 

However, he was reported to have had a troubled childhood and had threatened in a YouTube post to shoot up schools. 

Although it was reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the agency closed the investigation without locating him, according to media reports.

The shooter abandoned his gun and during the ensuing chaos mixed in with the students to escape. He was captured about 40 minutes later in a neighbouring town, authorities said.

In the entire Broward County, where Parkland is located, the Indian population is 22,600, according to statisticalatlas.com. But none of those killed are of Indian descent.

In a formal statement the Association of Indians in America, South Florida chapter said, “The Indian American community, both in Parkland as well as in greater South Florida, grieves along with the parents who have lost their children in yesterday’s horrific shooting. We stand together, now and always.”

Trump visits shooting survivors in Florida hospital

Miami, Feb 17 (IANS) US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump visited a hospital in Florida where the survivors of this week's school massacre were being treated, media reports said.

News channels broadcast images of the President and his wife walking down a corridor at Broward Health North hospital in Pompano Beach on Friday, where they spent time with patients and caregivers.

"It's very sad, something like that could happen," The New York Times quoted Trump as saying on Friday.

The President and his wife also paid tributes to doctors and emergency workers for quickly transporting people to the hospital after the attack on Wednesday at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. 

The hospital, a level two trauma centre, is located nine miles from the high school.

"The job the doctors did, the nurses, the hospital, first responders, law enforcement - really incredible... I want to congratulate them," Trump said.

After the hospital visit, the Trumps travelled to the nearby Broward County Sheriff's Department headquarters in Fort Lauderdale and heralded the law enforcement officials who responded to the shooting, CNN reported.

"What a great job you've done, and we appreciate it very much," Trump said. 

"Everybody is talking about it... I hope you are getting the credit for it because believe me, you deserve it. The job you have done is unparalleled."

The Trumps were joined at the headquarters by Florida's Senator Marco Rubio, Florida Governor Rick Scott, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly.

A White House statement issued later on Friday said the Trumps visited the hospital and the sheriff's headquarters "to pay their respects and thank the medical professionals for their life-saving assistance" in response to shooting.

The massacre, one of the worst mass shootings in US history, was carried out by a former student of the school, Nikolas Cruz, 19. He killed 17 people and injured 15 others.

He was expelled from the school for "disciplinary reasons".

Cruz, who has had a history of mental illness, is currently at the main Broward County jail facing 17 counts of premeditated murder.

FBI Director should resign, urges Florida Governor

Washington, Feb 17 (IANS) Governor of Florida state Rick Scott on Saturday urged the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to resign in the wake of the agency's admission that it failed to follow up on an earlier tip over the shooter who killed 17 people in a Florida high school.


"The FBI's failure to take action against this killer is unacceptable," Scott said in a statement.

The remarks were in response to an FBI statement released on Friday, which acknowledged that the law enforcement agency received a tip in January on Nikolas Cruz, the 19-year-old shooter, but failed to act, Xinhua reported.

"Seventeen innocent people are dead and acknowledging a mistake isn't going to cut it," Scott said. "An apology will never bring these 17 Floridians back to life or comfort the families who are in pain."

"The FBI Director needs to resign," the Governor said.

The FBI said earlier that a person close to the shooter called the agency's tip line on January 5 to warn about "Cruz's gun ownership, desire to kill people, erratic behaviour, and disturbing social media posts, as well as the potential of him conducting a school shooting."

The agency said that protocols were not followed for the tip, therefore, the information was not provided to local authorities, and no further investigation was conducted at that time.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said that they are "still investigating the facts."

Florida school shooter heard voices in his head

Washington, Feb 17 (IANS) Nikolas Cruz, the 19-year-old youth who killed 15 students and two staff members with an AR-15 automatic rifle in Florida, told police that voices in his head told him how to carry out the attack, police said on Friday.

Cruz was arrested and charged on Thursday on 17 counts of premeditated murder, after confessing to the mass shooting of students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland on February 14, Valentine's Day, Efe reported.

The former student at the same high school remains in custody without the possibility of parole.

The voices Cruz heard were described as "demons" by a police source on the ABC News channel.

As time passes, new information comes to light about Cruz's life before he opened fire with an assault rifle to gun down students at his former high school, from which he was expelled for disciplinary reasons.

The rifle used by Cruz was legally purchased by the youth a year ago at Sunrise Tactical Supply, an arms store at a Coral Springs shopping mall in South Florida.

Douglas Rudman, the attorney representing the store's owners, Michael and Lisa Morrison, said that "Cruz purchased the assault rifle off the rack, in a box, and did not purchase any ammunition with it other than the magazine that came with the gun".

"It is for that reason that no red flags were raised," Rudman said.

"It seems like Cruz made a deliberate attempt to not draw suspicion by not buying too many things from one place," the attorney said.

Authorities confirmed that the gun was purchased legally.

The owners of the gun store had completed the entire security protocol required by the Justice Department, which included obtaining a copy of Cruz's driver's license and having him answer a questionnaire about any mental illness he might have.

"What I understand is that was answered appropriately," said Stuart Kaplan, an attorney who also represents Sunrise Tactical Supply.

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