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Before the Florida Shooting, the Suspect Told a Student ‘Things Are About to Get Messy’

The survivors of one of the deadliest school shootings in modern U.S. history are still processing the attack Wednesday in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 dead.

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By
JACEY FORTIN
, New York Times

The survivors of one of the deadliest school shootings in modern U.S. history are still processing the attack Wednesday in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 dead.

One student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School had an encounter with the shooting suspect that left him reeling.

During his English class Wednesday afternoon, Chris McKenna, 15, left to take a bathroom break.

The restrooms were closed on the first floor, said Chris, a freshman, so he headed to the second floor. He found the shooting suspect, Nikolas Cruz, 19, in a stairwell between the first and second floors in the freshman building.

Sitting on the stairs, Cruz was loading a semi-automatic AR-15 rifle, Chris said.

Cruz appeared “shocked” when he opened the door to the stairwell, Chris said. “I don’t think he expected me to see him at all,” he said, as Cruz was loading the gun.

“He told me, ‘Better get out of here, things are about to get messy,'” Chris said.

Chris, who said he did not know Cruz, left the stairwell, heading outside, where he ran into Aaron Feis, an assistant football coach and security monitor, at a school gate. After Chris told Feis what he had seen, Feis drove him in a golf cart to a baseball field about 500 feet away. Feis left him there to return to the school.

“He said, ‘Stay here.’ So I stood there for a little bit,” Chris said. Then he heard the sound of gunshots.

Chris sprinted to a nearby Walmart, where he said he called his sister, Jackie, 17, who is a senior at the high school. She told him she was hiding in a closet. “She was worried about me, and I was worried about her,” he said.

Jackie survived. Feis, 37, was killed. Cruz blended in with other students to leave the school, according to the authorities, but he was arrested as he walked down a residential street at 3:41 p.m. Cruz faces 17 counts of premeditated murder.

Chris said three students in his English class had died.

Asked why he thought Cruz told him to leave, Chris said it seemed like a matter of timing. Cruz appeared to be occupied with loading the gun.

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