The latest about the Florida school shooting that left 17 dead

Nikolas Cruz faces 17 counts of murder

PARKLAND, Fla. – Here's the latest on the deadly Florida high school shooting.

11 p.m.

A law enforcement official says the man charged with killing 17 people at a Florida high school legally purchased at least seven long guns, including an AK-47-style rifle he bought less than a month ago.

The official is familiar with the investigation but isn't authorized to discuss it and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The suspect, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, legally purchased an AR-15 that authorities say he used in Wednesday's shooting. Federal law allows those 18 and over to buy rifles, and Cruz passed background checks necessary to obtain the weapons.

6 p.m.

Authorities in Florida say Stoneman Douglas High School, the site of last week's deadly shooting rampage, will remain closed Tuesday and Wednesday.

The statement issued by the Broward County Schools on Monday said "our hearts remain with the victims and families ... as our community copes with the aftermath and recovery process from this senseless act of violence."

The statement says the goal is to initially allow staff to return by the end of the week to the school in Parkland, Florida, where 17 people were fatally shot last Wednesday. The statement did not elaborate on when students might be able to return or when classes might resume.

3:45 p.m.

Hundreds of sign-carrying, chanting protesters have converged on a downtown Los Angeles park, demanding tougher background checks and other gun-safety measures following last week's deadly school shooting in Florida.

About 500 protesters gathered in LA's Pershing Square shortly before noon Monday.

Many chanted, "Ho, ho, hey, hey, our kids, not the NRA. Others held signs proclaiming, "Our Children Are Counting On You."

Last week's shooting killed 17 people at Florida's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School

One of Monday's protesters, Samantha Dorf, tells The Associated Press she supports the Second Amendment right to bear arms but believes stronger background checks for gun-buyers are needed.

3:25 p.m.

A prominent psychiatrist is cautioning survivors that they may want to limit the funeral services they attend to close friends after 17 people were fatally gunned down at a Florida high school last week.

Dr. Francisco Cruz, lead psychiatrist at Ketamine Health Centers, says those survivors shouldn't feel obligated to attend all 17 funerals. He also says overexposure to news coverage and social media posts about the shooting may be more harmful than attending a series of funerals.

Cruz says going through the "funeral process" can help people get through tough times. He says the ideal situation is to confront trauma "head on with the support" and to seek out counselors, pastors or others as needed.

2:30 p.m.

More than 1,500 mourners have thronged a church for the funeral of 14-year-old student Alaina Petty, one of the 17 people killed in last week's shooting rampage at a Florida high school.

Petty was a freshman and one of 17 people killed in Wednesday's attack at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

Family members spoke at Monday's funeral about how the teen had enthusiastically joined fellow Mormon youth for cleanup efforts after Hurricane Irma struck Florida in September. Her father, Ryan Petty, also spoke about the support the victims' families have received from their church, the community and others worldwide.

The funeral was held at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Coral Springs, not far from the school that Alaina Petty attended.

1:30 p.m.

Florida school shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz has appeared in court for a procedural hearing.

Cruz said nothing at Monday's hearing in Broward County Circuit Court, which he attended wearing a prison jumpsuit. He kept his head down and did not appear to make eye contact with the judge or others in the courtroom, though he responded briefly to someone on the defense team at the end of the hearing.

The hearing concerned the rules going forward of how documents would be sealed. Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer said she was in favor of openness whenever possible.

Cruz is charged with killing 17 people and wounding many others in Wednesday's attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, which he once attended. His lawyers have said he will plead guilty if prosecutors agree not to pursue the death penalty. No decision has been made on that.

12:40p.m.

Dozens of teenage students are lying down on the pavement in front of the White House to demand presidential action on gun control after 17 students were killed in a school shooting in Florida.

The teenagers are also joined by parents and educators. The protesters are holding their arms ossed at their chests. Two activists are covered by an American flag, another one is holding a sign asking, "Am I next?"

Ella Fesler is a 16-year-old high school student in Alexandria, Virginia. She says, "It's really important to express our anger and the importance of finally trying to make a change and having gun control in America."

Fesler adds, "Every day when I say `bye' to my parents, I do acknowledge the fact that I could never see my parents again." President Donald Trump is at his Florida golf club, some 40 miles from the site of the school shooting.

12:30 p.m.

State Sen. Bill Galvano, a Republican and incoming Senate president, says the Florida Senate is preparing a sweeping package of legislation in the aftermath of the deadly shooting at a high school.

The legislation includes new age restrictions for gun purchases, a ban on bump stocks and gun violence restraining orders.

Seventeen people were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last week and legislative leaders saw firsthand the building where the shootings took place.

The Senate is considering a wide array of measures that also include boosting spending on mental health programs for schools and giving law-enforcement greater power to involuntarily hold someone considered a danger to themselves.

Nineteen-year-old Nikolas Cruz is facing 17 counts of murder in the Wednesday afternoon shooting.

11:15 a.m.

The White House says President Donald Trump supports efforts to improve the federal gun background check system after a school shooting in Florida that killed 17 people.

Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Monday that the president had spoken to Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, about a bipartisan bill designed to strengthen the FBI database of prohibited gun buyers.

Sanders said, "While discussions are ongoing and revisions are being considered, the President is supportive of efforts to improve the Federal background check system."

The bill would penalize federal agencies that fail to provide the necessary records and reward states that comply with federal grant preferences and other incentives.

Trump has been a strong supporter of gun rights and the National Rifle Association.

7:50 a.m.

The couple who took in the Florida school shooting suspect after his mother died says he told them he was sorry after the shooting.

Speaking Monday on ABC's "Good Morning America," James and Kimberly Snead said they've only seen Nikolas Cruz once since the shooting that killed 17, when they briefly saw him at the police station.

Kimberly Snead says she yelled at him and "really wanted to strangle him more than anything." The couple says Cruz told them he was sorry.

The Sneads also said the person who's been shown to the world since the shootings isn't the person they knew when he lived with them. They said Cruz was very polite and followed all their rules.

Cruz is facing 17 counts of murder in the Wednesday afternoon shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.

12:50 a.m.

Student survivors of the deadly Florida school shooting who hope to become the face of a revived gun control movement are on a potential collision course with President Donald Trump.

Several of the students have criticized the president, whose election was strongly supported by the National Rifle Association and who ran on a platform opposing gun control.

Trump spent the weekend in South Florida, only an hour's drive from Stoneman Douglas High School where 17 people were fatally shot last week. His only mentions of the massacre came in tweets Saturday contending the FBI was too focused on the Russia investigation to respond to warnings about the alleged shooter and mocking Democrats for failing to pass gun control.

[MORE: Teacher of year's post goes viral | Here are the victims of the Fla. school shooting]

SUNDAY

10:00 p.m.

Students who escaped the deadly school shooting in Florida are focusing their anger at President Donald Trump, contending that his response to the attack has been needlessly divisive. David Hogg, a 17-year-old student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, said: `You're the president. You're supposed to bring this nation together, not divide us.'

Hogg on "Meet the Press" Sunday was responding to Trump's tweet Saturday that Democrats hadn't passed any gun control measures during the brief time they controlled Congress with a supermajority in the Senate. Trump also alluded to the FBI's failure to act on tips that the suspect was dangerous, while bemoaning the bureau's focus on Russia's role in the 2016 election.

After more than a day of criticism from the students, the White House says the president would hold a "listening session" with unspecified students on Wednesday and meet with state and local security officials Thursday.

4:15 p.m.

Nineteen-year-old senior Chris Grady was hiding at Stoneman Douglas High School during the shooting days go. He says he's angry and will be pressing with other students for gun control measures.

He and some fellow students organized a rally Sunday near the Parkland, Florida, high school, set to press for greater gun control measures from lawmakers. The students plan to visit the state capital, Tallahassee, and visit the nation's capital in March.

Grady says pupils targeted by a gunman at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Connecticut, in 2012 were "too young to understand." But he adds: "We want to be the voice for those kids and thousands of others who have been affected by tragedies like this."

3:30 p.m.

A gun show went on as scheduled this weekend, a short drive from the school where a teenager used his own legally purchased AR-15 assault weapon to kill 17 people and wound more than a dozen others. Many assault weapons were on display as customers, some bringing their children, checked out the killing firepower.

Jorge Fernandez spoke for Florida Gun Shows in sharing what he called their "deepest condolences to the persons who have been involved in this terrible tragedy." But he told The Associated Press that his company's shows are scheduled years in advance, and "it would just be cost prohibitive to cancel."

Fernandez says he personally blames the shooting not on guns, but on the mental health of the 19-year-old shooter, Nikolas Cruz. He says he feels there should be a mechanism permitting doctors or law enforcement to identify people with mental health problems and do something about it.

Customer Jerry Sepulveda said he can see how the gun show could be seen as insensitive to the victims, but he came anyway to see the guns. He says he thinks there should be an age limit preventing teens from buying high-powered rifles, and that background checks should be strengthened.

12:30 p.m.

The principal of the Florida high school where a gunman killed 17 people last week addressed the community in an emotional video message.

The video, which was posted Sunday, showed an emotional Ty Thompson, who is principal at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

He thanked the thousands of people around the world that have reached out to the school in emails and on social media. He said he promises to love the staff, students and their families over the difficult weeks to come.

Nineteen-year-old Nikolas Cruz is facing 17 counts of murder in the Wednesday afternoon shooting

12 p.m.

In the wake of the high school shooting that killed 17 people, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio says Florida should consider enacting a law that would allow family members or law enforcement officials to ask a court to remove guns from a person who poses a danger.

Democratic state legislators filed bills that would create "risk protection orders" but the legislation hasn't been heard during this year's session.

During an interview with Miami television station WFOR, Rubio said legislators should "absolutely" consider the bill. Rubio, who once served as House speaker in the state Legislature, called it an "example of a state law" that could have helped prevent the shooting.

The suspect in the case, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, had been expelled from school and had mental health issues and had been reported to law-enforcement.

Other states have already enacted similar laws.

11:50 a.m.

In a flurry of tweets Sunday morning, President Donald Trump sounded off on a number of issues but did not mention the deadly shooting rampage at a Florida high school that killed 17 people.

The tweets mainly attacked allegations that Trump's campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 presidential election.

Another tweet claimed Republicans were polling better after a recent tax cut. Trump also said there were no calls for investigation after then-President Barack Obama's cash payment to Iran.

Nineteen-year-old Nikolas Cruz is facing 17 counts of murder in the Wednesday afternoon shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.

11:30 a.m.

The school records of the suspect of a mass shooting in Florida killed 17 people reveal a child that had problems since middle school.

According to records obtained Sunday from the state Department of Children and Families, when Nikolas Cruz was a student at Westglades Middle School, he was constantly in trouble for insulting teachers and staff, using profanity, disruptive behavior, unexcused absences and at least one fight.

His mother was called in more than a dozen times for conferences and Cruz was frequently sent to counseling.

Nineteen-year-old Cruz is facing 17 counts of murder in the Wednesday afternoon shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.

11:20 a.m.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott was in attendance at a church service Sunday just a few blocks from the high school where a shooting rampage killed 17 people.

Scott shook hands and hugged churchgoers there.

The community has been in mourning since the deadly attack Wednesday afternoon at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.

Nineteen-year-old Nikolas Cruz is facing 17 counts of murder in the shooting.

11:05 a.m.

Students who survived the shooting at a Florida High School that killed 17 people are urging President Donald Trump and other leaders to do something to address gun violence.

Speaking on NBC's "Meet The Press," Emma Gonzalez, a senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, says now is the time to get on right side of the issue. Gonzalez also said politicians who are funded by the National Rifle Association won't be allowed to stay in office when midterms elections come later this year.

David Hogg, a senior at the school, lashed out Trump for a tweet that blamed Democrats for not passing gun control legislation when they controlled both houses of Congress during the Obama administration. Hogg said Trump is now the president and he should do something because children are dying "and their blood is on your hands."

11:05 a.m.

The school where a shooting killed 17 people will reopen to staff later this week.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School is closed Monday for the President's Day holiday. It will also be closed Tuesday and Wednesday. The Broward County School District said Sunday that the aim is for staff to return to campus by the end of the week.

School officials say there will be no classes Thursday and Friday while teachers and possibly students have time to come together and meet with counselors if they wish.

The school is in South Florida, about 50 miles northwest of downtown Miami and in Broward County, near the Everglades.

9:50 a.m.

The 19-year-old suspect in the Florida school shooting that killed 17 people didn't know how to use a microwave, didn't pick up after himself and didn't know how to do his own laundry.

The family that took him in following his mother's death spoke to the Sun Sentinel .

The paper published a story Sunday about the family, who said that what Nikolas Cruz did baffles them.

They made Cruz buy a locking gun safe to put in his room the day he moved in. Cruz had a handful of guns, including the AR-15 and two other rifles that James Snead said would be considered assault rifles. Cruz, a hunter, also had knives, BB guns and pellet guns.

Snead thought he had the only key to the cabinet but has figured out Cruz must have kept a key for himself. The family kept their own rifles, bought after a burglary a couple of years ago, in a separate locked cabinet.

They told Cruz he needed to ask permission to take out the guns. He had asked only twice since November. They said "yes" once and "no" once.

9:20 a.m.

Survivor of the shooting rampage at a Florida high school that killed 17 people are planning a march on Washington next month to pressure politicians to take action on gun violence.

Speaking Sunday on CNN, a group of students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland said they are determined to make a difference on the issue.

Cameron Kasky, a junior at the school, said the March 24 march will provide a time to talk about gun control, saying "we are losing our lives while the adults are playing around."

Nineteen-year-old Nikolas Cruz is facing 17 counts of murder in the Wednesday afternoon shooting.