Parkland (Florida): At least 17 people, mostly students and teachers, were killed and 15 others were injured when an ex-student opened fire at a Florida school, authorities said. The shooter was arrested an hour after the carnage. The dead included students and adults, some of whom were shot outside the school and others inside the sprawling three-story building.
The gunman, armed with a semiautomatic AR-15 rifle, was identified as Nikolas Cruz, a 19-year-old who had been expelled from the school. He began shooting outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and then made his way inside firing at students and teachers. who were scurrying for cover, the authorities said.
Indian-American students
The school has a large number of Indian-American students and at least one student from the community has been injured in the incident. The student, a ninth grader, sustained minor injures as he was hit by splinters. The authorities said several victims were being treated in hospital.
Indian teacher saves many students
A quick-acting Indian-American maths teacher is being hailed for saving the lives of her students during the shooting rampage. When an alarm sounded for the second time, Shanthi Viswanathan shut the doors to her classroom, made the students crouch on the floor and covered the windows, keeping them out of the reach and sight of the gunman.
"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, said. 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.
