White Nationalist Connection To School Shooter Disputed: Report

CLEARWATER, FL - A white nationalist group claimed Thursday the accused shooter at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland was a member of its group, and said he attended meetings with the Clearwater cell of the group and traveled to Tampa with the group at least once.

But Leon County law enforcement authorities say that they could not find information linking Nikolas Jacob Cruz, 19, to the Tallahassee-based paramilitary group. Broward Sheriff Scott Israel said at a Thursday news conference that authorities have not confirmed Cruz’s possible white supremacist connections.

Cruz has been formally charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder, according to the Broward County Sheriff's Office.

Seventeen people were shot to death and numerous others injured Wednesday after Cruz, a former student who was expelled last year, allegedly opened fire at the high school marking a horrific and sadly familiar episode of school violence, according to law enforcement and school officials.

Jordan Jereb, the leader of a white nationalist militia known as the Republic of Florida, said he has never personally met Cruz and cannot attest to what extent Cruz was involved with the group or how long he had been a part of the group.

Jereb said that his group wants Florida to become its own white ethno-state. He said his group holds "spontaneous random demonstrations" and tries not to participate in the modern world.

Jereb said he didn't know Cruz personally and that "he acted on his own behalf of what he just did and he's solely responsible for what he just did."

“I know with certainty he had something to do with us,” he told the Miami Herald.

Cruz has confessed to police that he entered the school armed with an AR-15 and began shooting students, according to multiple reports.

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.

Read the Miami Herald story here.

Photo: Attendees react at a prayer vigil for the victims of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School at the Parkland Baptist Church, Thursday, Feb. 15, 2018 in Parkland, Fla. Nikolas Cruz, a former student, was charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder Thursday morning. Photo by Wilfredo Lee/Associated Press