Florida shooting victims helped by GoFundMe, comfort dogs and more
17 February, 2018
Less than a month after a gunman opened fire at a high school in Kentucky, the nation is grappling with yet another school shooting.
Wednesday’s massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, killed at least 17 people and wounded over a dozen others. The suspected gunman, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, set off fire alarms to lure hundreds of students out of their classrooms so he could open fire with a semi-automatic AR-15 assault rifle.
Cruz was captured about an hour later in Coral Springs, roughly a mile away from the school. The following day, Cruz told authorities he shot "students that he saw in the hallways and on school grounds," according to an arrest affidavit.
“There really are no words,” Broward Sheriff Scott Israel said the day of the shooting.
But in wake of the tragedy, the deadliest school shooting since Sandy Hook in 2012, the Broward community has received an outpouring of support.
Read on to see what’s being done to help the shooting victims, their families, the local community and beyond.
Comfort dogs
At least 18 “comfort” dogs and 33 handlers have arrived in Broward county from across the country, Tim Hetzner, the president and CEO of the nonprofit ministry Lutheran Church Charities (LCC), told Fox News.
Jacob, a doe-eyed Golden Retriever, was first on the scene. He spent the day comforting students and faculty at the high school.
“Dogs are good listeners and have a unique way of knowing when people are hurting,” he said.
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