The “leader” (Jordan Jereb) of a white nationalist group, the Republic of Florida, confirmed that Florida shooter, Nikolas Cruz, was a member of his organization.
A spokesperson for R.O.F. informed the Anti-Defamation League that the shooter had “participated in one or more ROF training exercises in the Tallahassee area, carpooling with other ROF members from south Florida.” ROF describes itself as a “white civil rights organization fighting for white identitarian politics” and seeks to create a “white ethnostate” in Florida.
Jereb has described himself as a “right-wing extremist nut.” He was charged in 2016 for having threatened a staff member of Florida Governor Rick Scott. He is believed to be around 22 years old.
Though by all accounts, the teens who knew Cruz were in a state of shock as they described him as an “outcast” but never saw him as a “mass shooter”.
“I knew him to be passive aggressive but not violent. He was rude to people. He had an act up like he was tough. He never got into, like, physical fights with anyone, but he did get into verbal arguments,” 17-year-old Ocean Parodie told The Daily Beast. “I just thought he dropped out of school, I didn’t think he would do anything. He always kept a low profile.”
“He was definitely not accepted at our school socially. People saw him as someone who was different than the normal people at our school,” Parodie added.
“Most kids ignored him at school. They pushed him off to the side as if he was garbage. He screamed in class one time. He was upset and just started yelling at the teacher. The teacher was trying to help him and he just took it the wrong way,” Parodie continued.
Ben Shapiro gives a pretty good argument as to why this sort of violence is on the rise, most notable to me: “Something is deeply sick in our society right now. That sickness can only be healed when we stop seeing each other as the enemy. But that sickness seems unlikely to heal in the current environment, where everyone who disagrees is supposedly a dire threat to your way of life — and where the sickest members of our society imbibe that poison, and spew out death.”
The problem here isn’t guns. If a killer wants to kill they’ll find a way to do it. This isn’t guessing, this is fact. We’ve seen it before and we’ll see it again. Ultimately, the problem is a divide in our nation. Look, I’ll call it like I see it… things seem to be coming together well for all us AMERICANS before the End of an ERROR (you know who I mean).
