Twenty-year-old Nikolas Cruz allegedly killed 17 students and staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14 when he stormed the school with an AR-15-style rifle.
There were a number of devastating mass shootings in 2018, including the Valentine's Day massacre in Parkland, Florida.
Twenty-year-old Nikolas Cruz allegedly killed 17 students and staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14 when he stormed the school with an AR-15-style rifle.
A recent report by the South Florida Sun Sentinel found that authorities failed to act several times, leaving children stranded with nowhere to hide as Cruz allegedly opened fire. Video released last week shows him stalking the hallways of the school before he jettisons the rifle and runs away.
He was later apprehended and charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder in the first degree and 17 counts of attempted murder in the first degree. Cruz has pleaded not guilty.
Parkland wasn't alone in seeing a school shooting in 2018. On May 18, nine students and a teacher were shot and killed at Santa Fe High School outside Houston, Texas. Students said Dimitrios Pagourtzis, 17, allegedly yelled "surprise" when he burst into an art class and opened fire.
As of November, Pagourtzis remained in solitary confinement at Galveston County Jail, according to his attorney. He faces charges of capital murder of multiple persons and aggravated assault against a public servant. No plea information was available.
A newsroom was the scene of another mass shooting, when Jarrod Ramos, 39, allegedly opened fire at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland, on June 28, killing five. He has pleaded not guilty to five counts of first-degree murder.
On Oct. 27, a house of worship was targeted when suspect Robert Bowers, 46, walked into the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and allegedly gunned down 11 people, making it the deadliest attack on Jewish people in the U.S.
Bowers faces dozens of state and federal charges, and has pleaded not guilty.
In November, college students were enjoying country music night at Borderline Bar & Grill in Thousand Oaks, California, when shots rang out. Ian David Long, a Marine veteran, opened fire at the bar, spraying bullets into the happy crowd and killing 11 (a sheriff's deputy was also killed by friendly fire). Long took his own life at the scene.
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