Dozens injured - 18-year-old former student is being held
A former Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school student in Parkland, Florida, opened fire Wednesday inside the school, killing at least 17 students and injuring dozens more, according to Scott Israel County Sheriff.
The perpetrator, aged about 18, was arrested a short time later in the community near Coral Springs, said Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel.
This is the 18th armed attack on a school since the beginning of the year in the United States of America.
Earlier, CNN reported that at least 16 people had been killed, citing sources close to the police, whom it did not name.
The young man committed the massacre shortly before the end of the last lesson, at 14:30 (local time).
Robert Ransey, the high school principal, said the massacre was most likely committed by a former student and spoke, like the sheriff's office, of "many dead".
At least 14 people have been hospitalized with injuries of "varying degrees of severity", according to Sheriff Scott Israel. Several were taken to hospital by helicopter.
The shots, which suggest that the young man used a semi-automatic weapon, are heard in an amateur video that was apparently filmed in a high school classroom and broadcast by the American television network CBS.
The students are depicted terrified under their desks, completely silent, while listening to the shots.
"We had not received any warnings, (we had) no indication," said Ranci, a high school student. "As far as we know, no threat was made."
Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School had 3.000 students in 2014.
US President Donald Trump, according to a Reuters report broadcast by the Athens News Agency, was "informed" of the attack, "we are monitoring the situation," the White House said.
"No child, no teacher and no one else should feel unsafe in an American school," Trump said via Twitter.