FOLLOW US

Noah Parness, a 17-year-old junior, said he was among students calmly walking to their fire-drill areas outside when he suddenly heard popping sounds.

Medical personnel tend to a victim following a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., on Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2018. (John McCall/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP)

“We saw a bunch of teachers running down the stairway, and then everybody shifted and broke into a sprint,” Parness said. “I hopped a fence.”

The scene was reminiscent of the Newtown attack, which shocked even a country numbed by the regularity of school shootings. The Dec. 14, 2012, assault at Sandy Hook Elementary School killed 26 people: 20 first-graders and six staff members. The 20-year-old gunman, who also fatally shot his mother in her bed, then killed himself.

Not long after Wednesday’s attack in Florida, Michael Nembhard was sitting in his garage on a cul-de-sac when he saw a young man in a burgundy shirt walking down the street. In an instant, a police cruiser pulled up, and officers jumped out with guns drawn.

“All I heard was ‘Get on the ground! Get on the ground!’” Nembhard said. He said Cruz did as he was told.

___

This story has been corrected to fix the attribution of a quote to Dakota Mutchler, not Victoria Olvera.

___

Associated Press writers Freida Frisaro, Curt Anderson, and Joshua Replogle in Miami and Sadie Gurman in Washington contributed to this report.