is shooting in a florida high school leaves at least fourteen injured with reports of several people killed. saudis have taken the suspect into custody the attacker is reported to be an eighteen year old former high school student. broadcasting live from our studios in moscow this is our international and we start with breaking news this hour coming from the u.s. where a shooting has taken place at a high school in south florida there are at least fourteen total victims of the attack according to local officials and several fatalities and unverified video has emerged online appearing to show the moment of the shooting at the high school now we cannot independently verify its authenticity but before we show it we must warn

you you might find the video upsetting. obviously some very disturbing and upsetting images there for more on this i'm joined live by our t's. what more do we know about this incident so far. well the shooting took place at a high school about fifty kilometers north of miami florida and it's called marjory stoneman douglas high ambulances police cars and even armored vehicles are at the scene now the broward sheriff's office has confirmed at least fourteen victims were being transported to nearby hospitals however we still don't know how many of those victims were killed and how many were injured let's listen to the sheriff's description of the situation. i want to start out by saying this is a catastrophic. and believably catastrophic day in broward county history it's

devastating i'm sick to my stomach. you have multiple casualties you've had proximity fourteen people transported to area hospitals with varying degrees of injuries you're almost the casualties so you know there are folks that have lost their lives i don't know the number right now it's a fluid scene right now. the sheriff's office has also confirmed that the suspected shooter reportedly a former student has been detained and is now in police custody but the scene is still active a florida governor rick scott said he's in touch with local officials regarding the incident and donald trump has already offered prayers and condolences via twitter but according to the school's twitter students are now being reunited with their families who described the situation as chaotic and frantic about the exact number

of injuries and casualties hasn't been confirmed as yet but we'll keep you updated with the latest developments all right thanks r.t.s. american there reporting for us from the united states we're going to stay across this as the story develops now let's discuss the issue with rick sterling investigative journalist rick thanks for being with us here on our team international we're going to be here. all right now unfortunately the circumstances another school shooting in the united states. what might trigger a student to target his classmates or former classmates like this in this type of a matter. well we understand it is certainly an extremely tragic day and. the shooter has not been positively identified yet but it's understood he was a former student not a current student. one thing that needs to be noted about this is the incidence of these mass shootings is is increasing very sadly ten years ago there were

three or four incidents like this happening a year last year there were eleven incidents of mass shootings and already want to have months into twenty eight hundred this is the second incident of mass shooting so this is a tragedy and there's something something wrong that's feeding this this horrific incident. you know there's always the debate the united states about gun control how could the attacker being at such a young age have obtained weapons like this he may not have even been old enough to buy the gun legally. well it's not hard to obtain weapons in the united states one can do it through a friend or through an online or go to a gun show or or there's all sorts of ways to obtain guns there's a. big problem here is that the propellants so weapons another problem is the prevalence of a violent set but at the state level in we know that the new budget

that that's being implemented increases the military by eighty billion dollars so already we have the united states spending more on the on the military than the next eight countries combined just the increase in the u.s. military spending is more than the entire russian military budget eighty billion dollars just imagine if that eighty billion dollars was put to positive uses promoting conflict resolution. putting using it for improving social needs and resolving conflict instead of promoting violence and military solutions we might see a dramatic decline in these kinds of incidents now rick. i mean one of the things as you just mentioned day i mean if we can start. the debate about whether mental health is an issue that we can look into to screening if possible but as you know

and as we've already discussed this is far from the first school shooting that we've seen in the united states even this year. do we get a debate about you know security for these students is it possible for these schools to impose extra measures of security at the school or is that everything being done that can be done. well it they just keep increasing the levels of security's older there's middles three inning going into the schools there's more police on on site but as i was indicating earlier the provo. and so these types of horrific and incidences going up not down so i don't think that is really the solution but there was a in one thousand nine hundred nine there was a school shooting in colorado in littleton colorado and subsequently there was a movie made called bowling for columbine by michael moore and it was an excellent movie that showed the connection between the military missile production that went

on at the lockheed martin back to rick down the road and that high school incident there seems to be a relation between military and. and the incidents like this somehow it filters into the public consciousness there is a sense of neo ism a sense of using force to and sensationalism to either garner attention or take revenge or something like that so i guess my thought is that we're really on the wrong track we need to be promoting different types of solution to end the fire and fury as was promoted or or the really the the actions of the vice president in south korea where he was the only one in the stadium that seemed to be opposed to the peaceful.

kind of performance and the peaceful. cooperation between the north and the so korean delegations so i think i think there's a broad social situation here that needs attention about that social situation. earlier i alluded to the possibility of mental health screening is it possible to track down students who could potentially carry out attacks in order to prevent them from carrying out their plans i mean i know you're kind of opening up a big can of worms about social profiling if you will but isn't there a way to catch. these people at a younger age and given the support that they need. well you know there's an epidemic of pharmaceuticals being being prescribed to to young people more and more it's changed dramatically and in the last ten or fifteen years more and more students are all are on on medications so i think actually that's probably the

wrong approach and we need to look at broader social the broader social situation in high schools today there's more and more pressure the no school left behind has created an environment where there's more and more pressure on schools and teachers on students and that may be a contributor as well if this needs a lot more the idea of sobering it with more security more police more surveillance i think that's probably the wrong approach what about the practical aspects of this when incidents like this happen of course we have the victims of the shooting we have the shooters themselves coming out on the other end in this particular case the shooter is now said to be in custody practically what will happen to this person in the coming days. i'm sorry you were breaking up on our connection here so i couldn't make a question well my question is is that when situations like this happen you know we

are left with the victims were left with the perpetrators this particular shooter is now said to be in custody what can we expect to happen to him in the coming days . well there will be you know obviously he's going to be charged with with with murder presumably it will be more investigation into what what caused him to take the kind of action he did the practice the number of incidents is increasing points to this not just being a one on for instance isolated individual. situation that can be can be set aside i think there's a broader social context that needs to be looked at and hopefully they can we can start turning the tide and instead of more of these incidents happen romantically reduce the number of tragic brutalities like this now rick i'm just going to stop for just

a second to bring you an update about this shooting in parklane florida where this shooting took place law enforcement officials now say that there are at least sixteen fatalities in the florida school shooting previously reported that we were reporting there was at least seven so that number has dramatically gone up and of course as situations like this unfold we can expect those numbers to change as we get more information that comes in if you're just joining us this is continuing special coverage of shooting in florida i'm discussing the situation right now with rick stirling who is an investigative journalist and again rick thanks for being here with us under these circumstances. so turning to the students themselves how do students who ended up being the victims of the shooting like this how do they deal with this moving forward we know that it's in the media we hear about these

situations all the time now we have a group of kids in florida who have just experienced this what do they have to look for in the days ahead. there i'm sure there will be group counseling and as there is there should be and there will be a lot of. soul searching and explorations of what could have triggered this and that is very important of course you know as a parent myself it's hard to imagine anything more tragic than your child being being murdered like this. president trungpa said that teachers and students should . be safe at school and that's fine this should be safe at school but we need to get serious about looking into this and the solution it's a more militarization of the high schools is the wrong approach i'll just flat out say that the the money that we're pouring into the military in this country occupation and invasions overseas we're now in eighty we've got eight hundred

military bases around the world the military budget is going up as i mentioned earlier this is just the wrong approach is not making us more secure it's making us less secure take a fraction of that eighty billion dollar military increase and invest it in conflict resolution programs in schools in improving the improving the public television. there needs to be more criticism and that there is well there's too much promotion of violence in in the in the in the media so i think we need to look at the big picture here to find some solutions and really reverse the trend toward individuals who just lipo for whatever reason and take so many innocent lives as this happened here. rick i'm going to get a little bit political here just just to warn you and to warn our viewers but any

time that there's a situation like this on the ground. you open up the great the gun debate in the united states where you have people on the left saying that we need to have gun control stricter rules and you have the people on the right who are perceivably under the n.r.a. gun lobby. who are saying no it's too early to talk about this we don't want to politicize an issue like this but inevitably situation like this will be politicized what about that gun debate what needs to happen the united states from the firearm side to curb situations like this in the. future make sure that he will it's it's pretty crazy right now that you need to pass a test stand and show your ability in a number of areas to drive a vehicle but the requirements to purchase a semiautomatic weapon are are very slight are are much less and it's the

huge prevalence of weapons that one can get even if you're not allowed to get it for one reason or another one's got a criminal record or the background check doesn't pass it's far too easy so what we're seeing is there's a military industrial complex in this country which influences foreign policy and which drives us in the in the direction of more conflict and war abroad and unfortunately there is a there's a weapons industry in this country which would go out of business if if if guns weren't so prevalent no people weren't you know buying weapons all the time so it's education there are legitimate reasons for people to have weapons but there's way way way too much you can compare the united states with any other country and see that the the rules and regulations in the united states are really unique and they are really detrimental to the well being of. americans. well since the tragic incidents at sandy hook elementary school in connecticut

we've seen a larger push in washington to try and get something done but again we also hear the other side saying that it's always too soon to politicize this do you think that this incident in florida will spark that debate again to maybe we'll see something happen in washington are we likely to see any action towards gun control on a federal level. well i don't know i'm not optimistic to be honest last year there were eleven incidents of mass. killings like this as a lebanon and last. the year before that they're worse they were. their worst six the year before that and as i said like ten years ago there were fewer incidents of these mass shootings they seem to be increasing and the political element here is it's a little bit deeper than simply. some you know some states and some congress

people. you know support gun control and others don't it really goes to the heart of the system here which is dependent on money and that's why so many congresspeople will know but you're on this because they are dependent on money to run their campaigns to win reelection and the national rifle association is so powerful that it can influence the amount of money that a congressional candidate can bring in and. so the problem is really the the core corruption of this system here where our political of rituals are dependent on money and whoever has the most influence and money calls the shots. and just an update for people who are just joining us we're here watching our to international in our coverage of a school shooting in parkland florida where there are at least sixteen fatalities

reporting that we're getting from law enforcement right now many more injured i'm talking to rick sterling who's an investigative journalist. if you don't mind let's switch our focus back to the. school itself and what happens in these days to come you mentioned your parents. and i know that this has to be terrifying for you to watch this happened putting yourself in this situation and your kids being in school. do you think that the kids in the situation will receive any additional psychological help to overcome their shock there at parkland . and also in the country in general do you think that psychological resources need to be stepped up in schools to help kids as they see this unfold on their t.v. screens. well that's something that the schools are very attentive to nowadays they . they are they are pretty quick i'm sure the school administration is planning this and they will have. psychological counseling group counseling and they will

have professionals who are assisting in that area so from what i know i think i think that's i'm pretty confident that's being taken care open they'll do a good job there it's the larger context the larger social context that i think we really need to have a serious look at it's completely insufficient to just say students should be say of course they should be saved the question is why are they not safe now why are why are the these incidents mass killings increasing and quite dramatically in the last several years compared with ten years ago all right very interesting to her thoughts rick sterling investigative journalist thanks for being with us here on our national i'm sorry under these circumstances but very interesting to hear your thoughts. thank you all right now as we've said the suspect is now in

custody and we have video of what appears to show him as he was being detained he is described as a young white male about eighteen years old there was a high school freshman at the school tweeting out the. out of the school as the incident was unfolding. take a look. now

let's take a look at the history of u.s. school shootings there have been two hundred seventy five incidents since two thousand and thirteen with an average of nearly one a week and there have already been eight hundred school shooting incidents in schools so far this year here's a look at some of the most serious cases in the last decade.

and we'll be back with more on this developing story after a short break you're watching r.t. international. hard coded. world as we know it. trying to get their way will

be destroyed but. like a friendly regulator that's ok. you know it's the classic good cop bad cop. that when regular. you have to be a little leery. about this is our chief international with continuing coverage of a school shooting in the state of florida in the united states there are now reports coming in from police that at least sixteen people have been killed in a shooting at a florida high school earlier reports were that about fourteen to twenty people were injured the suspect is in custody and has been reported that he is an eighteen year old former student of the school or school is reported to be marjorie stoneman douglas high in parkland florida. and we now have video showing the

swat team as it evacuated students from their classrooms let's take a look. very. very. good you think you should be where you are we spoke to juno lowden a political analyst and psychology expert who said people who commit such crimes tend to be socially isolated. blown or thing is a big one we find out almost all the time that this person is a loner that they don't have a lot of friends that they tend to isolate themselves very intentionally and you know for parents and for schools alike that's always a warning sign. you know we'll tend to find that some of these people have given some science once in a while though we get somebody who there have been no science nobody could see anything the child was relatively social so again you can't across the board draw

any real conclusions on the type of person that's going to do this but it looks like what we know with this particular student right now that it sounds like perhaps you know this might not have been a complete stranger act that this might have been you know known you know this might have been targeting the school for some reason if he is indeed a former student of that school it also sounds like he knew the his way around the school which means additional deaths unfortunately because he knows how to get in and get out of the school obviously he knew it was a gun free zone so there weren't going to be guns protecting the students there that makes schools a rich target for a crazed killer like this. now one thing about schools in neighborhoods like this it's easy to point the finger at crime rates and try and point as a reason why something like this could happen at

a school however. in newsweek magazine in the united states two thousand and fifteen of the national ranking of high schools rated this particular school board took place marjorie stoneman douglas as number three hundred fifty eight in the nation number thirteen in florida and the highest ranking of any school in broward county in fact in terms of this area in florida where the school shooting took place it was statistically the safest city in florida last year and now we're looking at a school shooting incident the eighteenth incident out of school in two thousand and eighteen law enforcement say in this particular incident that sixteen fatalities have taken place many more injured. but the shooter is in custody at this point in time. international we will stay across the story for you stay with us.

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