Fact Check: Is the Florida High School Shooter a 'Dreamer'?

[DonViejo]

In the immediate aftermath of a mass shooting on Valentine's Day, social media users began speculating the suspect was undocumented.



CLAIM

The accused school shooter in Florida is a Dreamer, a DACA recipient, or undocumented.

RATING

FALSE

ORIGIN

On 14 February 2018, 17 people were killed in a mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, an affluent community north of Miami.

Authorities named Nikolas Cruz — a 19-year-old former student of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School — as the suspect in custody for the crime. Almost immediately after his name was made public, social media users, apparently inspired by nothing more than a Spanish-sounding surname, began spreading an unfounded claim that he is an undocumented DACA recipient. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program gives people who were brought into the United States as young children temporary authorization to remain legally and DACA recipients are often referred to as Dreamers after proposed legislation.

However Cruz was adopted at birth by a couple with that surname and is not undocumented.

Here are examples of such unverified claims that spread on social media in the hours after the tragedy:

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

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Full article:
https://www.snopes.com/florida-high-school-shooter-dreamer/

[Wounded Bear]

1. I figured they'd latch onto that name sooner or later...

It's a Hispanic name, too easy a target for the Trumplodytes.

[panader0]

2. "adopted at birth"

His ancestry is not clear at this point.

[IluvPitties]

5. Dude's a white kid raised in a Hispanic family.

[Exotica]

3. Nikolas Cruzs Instagram Profile Contains Trump MAGA Hat

https://heavy.com/news/2018/02/nikolas-cruz-maga-nikolaus-trump-politics-democrat-republican/



The motive for the Florida school shooting remains unclear, but some of the social media posts of accused school shooter Nikolas Cruz are getting attention, in particular a profile picture with a “MAGA” hat on Instagram. The slogan stands for “Make America Great Again,” which is President Donald Trump’s signature campaign motto.

The MAGA hat makes an appearance in a profile picture on one of the Instagram pages that Heavy has verified belonged to Cruz, 19, an expelled student who is accused of going on a rampage with an AR-15 weapon. On the page with the MAGA hat, the accused school shooter went by the handle @nikolascruzmakarov; MAGA stands for the slogan “Make America Great Again” and is President Donald Trump’s campaign motto. Makarov is the name of a Russian-made pistol.



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The Daily Beast reported that, according to Ocean Parodie, 17, “Cruz always had his hair short and had a penchant for wearing patriotic shirts that ‘seemed really extreme, like hating on’ Islam…The suspected gunman would also deride Muslims as ‘terrorists and bombers.’” Parodie also told Daily Beast: “I’ve seen him wear a Trump hat.”

The suspect posted on Instagram about a Google search for the phrase “Allahu Akbar” in 2015 but the caption said, “Well at least we now know what it means when a sand durka says ‘allahu Akbar’ ??????”

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[gopiscrap]

9. welcome to DU

[Exotica]

10. thanks!

[infullview]

4. He's one of Ted's cousins :)

[Rhiannon12866]

7. When I first saw the name, that's who I thought they were talking about!

[appalachiablue]

11. Wild! Ted's father is from Cuba I think; mother Irish, whereabouts unknown

last I heard during the 2016 campaign.

[Rhiannon12866]

12. And he was born in Canada!

I remember that coming up during the campaign, too!

[appalachiablue]

13. Yes, Canada. And there's uncertainty about the parent's citizenship

status when they married. What I read was so complex, the father went to Texas for college study but never became a US citizen for decades. He and his wife were mathematicians, took jobs in Canada when young. Story trailed off that the mother was supposedly now in Del. but hadn't been seen in ages. Too much, creepy strange, kinda like Cruz!

[Gothmog]

6. The shooter was not a DACA recipient

[Exotica]

8. Suspect in the Florida High School Shooting Belonged to a White Supremacist Organization

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/02/alleged-florida-school-shooter-nikolas-cruz-was-a-member-of-white-supremacist-group-republic-of-florida.html

The Republic of Florida, a militant white supremacist organization, admitted to the Anti-Defamation League and others that the 19-year-old charged with murdering 17 people in Wednesday’s Florida high school shooting had ties to the group.

A man claiming to be Jordan Jereb, the purported leader of the group, told the ADL over the phone that alleged shooter Nikolas Cruz was “brought up” by a fellow member, attended at least one ROF training exercise in Tallahassee, and carpooled with other people in the ROF. Jereb and three of Cruz’s former schoolmates also told ABC News that he was part of the group, and the Anti-Defamation League found that 4chan users identifying themselves as ROF members have posted comments to the same effect. The former schoolmates added that they had repeatedly seen Cruz with Jereb and in ROF marches.

Jereb claimed to ABC and the ADL that the organization had neither ordered nor wanted Cruz to carry out an attack on Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Jereb made the same point to the Associated Press, asserting that Cruz “acted on his own behalf” and is “solely responsible for what he just did.” The ROF leader conjectured that the timing of the attack on Valentine’s Day was purposeful because Cruz had “trouble with a girl.”

The ROF describes itself on its website as a “white civil rights organization” aiming to create an ethnostate. Its short-term goals are to “occupy urban areas to recruit suburban young whites.” According to the Anti-Defamation League, the white supremacist group has a presence in North Florida and South Florida, and has adopted paramilitary principles from anti-government militias. It is a few years old, and its members are primarily young white men. Jereb himself is 22 years old and was charged in 2016 for threatening one of Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s staffers.

snip

[JI7]

14. he is a Trump Supporter