The teen accused of shooting and killing numerous people last week at a Parkland, Florida, high school is also accused of snapping into a violent rage against another teen who dated his former girlfriend.
BuzzFeed News spoke to three students who knew accused shooter, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz. All three students said they witnessed the suspect physically attack 17-year-old Enea Sabadini at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2017, the same school Cruz allegedly invaded last Wednesday, shooting and killing students and staff members.
Apparently, Cruz became enraged when his former girlfriend, who went to another school, broke up with him and began dating Sabadini. He reportedly threatened Sabidini numerous times on social media prior to the attacks, then started threatening him after the attacks on two different Snapchat names.
According to 16-year-old Dana Craig, it was her friend that Cruz dated. Craig said that her friend ended the relationship in April 2016, after Cruz became abusive. Craig indicated she was nervous around Cruz because “he had guns and weapons and we all knew about it,” but advised her friend to leave Cruz.
Shortly after, Craig began getting threatening messages from Cruz, who allegedly threatened to kill her and her family. Martha Garvey, Craig’s mother, reported the threats to the school, while Craig reported the threats directly to the school’s former security specialist, Kelvin Greenleaf. Cruz was later expelled from the school, although it’s unclear which exact incident spurred the expulsion.
In August 2016, another student, 17-year-old Enea Sabadini, began talking to Cruz’s former girlfriend, first as friends, but the relationship later developed into a romantic one. When Cruz learned of it, he allegedly wrote Sabadini on social media and demanded that he stop seeing her. Cruz reportedly threatened to beat Sabadini up if the relationship continued.
By September 2016, Cruz had confronted Sabadini twice. One incident took place on a sidewalk close to the school, but Sabadini managed to get away from the suspect.
While he was chasing me down the street, he also called me a ni**** multiple times. He was also trying to stab me with pencils…..I remember telling him that I was a gazelle, because I was much faster than him. -Enea Sabadini
The second incident occurred within weeks of the first attack, when Cruz allegedly charged at Sabadini while on school grounds. This time, however, Sabadini fought back.
“I was just done. I can’t believe you actually decided to fight me during lunch. I really don’t want to have any problems with this guy. Can we just get over the situation already?”
In December 2016, Sabadini and Craig broke up, but the threats from Cruz didn’t stop. In 2017, Cruz reportedly sent threatening messages from now-deleted Instagram accounts, threatening to rip Sabadini’s hair out while calling him racist and vulgar names, such as fa*****, cu**, and wall jumper. Cruz then showed a photo of his gun collection and told Sabadini he planned to kill him.
Sabadini said that since Cruz had been expelled from the school at this point from past discipline issues, he wasn’t too concerned about the threats. Six months later, Cruz returned to Douglas high school and reportedly embarked on a deadly rampage, killing 17 people.
[Feature Photo: Enea Sabadini/Instagram]
