Leader of White Supremacist Group Claims Florida School Shooting Suspect Was a Member

The leader of a white supremacist group in Florida said on Thursday that Nikolas Cruz, the 19-year-old who was charged with killing 17 people at his former high school in Parkland, FL, was a member of his organization.

After spotting self-described members of the white supremacist group Republic of Florida claiming on 4chan that Cruz was part of the organization, the Anti-Defamation League called the group’s hotline. A person who identified himself as Jordan Jereb, who’s believed to be the group’s leader, answered.

According to the ADL, Jereb said Cruz was associated with ROF and participated in at least one training in the Tallahassee area, carpooling up with other white supremacists from south Florida. The Republic of Florida describes itself as a “white civil rights organization fighting for white identitarian politics” that seeks to create a “white ethnostate” in Florida, according to the ADL.

Jereb also told the Associated Press that Cruz had been a member of his group. From the AP:

Jordan Jereb told The Associated Press on Thursday that his group, the Republic of Florida, wants Florida to become its own white ethno-state. He said his group holds “spontaneous random demonstrations” and tries not to participate in the modern world.

Jereb said he didn’t know Cruz personally and that “he acted on his own behalf of what he just did and he’s solely responsible for what he just did.”