Florida shooting: First victims of school massacre named as athletics director and student

Athletic director Chris Hixon, 49, and student Jaime Guttenberg were killed when a suspected gunman, identified by authorities as Nikolas Cruz, 19, opened fire at the high school shortly before students were to be dismissed for the day.

Jaime’s parents, Fred and Jennifer Guttenberg, initially launched an appeal on Facebook to find their two children who attended the school but the post was later removed.

The pair reportedly told local media that Jaime had died in the shooting, while her brother Jesse had made it home. 

Mr Hixon was described as “the nicest guy” who would have “given you the shirt off his back”.

Coral Springs High School athletic director Dan Jacob, who knew Mr Hixon through wrestling coaching, said: “Chris is probably the nicest guy I have ever met. 

“He would give you the shirt off his back. He does so much. That is terrible that it would happen to anybody. It is so senseless.”

Meanwhile, football coach Aaron Feis critically injured after he was shot jumping in front of students to protect them. 

Initial reports suggested Mr Feis had died but another coach Jordan May tweeted: “Coach Feis has not passed. He was shot but is not dead.”

Mr Feis had also been a security guard at the school for eight years, according to students.

Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said 12 of the dead were killed inside the school, two others just outside, one more on the street and two victims died from their wounds in hospital. 

The shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland is the second-deadliest attack at a US public school.

Television footage following the shooting shows students streaming out of the building with hands raised in the air as they evacuated the school campus weaving their way between heavily armed, helmeted police officers. 

Nikolas Cruz, 19, the suspected gunman reportedly stormed the school in Parkland, just 45 miles (72 km) north of Miami on Wednesday afternoon armed with an assault rifle, according to police.

As well as the 17 confirmed dead, at least 50 were injured.

The gunman was arrested later outside, some distance from the school in an adjacent community. 

Broward Sheriff Scott Israel said Cruz was a former student at the school but had been expelled for unknown “disciplinary reasons” last year.

Wednesday’s violence marks the second-greatest loss of life from a shooting at a US public school, after the 2012 massacre of 20 first-graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, by a gunman who also killed his mother and himself.

That attack is the deadliest ever at an American high school, surpassing the 1999 rampage at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, where two teenagers killed 12 students and a teacher before taking their own lives.