While no motive has been described by police, Jereb speculated that Cruz may have allegedly committed the massacre out of hatred for Jews or women.
“There’s a very real sense of feminism being a cancer. That could’ve played into what he did, but we have female members of RoF,” Jereb said, adding that “we’re not a big fan of Jews. I think there were a lot of Jews at the school that might have been messing with him.”
Jereb said Cruz belonged to a RoF “cell” from Clearwater and drove up with members to Tallahassee to do paramilitary training. RoF was recently operating in Tallahassee and attempting to court new members, according to a local news report from last year. The group posts videos of training montages on the internet with members in fatigues brandishing weapons.
“I’m not trying to glorify it, but he was pretty efficient in what he did,” Jereb said. “He probably used that training to do what he did yesterday. Nobody I know told him to do that, he just freaked out.”
“I think somebody bought him a Mosin–Nagant, but that’s bolt action. He had a semi-automatic in the school,” Jereb said.
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Two classmates said they saw Cruz wore a “Make America Great Again” hat.
“I saw him wear a Trump hat,” said Sebastian Gonzalez, a 19-year-old who graduated in 2017.
Ocean Parodie, a 17-year-old junior, said Cruz was politically extreme.
“For example, he would degrade Islamic people as terrorists and bombers. I've seen him wear a Trump hat,” Parodie said.
A Violent Life Online
Cruz wore the Trump hat in a photo on an Instagram account the company said belonged to him. Over his face he wore a red, white, and blue bandana. On that account and another one, Cruz posted photos of guns, knives, anti-Muslim slurs, and a picture of a toad he killed.
On YouTube, a person by the same name spewed hateful commentary about anti-fascists.