Parkland Teen Who Helped Police Catch Nikolas Cruz Returns to School

A Parkland, Florida teen who was injured in the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and helped cops nab gunman Nikolas Cruz has returned to school.

On Monday, April 2, nearly two months after gunman Nikolas Cruz opened fire inside the halls of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, freshman Kyle Laman returned to school accompanied by Coral Springs police officer, Sgt. Jeff Heinrich, who aided him in the moments after the shooting.

“I just wanted to see some of my friends,” Laman told the Sun-Sentinel upon his return.

The 15-year-old had been in Room 1249, located on the third floor of the 1200 building, on Feb. 14, the day of the shooting. Just minutes before school was set to let out, he said he heard the fire alarm go off, causing everyone in the room to exit into the hallway. About 90 seconds after exiting the room, Laman says he encountered Cruz, who began firing.

Laman was hit in the foot during the shooting, making him one of the 17 injured. He managed to run outside, where he encountered Sgt. Heinrich. As Heinrich bandaged his foot and placed him in an ambulance, Laman gave a description of Cruz that helped police catch him after he fled the scene of the shooting.

“I saw other kids running, but Kyle was the first who was looking for an adult,” Heinrich recalled, adding that Laman’s description of the suspect was “spot on.”

Laman was rushed to a nearby hospital, where at one point doctors believed that they would have to amputate the freshman’s foot.

“The whole top of my son’s foot was shot off. They had to reconstruct his whole foot. It looked like Walking Dead,” Laman’s mom, Marie Laman, said. “You know, you think of a bullet hole, you think of a little hole. This was, like, a hole bigger than my whole hand. His foot [was] just blown away, because that’s what these bullets were made to do. An 18-year-old or 19-year-old should not be able to purchase that. I mean, you can’t even drink at that age, you know? You’re barely driving, but you can have these weapons that are made to kill. I mean those bullets were made to kill. So, that’s what I would get across.”

Though Laman is out of the hospital and back at school, his first full day having been Tuesday, he remains in a wheelchair and faces several more surgeries before he will be able to walk again.