Florida mass shooting: Families mourn as first victims of school massacre are laid to rest

A father's grief and anger boiled over as his daughter was buried after being killed in the Florida school mass shooting.

Andrew Pollack looked down from the altar at a Florida synagogue at the coffin of his 18-year-old daughter Meadow and yelled: "You killed my kid!"

Mr Pollack was referring to Nikolas Cruz, the former student accused of gunning down Pollack and 16 others Wednesday at the school in Parkland, Florida.

He told some 1,000 mourners present at his daughter's funeral on Friday.

He added: "My kid is dead ... This is just unimaginable that I will never see my princess again."

Meadow's funeral came shortly after another service for 14-year-old Alyssa Alhadeff.

Cruz was allegedly identified as a threat months before he allegedly burst into Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school. He had been expelled last year, reportedly after knives and bullets were found in his bag.

He had also “joked” about killing his former classmates. One said: “He played around with this joke all the time, like he knows the layout of the school, he can actually go ahead and pinpoint where all the students would be.”

The alleged killer also posted pictures on Instagram showing him posing with guns, knives and and dead animals.

Police said the shooter was wearing a gas mask and was armed with an assault rifle and smoke grenades when he deliberately set off fire alarms and shot his panicked victims at random.

Jim Gard, a maths teacher who taught him, said: “We were told last year that he wasn’t allowed on campus with a backpack on him. There were problems with him last year threatening students, and I guess he was asked to leave.”

Cruz is understood to have passed a background check and legally bought the AR-15 assault rifle used to carry out the massacre. It was the 18th US school shooting this year.

Students said one reason Cruz was expelled was that bullets were found in his backpack.

In his first official address since the horrific massacre, US President Donald Trump told America’s children “you are never alone”, and urged the Florida community to “answer hate with love and cruelty with kindness”.

Looking straight into the camera and directly addressing America’s children, he said: “I want you to know that you are never alone and you never will be."

He added: “If you need help, turn to a teacher, a family member, a local police officer and a faith leader.”

Additional reporting by the Press Association.