A white nationalist militia leader says the Florida high-school shooting suspect was a member

Broward County Jail via Assocaited Press

This photo provided by the Broward County Jail shows Nikolas Cruz.

• The suspected Florida high-school shooter, Nikolas Cruz, was a member of a white nationalist militia, the group's leader said Thursday.
• The Republic of Florida describes itself as a "white civil rights organization fighting for white identitarian politics."
• The group's leader, Jordan Jereb, said Cruz participated in paramilitary drills in Talahassee.

The leader of a white nationalist militia said Thursday that the Florida school shooting suspect was a member of his group and participated in at least one paramilitary drill in Tallahassee.

The suspect, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, allegedly killed 17 people when he opened fire at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland on Wednesday.

Police charged Cruz with 17 counts of premeditated murder. He is set to appear in court Thursday afternoon.

Jordan Jereb told The Associated Press that his group, Republic of Florida, wants Florida to become its own white ethno-state. ROF describes itself as a "white civil rights organization fighting for white identitarian politics," according to the Anti-Defamation League.

Jereb told AP his group holds "spontaneous random demonstrations" and tries not to participate in the modern world.

He added that he didn't know Cruz personally and that Cruz "acted on his own behalf of what he just did and he's solely responsible for what he just did."

But three of Cruz's former classmates told ABC News that they knew Cruz was part of ROF and they frequently saw him with Jereb.

Jereb also said Cruz had "trouble with a girl," and he believed the timing of the attack, carried out on Valentine's Day, wasn't a coincidence.

The ADL also reported Cruz's alleged affiliation with ROF on Thursday, and said the group's members had discussed on the online forum 4chan that Cruz had been a member. Jereb told ADF that Cruz had been "brought up" by another ROF member.