Florida Adoptee Kills 17 People in a High School UPDATED and Lawsuit

“A cowering Nikolas Cruz was comforted by his public defender as he was ordered held without bail during his first court appearance on Thursday, in connection to the deadly shooting at a Parkland, Florida high school on Wednesday that left 17 dead and 14 injured.

The 19-year-old wore an orange jump suit and shackles on his wrists and ankles as he was officially charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder.

He kept his eyes down and didn’t speak in court today, other than to confirm his name with a polite ‘yes ma’am’ to the judge.

Standing next to him was his public defender, Melisa McNeil, who comforted him by putting a hand around his shoulder.

After the hearing, Cruz’s defense team revealed that he was on suicide watch and that he understood the magnitude of his actions.

McNeill told reporters gathered outside the courtroom that her client was sad and remorseful.

‘He’s sad. He’s mournful. He’s remorseful. He is fully aware of what is going on, and he’s just a broken human being,’ she said.

She became emotional while speaking to reporters, saying she’s fully aware of the impact the shooting has had on the community, as a parent herself.

‘I had to have the exact same conversation that every parent in Broward had to have with their children this morning, then I had to walk and meet with him,’ McNeill said. ‘I’m fully aware of the impact this has on the people who live here.

According to her LinkedIn, she has worked in the homicide division of the Broward public defender’s office since 2000.

Another member of the defense team, Gordon Weeks, was brought to tears as he addressed reporters, telling them that Cruz ‘recognizes’ what he has done and is ‘deeply sad’.

‘He is dealing with the shock of all this that’s going on,’ Weeks said.

McNeill and Weeks said that Cruz suffers from autism, depression and has dealt with significant psychological problems – all without the sort of support system that most people have.

‘When your brain is not fully developed, you don’t know how to deal with these things,’ McNeil said. ‘That’s the child I’m sitting across from.’

Weeks added: ‘The child is deeply troubled and he has endured significant trauma that stems from the loss of his mother.’

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi has said she is ‘certain’ prosecutors will be seeking the death penalty for the teen shooter.

Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel revealed on Thursday afternoon that Cruz had tried to mix in with a group of students fleeing the school before stopping at fast food restaurants after the attack.

The sheriff said Cruz headed to a Wal-Mart and bought a drink at a Subway restaurant before walking to a McDonald’s. Cruz was confronted by a police officer and taken into custody about 40 minutes after leaving the McDonald’s.

Cruz was initially taken to the hospital to be treated for ‘labored breathing’.

He was soon released to the police who spent most of the night questioning Cruz, trying to make sense of the horrific school shooting – now the third deadliest in American history.

The fact that it was the 30th mass shooting so far this year has spurred activists to call on Congress again to revamp the nation’s gun control policies. President Trump, a staunch defender of the National Rifle Association, said at a press conference on Thursday that the real issue lawmakers need to tackle is mental health, not guns.

Meanwhile, details are starting to emerge about the shooter, who recently was orphaned, stopped getting mental health treatment about a year ago and even had ties to a white supremacist group.

Students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School painted the picture of a weird and disturbed teen who sold knives out of a lunchbox, bragged about killing animals and was finally kicked out of school for fighting and carrying bullets in his backpack.

An FBI official also said Thursday that they were warned – not once, but twice – about the shooter. One of the warnings came in September, from a bail bondsman in Mississippi who alerted the feds about an alarming online message Cruz wrote saying he was ‘going to be a professional school shooter’

Ben Bennight says he alerted the FBI to a comment shared by Cruz on one of his YouTube videos back in September. He says the FBI was quick to respond to the concerning statement, arriving at his office the very next day to find out if he knew anything about the young man.

He didn’t hear from the FBI again until after the shooting on Wednesday. At a press conference Thursday morning, an FBI official said they followed up on the report but were ‘unable to further identify the person who made the comment’.

Broward County Mayor Beam Furr also revealed that Cruz had been getting treatment at a mental health clinic for a while, but hadn’t been back to the clinic in more than a year.

‘It wasn’t like there wasn’t concern for him,’ Furr told CNN. ‘We try to keep our eyes out on those kids who aren’t connected. … In this case we didn’t find a way to connect with this kid.’

Authorities offered no immediate details about Cruz or his possible motive, except to say that he had been kicked out of the high school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, which has about 3,000 students.

Officials wouldn’t say why exactly Cruz had been expelled, but fellow students said it was because he got into a fight with his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend and because he was caught with bullets in his backpack.

Authorities quickly started dissecting the shooter’s social media accounts in a bid to piece together the motive. Sheriff Israel reported that some of things the shooter had been posting was ‘very disturbing’.

In one Instagram post, Cruz posted a screengrab of Google search results for ‘what does allahu akbar’ mean. Allahu Akbar means ‘God is great’ in Arabic, and is something Islamist terrorist often shout before attacks.

He captioned the photo: ‘Well at least we know what it means when a sand durka [a racial expletive for an Arab person] says ‘allahu akbar’ [laughing face emojis].’ABC News reported Thursday that Cruz appeared to have ties to a white nationalist group called the Republic of Florida. A spokesman for the group confirmed Cruz was a member.

The group describes itself as a ‘white civil rights organization fighting for white identitarian politics’ and seeks to create a ‘white ethnostate’ in Florida.

The leader of the group, Jordan Jereb, told the Anti-Defamation League that Cruz was brought into the group by another member and had participated in training exercises with the group.

Jereb said that Cruz was not ordered to pull off the shooting and that they are not a terrorist organization.

He added to ABC News that he had not seen Cruz in ‘some time’ but after the shooting on Wednesday ‘he knew he would be getting this call’.

He also said he had ‘trouble with a girl’ and he believed the timing of the attack, carried out on Valentine’s Day, wasn’t a coincidence.

A law enforcement official says he knows of ‘no known ties’ between the suspect who confessed to a deadly mass shooting at a Florida high school and a white supremacist group.

Lt. Grady Jordan is a spokesman for the Leon County Sheriff’s Office in Tallahassee, where the white nationalist militia known as the Republic of Florida is based.

He says his office has ‘very solid’ information on the group and ‘there’s no known ties that we have that we can connect’ 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz with the group.

Cruz suffered a major blow in November when his adoptive mother Lynda Cruz, 68, died of pneumonia. Lynda was apparently the only person Cruz was close with.

‘Lynda was very close to them,’ her sister-in-law Barbara Kumbatovic told The Washington Post. ‘She put a lot of time and effort into those boys, trying to give them a good life and upbringing.’

Lynda and her husband, who died of a heart attack several years ago, adopted Cruz and his biological brother, Zachary, after the couple moved from Long Island in New York to Broward County. Cruz was an infant when he was adopted. It’s unclear if he was adopted from the U.S. or aboard [sic]. Adopted children from abroad sometimes have issues adjusting due to neglect in their orphanages, especially children from Russia.

While his brother was quiet and liked to stay indoors, Cruz constantly got into trouble and appeared to have ’emotional issues’.

‘Lynda dealt with it like most parents did. She was probably too good to him,’ Kumbatovic said. ‘She was a lovely woman. She was a hard-working woman. She made a beautiful home for them. She put a lot of effort and time into their schooling, their recreation, whatever they needed. She was a good parent. And she went over and above because she needed to compensate for being a single parent.’

She added: ‘I don’t think it had anything to do with his upbringing. It could have been the loss of his mom. I don’t know.’

Longtime Cruz family neighbors Malcolm and Christine Roxburgh told the Sun Sentinel that the police came to the boy’s house many times, as he used to get in trouble and harass people. He didn’t have an arrest record though.

Malcolm Roxburgh said a neighbor across the street kept pigs, and Nicolas Cruz targeted the family.

‘He didn’t like the pigs and didn’t like the neighbors, so he sent over his dog over there to try to attack them,’ Roxburgh said. Another neighbor, Shelby Speno, said she once witnessed Cruz shooting at chickens owned by another resident.

Roxburgh’s wife said she once caught Cruz peeking in her window.

‘I said, ‘What are you doing here?’ He said he was looking for golf balls. I said, ‘This isn’t the golf course,” she said.

And, the couple said, when the boy didn’t want to go to school, he would bang his head against a cement wall. They were scared of him. ‘He could have killed any of us,’ Christine Roxburgh said.

After their mother’s death, the boys were left in the care of a family friend – but Cruz didn’t stay there very long

Unhappy there, Cruz asked to move in with a friend at a mobile home park in northwest Broward. The friend’s family agreed and Cruz moved into his own room in the home around Thanksgiving.

‘The family brought him into their home,’ the family’s attorney, Jim Lewis, said. ‘They got him a job at a local dollar store. They didn’t see anything that would suggest any violence. He was depressed, maybe a little quirky. But they never saw anything violent. … He was just a little depressed and seemed to be working through it.’

Cruz brought his AR-15 rifle with him to the family’s home, where it was kept in a locked cabinet that the teen had a key to. Sources told CNN that the gunman purchased the rifle in the past year and passed a required background check to obtain it. Two federal law enforcement officials said the Smith & Wesson M&P rifle was purchased legally at Sunrise Tactical Supply in Coral Springs, Florida. Federal law allows people 18 and over to legally purchase long guns. At 21, people can legally buy handguns from a licensed dealer.

While living with the family, Lewis started going to a school for at-risk youth. Usually every morning, the father of the family would drive Cruz to school, but on Wednesday he overslept and then gave a cryptic reason why.

‘He said, ‘It’s Valentine’s Day and I don’t go to school on Valentine’s Day,” Lewis said.

Lewis said the family is devastated and didn’t see this coming. The family’s son was a junior at the school and was there when the shooting happened. Lewis said the family is cooperating and no one there is suspected of wrongdoing, he added.

The family’s cream-colored home was empty Thursday morning but in the backyard a bullet-riddled Bud Light can was stuck on a twig of an avocado tree overlooking a creek.

A paper plate, apparently a shooting target, was on another tree.

Few people on the Lantana Cascades estate speak English. One neighbor who would not give his name said he only met Cruz once when the people in the house introduced him.

‘He seemed like a nice kid but it was only the once,’ the elderly man said. ‘Then he was gone. I never saw him again.’

The backyard of the home on Easter Cay Way is littered with garden furniture and toys. Eerily, a Hot Wheels toy in a container is still beeping. A tan Kia Soul stands in the driveway.

Another neighbor, whose house on a neighboring street overlooks the home where Cruz had been staying, described Wednesday night on Lantana Cascades as ‘a madhouse.’

‘Dozens of police came. It was shortly after 5pm.

‘They taped two whole streets off and made those nearest the house get out. I stayed though.

‘I saw them go in and bring a lot of stuff out, but it was dark so I couldn’t see what.’

Students called Cruz ‘weird’ and a ‘loner’ – even those who’d been friendly with him said they hadn’t seen him in more than a year since his expulsion.

Dakota Mutchler, 17, recalled Cruz posting on Instagram about killing animals and said he had talked about doing target practice in his backyard with a pellet gun.

I think everyone had in their minds if anybody was going to do it, it was going to be him.

Dakota Mutchler, Stoneman Douglas High student

‘He started going after one of my friends, threatening her, and I cut him off from there,’ Mutchler said.

He said students weren’t surprised officials had identified Cruz as the shooter: ‘I think everyone had in their minds if anybody was going to do it, it was going to be him.’

Victoria Olvera, a 17-year-old junior at the school, said Cruz was expelled last school year because he got into a fight with his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend. She said he had been abusive to his girlfriend. Another student said that part of the reason Cruz was expelled was that he was caught carrying bullets in his backpack.

Matthew Walker, a 17-year-old student at the school, told WFOR-TV that all his classmates ‘knew it was going to be him.’

A lot of people were saying it was going to be him,’ he said. ‘A lot of kids threw jokes around saying that he was going to be the one to shoot up the school. It turns out that everyone predicted it. That’s crazy.’

‘He was going class to class just shooting at random kids,’ he said. ‘Everything he posts (on social media) is about weapons. It’s sick.’

One teacher said he had been identified as a potential threat to his classmates last year.

Math teacher Jim Gard, who taught Cruz last year, told the Miami Herald: ‘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 campus.’

Another student took to social media claiming Cruz had mental health issues that were ‘ignored by all the adults’.

‘He literally had an Instagram where he posted pictures of animals he killed gruesomely and he physically assaulted one of my friends once,’ the student added.

Another student, who was not identified, but claims to know Cruz, told WSVN he was obsessed with guns and showed him pictures of them on his phone.

‘He’s been a troubled kid and he’s always had a certain amount of issues going on. He shot guns because he felt it gave him, I guess, an exhilarating feeling.’

He added that Cruz made him nervous.

‘I stayed clear of him most of the time. My time in alternate school, I did not want to be with him at all because I didn’t want to cause any conflict with him because of the impression he gave off.’

He’s been a troubled kid and he’s always had a certain amount of issues going on. He shot guns because he felt it gave him, I guess, an exhilarating feeling.

Anonymous classmate of the shooter

Former classmate Joshua Charo, 16, told the Miami Herald that all Cruz ‘would talk about is guns, knives and hunting’.

‘I can’t say I was shocked. From past experiences, he seemed like the kind of kid who would do something like this,’ Charo said.

‘He used to tell me he would shoot rats with his BB gun and he wanted this kind of gun, and how he liked to always shoot for practice,’ Charo added.

One student added that Cruz started selling knives out of a lunchbox when he started high school.

But Broward County School District Superintendent Robert Runcie said he did not know of any threats posed by Cruz to the school.

‘Typically you see in these situations that there potentially could have been signs out there,’ Runcie said. ‘I would be speculating at this point if there were, but we didn’t have any warnings. There weren’t any phone calls or threats that we know of that were made.’

As a high school freshman, Cruz was part of the US military-sponsored Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corp program at the school.

President Trump tweeted Thursday morning, saying there were signs that the shooter was ‘mentally disturbed’.

He also entreated Americans to report similar people to the authorities.

‘So many signs that the Florida shooter was mentally disturbed, even expelled from school for bad and erratic behavior.

‘Neighbors and classmates knew he was such a big problem. Must always report such instances to authorities, again and again!’ he wrote.

Trump has cited mental health before as a cause for mass shootings, dismissing questions about gun control.

Trump spoke later in the morning about the shooting at a press conference from the White House.

Taking up the now-familiar ritual of public consolation after terrible violence, Trump spoke from the White House Diplomatic Room. In a slow, deliberate style, he sought to reassure a troubled nation as well as students’ families and shooting survivors in Florida.

‘We are all joined together as one American family, and your suffering is our burden also,’ Trump said. ‘No child, no teacher, should ever be in danger in an American school.’

Trump, who owns a private club in Palm Beach, Florida about 40 miles from the town of Parkland, where the shooting happened, said Thursday he was making plans to visit the grieving community.

He did not answer shouted questions about guns as he exited the room.

Just before the shooting broke out at 2:25pm, some students thought they were having another fire drill.

Such an exercise had forced them to leave their classrooms hours earlier. So when the alarm went off Wednesday afternoon shortly before they were to be dismissed, they once again filed out into the hallways.

That’s when police say Cruz, equipped with a gas mask, smoke grenades and multiple magazines of ammunition, opened fire with a semi-automatic weapon, killing 17 people and sending hundreds of students fleeing into the streets. It was the nation’s deadliest school shooting since a gunman attacked an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, more than five years ago.

‘Our district is in a tremendous state of grief and sorrow,’ said Robert Runcie, superintendent of the school district in Parkland, about an hour’s drive north of Miami. ‘It is a horrible day for us.’

Police arrived at the scene to find hundreds of students fleeing the school. They later learned the shooter had concealed himself in the crowd and was among those running off the campus.

Investigators were able to identify him after trawling surveillance video. He was arrested about an hour after the shooting first broke out when police cornered him in a nearby neighborhood. He had multiple magazines of ammunition on him, authorities said.

Seventeen people were killed and more than a dozen injured.

‘It’s catastrophic. There really are no words,’ said Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel.

A local politician told DailyMail.com that the high school has high-definition surveillance cameras that captured every single shot by Cruz and authorities are pouring through them now.

The cameras allegedly picked up Cruz walking across the empty parking lot toward the school carrying his rifle, as classes were in session.

The two school resource officers, from the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, are supposed to monitor the perimeter.

DailyMail.com reached out to the sheriff’s office for comment, but they did not respond.

Frantic parents rushed to the school to find SWAT team members and ambulances surrounding the huge campus and emergency workers who appeared to be treating the wounded on sidewalks. Students who hadn’t run began leaving in a single-file line with their hands over their heads as officers urged them to evacuate quickly.

Hearing loud bangs as the shooter fired, many of the students inside hid under desks or in closets, and barricaded doors.

‘We were in the corner, away from the windows,’ said freshman Max Charles, who said he heard five gunshots. ‘The teacher locked the door and turned off the light. I thought maybe I could die or something.’

As he was leaving the building, he saw four dead students and one dead teacher. He said he was relieved when he finally found his mother.

‘I was happy that I was alive,’ Max said. ‘She was crying when she saw me.’

Noah Parness, a 17-year-old junior, said he and the other students calmly went outside to their fire-drill areas when he suddenly heard popping sounds.

‘We saw a bunch of teachers running down the stairway, and then everybody shifted and broke into a sprint,’ Parness said. ‘I hopped a fence.’

Sen. Bill Nelson told CNN that Cruz had pulled the fire alarm ‘so the kids would come pouring out of the classrooms into the hall.’

‘And there the carnage began,’ said Nelson, who said he was briefed by the FBI.

The scene was reminiscent of the Newtown attack, which shocked even a country numbed by the regularity of school shootings. The December 14, 2012, assault at Sandy Hook Elementary School killed 26 people: 20 first-graders and six staff members. The 20-year-old gunman, who also fatally shot his mother in her bed, then killed himself.

Not long after Wednesday’s attack in Florida, Michael Nembhard was sitting in his garage on a cul-de-sac when he saw a young man in a burgundy shirt walking down the street. In an instant, a police cruiser pulled up, and officers jumped out with guns drawn.

‘All I heard was ‘Get on the ground! Get on the ground!” Nembhard said. He said Cruz did as he was told.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott joined law enforcement agents near the site of the deadly school shooting on Wednesday night and offered his condolences to the victims’ families and survivors.

Scott said that he couldn’t imagine what the families of the victims are going through. He also said he would be visiting hospitalized survivors.

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi said the state would cover funeral expenses for the victims and counseling for survivors.

The school will be closed for the rest of the week.

South Florida remained on edge on Thursday. Miami’s main criminal courthouse building was put on lockdown after an unspecified threat was reported, Miami-Dade County’s state attorney said on Twitter.

Another Broward school briefly also went on lockdown after reports of a shooting, which turned out to be unfounded, local media reported.

A law enforcement officer is assigned to every school in the Broward County district, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High board member Donna Korn told a local newspaper. The sheriff’s office also provides active shooter training and schools have a single point of entry, she said.

‘We have prepared the campuses, but sometimes people still find a way to let these horrific things happen,’ Korn said.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School is in Parkland – Florida’s safest city last year.

It’s also a lucrative area to live because the schools are so good.

The incident comes just a few weeks after a 15-year-old boy opened fire at his rural Kentucky high school, killing two and injuring more than two dozen others.

It’s the 30th mass shooting of the year and the third-deadliest school shooting in American history, behind Sandy Hook and Virginia Tech.”
******

How were at least 15 warning signs missed for Nikolas Cruz?

Update 2:“A newly released transcript shows Florida school shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz spat out ‘kill me’ and then cursed as he sat alone in a sheriff’s interrogation room just hours after the massacre that left 17 dead.

Broward sheriff’s Detective John Curcio had just left Cruz alone to get him some water when the 19-year-old suspect made that exclamation.

The teen said he did not ‘deserve’ a bottle of water offer by police and muttered to himself: ‘Kill me. Just f***ing kill me’ when the officer left the room.

Cruz said he heard a voice in his head and had been hearing them for years. Asked what the voice said, Cruz replied, ‘Burn. Kill. Destroy.’

Prosecutors released a redacted 200-page transcript of Cruz’s post-shooting statement on Monday afternoon after a judge ruled last month that non-confession portions should be made public.

Cruz made the 12-hour statement to Curcio shortly after the February 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Media had sought the statement’s release under Florida’s broad public records laws. Cruz’s attorneys had wanted it suppressed, saying its disclosure could hinder his right to a fair trial.

Details of the shooting are blacked out, but the transcript is otherwise wide-ranging, dealing with the death of Cruz’s parents, his penchant for killing animals, his former girlfriend, his brother, guns, suicide attempts and, especially, the voice.

According to his statement, Cruz told officers that the voice told him to buy a gun and to hurt people.

He said he had initially planned to shoot people in a park two to three weeks before the actual school shooting, but he couldn’t go through with.

he detective asked if the supposed voice had given specific instructions related to the massacre, including the fact that Cruz took an Uber to the high school.

Curcio asked: ‘The voice didn’t tell you to take Uber, right?’

Cruz replied: ‘Yes, it did.’

The teenager went on to say that he had tried to kill himself twice before the massacre because the voice had told him to.

He tried to overdose on ibuprofen after the death of his mother in November.He told Curcio the voice appeared after his father died about 15 years ago but got worse after his mother died in November.

Cruz described the voice as a male, about his age, and that the only person he ever told about it was his brother.

Cruz also admitted to taking drugs like Xanax and marijuana.

According to the transcript, Cruz told the detective he bought the AR-15 for $560 from a gun shop and purchased the ammunition online. He estimated spending about $4,000 on weaponry. He said he bought the rifle because it was ‘cool looking’.

When he was left alone again in the interview room, Cruz told himself: ‘I want to die’.

‘At the end, you’re nothing but worthless s**t, dude. You deserve to die because you’re f***ing worthless and you f***ing (unintelligible) everyone. I want to die.’

Cruz’s attorneys have said he would plead guilty in exchange for a sentence of life without parole. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. “

‘Burn. Kill. Destroy’: Florida shooter said he heard voices in his head and exclaimed ‘kill me’ to police after school massacre

[Daily Mail 8/6/18 by AP]

Update 2:” Florida school shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz has attacked a detention officer at the county jail and now faces new charges.

Broward Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Veda Coleman-Wright confirmed in an email Wednesday that Cruz assaulted the deputy around 6 pm Tuesday.

According to the assault arrest report, Cruz attacked Sgt Raymond Beltran, 41, after he was told to ‘not drag his sandals around’ while walking in a jail dayroom.

Cruz now is charged with aggravated assault on an officer, battery on an officer and use of an ‘electric or chemical weapon against an officer.’

Cruz responded, the report says, by showing Beltran his middle finger and then rushing the deputy and striking him with his fist.

According to the BSO, ‘Shortly before 6pm Tuesday, Nikolas Cruz attacked a Broward Sheriff’s Office detention deputy at the BSO Main Jail.’

The report says Cruz and Beltran then ‘got into a physical altercation’ in which both wound up on the floor and Cruz was able to wrest control of the stun gun, technically called a ‘conducive electronic weapon.’

The stun gun discharged but it’s not clear from the report if it struck anyone and Beltran was able to regain control.

Beltran was also struck multiple times by Cruz using his fists, according to video surveillance cited by the report.

Finally, the report says Beltran struck Cruz in the face with a fist containing the stun gun and Cruz then ‘retreated to one of the seats’ in the dayroom before he was taken into custody.

The report does not mention the severity of any injuries to either Cruz or Beltran.

The 20-year-old Cruz already faces the death penalty in the February 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland that killed 17 people and wounded 17 others.

He’s pleaded not guilty in the shooting but his lawyers say he would plead guilty in exchange for a life prison sentence.”

Parkland shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz ‘assaulted a jail officer in a fight over sandals and grabbed his stun gun’

[Daily Mail 11/14/18 by AP]

Update 3:“Wearing a bandage over his nose and his eyes noticeably blackened, self-confessed Parkland School shooter Nikolas Cruz appeared in Florida court on Wednesday afternoon, where the start date of his high-profile trial was tentatively confirmed by a judge.

Cruz, 20, appeared to have suffered some form of injury to his nose since his last appearance in court, with a bandage placed over its bridge along with two black lines beneath the base of his eyes.

Relatively emotionless through much of the hearing, Cruz, who killed 14 students and three staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland on Valentine’s Day last year, is set to be put on trial on January 20, 2020.

Restrained at the ankles and wrists with a chain tied around his back, Cruz raised a low hand to address the Broward County Courtroom earlier today.

He stood and spoke for himself under oath for the first time, forgoing his typical tradition of allowing his public defenders to speak on his behalf as he has done in previous court appearances.

Sporting unkempt hair, Cruz told presiding Judge Elizabeth Scherer he wanted to waive his right to appear at future status hearings about his case, though said he was aware he may still be required to attend more substantiate hearings.

When asked, Cruz simply responded ‘Yes’, that he understood he was giving up a right by filing the request to the judge.

Scherer asked Cruz to clarify that he was of sound mind to make such a decision, one not plagued by medication that could potential alter his decision.

‘I fully understand what you’re saying,’ Cruz told the judge.

Watching on from the gallery, Cruz’s brother Zachary was spotted among the sea of faces in the pews behind.

Much like his sibling, Zachary was sporting previously unseen facial markings of his own: two small suggestive tattoos on either side of his face, with a peace symbol on the left, and a broken heart on the right.

Cruz’s legal team of public defenders attempted to push back on Scherer’s tentative trial date, arguing they needed more than the provided six-months to conduct their investigation, carry out depositions and interview some 300 witnesses.

‘We certainly don’t want to create an unrealistic expectation in this community,” Melisa McNeill one of Cruz’s public defenders said according to WLRN.

‘We do not believe that that is a realistic trial date…There is still a tremendous amount of work to be done.’

The defense claimed they’ve only taken 91 out of 131 scheduled depositions so far, but Scherer urged them to pace themselves accordingly, insisting she wasn’t going to push back the date any further.

Broward State Attorney, Michael Satz, who is prosecuting the case for the state said however that his legal team is on track for the slated January 20 start.

Cruz’s lawyers have previously said their client would be willing to plead guilty to the 17 counts of first-degree murder charges if a sentence of life in prison could be guaranteed by the court.

The prosecution however insist they would rather take the case to trial and allow a jury to decide Cruz’s ultimate fate.

The next status hearing in the case is set to take place on September 3rd.”

Nikolas Cruz appears wearing a bandage across his nose, with black eyes and unkempt hair as the Parkland school shooter attends a pre-trial hearing watched by his tattooed brother Zachary
[Daily Mail 7/17/19 by Luke Kenton]

Update 3:“The judge overseeing the case of Florida school shooting defendant Nikolas Cruz said Tuesday she will consider a defense request to delay the start of trial beyond late January.

Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer set a Dec. 19 date for arguments on the motion by defense lawyers who claim the case is moving much too swiftly and runs the risk of legal errors. That could mean a conviction of Cruz might be reversed on appeal, sending it back for another high-profile trial.

Prosecutors have been pushing hard to start the trial with jury selection beginning Jan. 27. Broward State Attorney Mike Satz, who is the chief prosecutor on the case, said the motion to delay trial must be heard quickly.

“We just can’t wait until the last minute,” Satz said at a hearing.

Cruz, 21, faces 17 counts of first-degree murder and 17 counts of attempted murder in the Valentine’s Day 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. He faces the death penalty if convicted, although his lawyers say he will plead guilty in return for a life prison sentence.

In their motion, defense lawyers noted that of 38 capital punishment cases in Broward County since 1994, the average time they remained pending between arrest and trial was 52 months, or a little over four years.

On the current schedule, Cruz’s trial would begin less than two years after the mass shooting on Feb. 14, 2018. He was arrested that same day. Defense lawyers say that is far too fast for them to adequately prepare a defense in a case of such magnitude.

“We want to make sure it’s done once and it’s done right,” said Gordon Weekes, chief assistant public defender in Broward County. “Expedience has taken precedence over the prudent disposition of this case.”

The defense motion suggests that one reason for the accelerated schedule is tha t Satz, retiring in 2020 after 44 years as top prosecutor, wants to get a conviction of Cruz next year. Another reason, the defense says, is that Scherer is up for re-election, and a third is simply the massive media attention the massacre has received.

Scherer sought Tuesday to keep the case on track for a Jan. 27 start by scheduling the December hearing on the motion for a continuance.

“It’s better to have it sooner rather than later,” the judge said.

The defense motion notes that there are at least 1,000 witnesses identified by prosecutors in the case, and each of them must be interviewed by Cruz’s lawyers. There are about 4 million pages of evidence, thousands of photos, videos, and social media posts and much more.

There is still a huge amount of work to be done by the defense, Weekes said.

“This court is pushing it forward at breakneck speed to acquiesce to the state,” he said.”

Judge to Consider Delaying Trial Start in Parkland Massacre
[US News and World Report 12/10/19 by AP]

Update 4:“The parents of a Parkland school shooting victim have filed a new lawsuit against the U.S. government, accusing the FBI of failing to stop gunman Nikolas Cruz despite several warnings.

Andrew Pollack and Shara Kaplan filed the complaint on Wednesday in federal court against the ‘United States of America’.

Their 17-year-old daughter, Meadow, was among the 17 students and teachers killed when Cruz opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland on February 14, 2018.

They filed the lawsuit just days before the second anniversary of the massacre that saw their daughter shot nine times.

The lawsuit resembles one filed last year by the parents of two other students killed in the massacre: Jaime Guttenberg and Carmen Schentrup.

Meadows parents argue the FBI is responsible for the deaths because the agency had received tips about Cruz’s violent behavior and access to weapons.

The FBI had received an initial tip about Cruz five months before the shooting from a Mississippi bail bondsman who received a message from the teen saying he was going to be a ‘professional school shooter’, according to the lawsuit.

The bondsman went on to be interviewed by the FBI twice.

A month prior to the shooting, an anonymous caller contacted the FBI to report Cruz’s social media activity – including how he had posted about the animals he had killed and photos of his cache of weapons.

That caller specifically warned the FBI that Cruz might target a school, the lawsuit says.

‘I know he’s going to explode,’ the caller said.

The filing said the FBI knew Cruz ‘had the desire and capability to carry out a mass school shooting’ but they ‘failed to take any action whatsoever’.

‘As a direct, proximate, and foreseeable result of the FBI’s negligence, Cruz was able to kill 17 students and teachers and wound many more,’ the lawsuit said.

Meadow’s parents have also filed a separate lawsuit against the school’s resource officer Scot Peterson. They claim his actions contributed to their daughter’s death.

Peterson has been charged with child neglect for his failure to act during the massacre.

It comes after President Donald Trump met on Monday with several family members of the Parkland victims to discuss school safety.

Parents from the group Stand with Parkland were briefed on a new school safety clearinghouse website that was unveiled by the Trump administration.

The website is intended to offer educators, parents and law enforcement officers information on best practices to address threats to school safety.

Stand with Parkland, which backed the creation of such a tool to assist schools, has also urged Congress to pass universal background checks on gun purchases, something Trump briefly embraced before backing away from it earlier in his presidency.

‘Of course there is always more that can be done,’ said Max Schachter, whose 14-year-old son Alex was among the victims. ‘But let’s not let perfection be the enemy of good.’

Another Parkland parent, Fred Guttenberg, was removed from Trump’s State of the Union address last week after yelling when the president spoke of his support of the Second Amendment.

Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter Jaime was killed in the shooting, was a guest of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the address. He later apologized.

Guttenberg, a frequent Trump critic, took to Twitter early Monday to note he was not invited to take part in the White House meeting.

Meadow’s father, Pollack, said he supported the decision not to invite Guttenberg. Pollack is an outspoken supporter of Trump. Pollack said Guttenberg had declined to be part of the group that pushed for the program.”

Parents of Parkland school shooting victim sue the FBI, saying it failed to follow up on anonymous tip that Nikolas Cruz ‘might shoot up a school’
[Daily Mail 02/14/2020 by Emily Crane]

Update 5:“The Florida foster parents of Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz have issued a public apology for opening their home to him in the months before the massacre and allowing him to keep a cache of guns, despite warnings from others who knew the teen saying he was ‘dangerous’ and obsessed with weapons.

James and Kimberly Snead expressed their regret in a letter to the families of the 17 victims who were shot dead at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on February 14, 2018.

‘We, James and Kimberly Snead, will forever regret taking Nikolas Cruz into our home,’ the couple wrote. ‘We did so believing we were helping a troubled young man who needed help.’

The couple penned the letter acknowledging their mistakes to satisfy one of the conditions of settling a barrage of civil lawsuits that had been filed against them by the victims’ relatives in the wake of the slaughter.

The letter was first reported on by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel on Tuesday.

The agreement also calls for the Sneads to pay the victims a nominal restitution of $1, and prohibits them from profiting off of the story of the shooting.

The Sneads admitted to ignoring warnings from Cruz’s previous caretaker, Rocxanne Deschamps, before welcoming him into their home two-and-a-half months before the tragedy.

Deschamps, who briefly looked after Cruz and his brother, Zachary, after their adoptive mother, Lynda Cruz, died in November 2017, had informed the Sneads that the 19-year-old had serious behavioral issues and had chosen to leave her home rather than part from his assault-style rifle.

Deschamps previously said that she forbade Cruz from having guns in her house and ‘begged’ him to see a doctor to be treated for depression.

She also warned law enforcement about his obsession with military-style guns and his violent outbursts, but she said police told her there was nothing they could do.

In their public mea culpa, James and Kimberly Snead also acknowledged that they failed to heed the warnings from Katherine Blaine, Cruz’s cousin, who told them at the time that the teen was ‘violent, dangerous, infatuated with guns and knives, untrustworthy, and threatened to kill people on Instagram, among other things.

‘We thought we could handle this troubled young man, unfortunately, we were wrong,’ the Sneads conceded.

The couple further admitted that it was ‘particularly wrong’ of them to allow Cruz to store his arsenal of firearms in their house, including the AR-15 that he later used to shoot and kill 14 high school students and three Stoneman Douglas faculty members.

‘We believed the firearms were secured in a gun safe under lock and key,’ wrote the Sneads. ‘We believed we had the only key, yet, somehow Nikolas Cruz was able to access the AR-15 before he attacked Stoneman Douglas.’

The couple closed their letter by urging other people to learn from their mistakes and pay close attention to red flags before letting ‘a troubled young person’ into their home.

They stressed the importance of making sure all firearms are under lock and key, and encouraged caretakers to review the social media posts of the teen living under their roof on a regular basis.

‘Troubled persons so often foretell the violence that they’re going to commit on social media,’ wrote the Sneads.

Andrew Pollack, a school safety activist who lost his daughter, Meadow, in the Parkland shooting, said he and other victims’ relatives demanded that James and Kimberly Snead publicly apologize for their inaction.

‘They didn’t want to accept accountability, and we forced it on them,’ he told the Sun-Sentinel.

Months after the school shooting, the Sneads complained about being bombarded with wrongful death and negligence lawsuits, which they feared could bring them to the brink of bankruptcy.

‘We’re like many other families in America today, we live paycheck to paycheck,’ James, a US Army veteran, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel in May 2018.

The Sneads insisted at the time that their house guest showed no warning signs of mental derangement or homicidal tendencies, and argued that they had no way of knowing he would carry out the slaughter.

The couple have since moved out of Parkland after becoming pariahs in their community.

Meanwhile, Cruz’s death penalty trial has been put off indefinitely because of restrictions related to the coronavirus outbreak.

A judge made the announcement in June, saying that it is not even clear when the Broward County courthouse will reopen to the public. It’s been closed since March.

Cruz, now aged 21, is charged with fatally shooting 17 people and wounding 17 others at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Valentine’s Day 2018. His lawyers say he would plead guilty in exchange for a life prison sentence, but prosecutors are forging ahead with a trial. ”

Parkland foster parents ‘forever regret’ taking in mass shooter Nikolas Cruz despite ‘warning signs he was disturbed’ and allowing him to store firearms in their house – including the AR-15 used to slaughter 17 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School
[Daily Mail 7/29/2020 by Snejana Farberov]

Update 6:“It’s been more than 1,000 days since a gunman with an AR-15 rifle burst into a Florida high school, killed 17 people and wounded 17 others.

Yet, with Valentine’s Day on Sunday marking the three-year milestone, the trial of 22-year-old Nikolas Cruz is in limbo.

One reason is the coronavirus, which has shut court operations down and made in-person jail access difficult for the defense. Another is the sheer magnitude of the case, with hundreds of witnesses from Feb. 14, 2018, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.

The case could have been all over by now. Cruz’s lawyers have repeatedly said he would plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence. But prosecutors won’t budge on seeking the death penalty at trial.

“We are dedicated to ensuring that justice is done and we are working diligently to ensure that the criminal trial begins as soon as possible,” said Broward County State Attorney Harold Pryor, who was elected in November.

The longtime state attorney he replaced, Michael Satz, is staying on to personally prosecute Cruz. Satz has said Cruz’s fate must be decided by a jury, not by Cruz himself through a guilty plea.

Parents of those slain and wounded are divided over the death penalty, said Tony Montalto, whose 14-year-old daughter Gina was killed in the shooting and who is president of the victims’ family group Stand With Parkland.

There’s no doubt where Montalto stands.

““The option for a long life was not given to our children and spouses — it was taken that day,” Montalto said. “Society in general should demand that someone who attacked the most vulnerable, our children, at their school, a place of learning, should be held ultimately accountable. Our families have already paid the ultimate price.”

Michael Schulman, the father of shooting victim Scott Beigel — a school cross-country coach and geography teacher hailed for protecting students — wrote a newspaper opinion piece in which he said it would be better for everyone if Cruz could plead guilty and be locked away for life.

“Going for the death penalty will not bring our loved ones back to us. It will not make the physical scars of those wounded go away,” Schulman wrote. “In fact, what it will do is to continue the trauma and not allow the victims to heal and get closure.”

Even in the best of times, death penalty cases typically take years to go to trial. In Broward County, the average time between arrest and trial is about 3 1/2 years. Some complex cases have taken up to 10 years to get to trial.

“Even if we didn’t have the pandemic to contend with, getting a death penalty case with this many victims to trial, in Florida, would have taken at least this long,” said David Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice in Miami. “The deposition process alone can take years, and then there are the experts and mitigation specialists.”

If Cruz is convicted and sentenced to death, the appeals would probably stretch for decades. It’s also possible the case could get reversed and sent back for another sentencing hearing or trial, forcing victims’ families to confront it all again.

Cruz is represented by the Broward County public defender’s office, which has taken depositions so far from about 300 witnesses. His lawyers declined comment for this story, but in court papers they have insisted there is no intent to delay the case.

Cruz had a well-documented history of mental problems, including an obsession with violence and death, before the shooting rampage when he was 19. His defense isn’t focused on his guilt or innocence; it’s more about sparing him from the death penalty, his lawyers have said in court.

One big sticking point is access to Cruz in jail. His lawyers say that mental health experts they need for the trial must interview him in person, which they will not do as long as the coronavirus remains a threat in the nation’s jails. But officials have raised security concerns about transporting Cruz from jail to meet with defense experts elsewhere.

In recent weeks, there has also been a lengthy battle over prosecutors’ desire to let the jury —whenever the case gets to that point — visit the now-closed school building to see it for themselves. Defense attorneys say that would be too prejudicial and that ample video and other evidence exists.

Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer initially hoped to begin the trial in January 2020. That obviously did not happen. Then everything was shut down when the coronavirus pandemic struck in mid-March.

No trial date has been set. The next hearing is a status conference, conducted remotely like other such proceedings over the past several months, on Feb. 16.

Since the 2018 massacre:

—The sheriff at the time, Scott Israel, was removed by the governor because of the agency’s performance that day.

—The school security officer on duty the day of the shootings, former Broward County Deputy Scot Peterson, faces 11 criminal charges, including child neglect and negligence, for not entering the school building to confront Cruz. He has pleaded not guilty and also awaits trial.

— A commission set up to study the tragedy recommended that teachers be trained and armed in schools, and the state Legislature in 2019 passed a law to that effect.

— Multiple lawsuits have been filed over the shootings and will probably take years to resolve. The coronavirus outbreak has hindered those cases as well, though a judge recently ruled the school system had no duty to warn of the danger posed by Cruz, by then a former student.”

3 years later, Parkland school shooting trial still in limbo

[WGNTV 2/11/21 by AP]

Update 7:“The gunman who killed 14 students and three staff members at a Parkland, Florida, high school will plead guilty to their murders, his attorneys said Friday, bringing some closure to a South Florida community more than three years after an attack that sparked a nationwide movement for gun control.

The guilty plea would set up a penalty phase where Nikolas Cruz, 23, would be fighting against the death penalty and hoping for life without parole.

Attorneys for Cruz told Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer that he will plead guilty Wednesday to 17 counts of first-degree murder in the February 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. The pleas will come with no conditions and prosecutors still plan to seek the death penalty. That will be decided by a jury, but that trial has not been scheduled.”

Nikolas Cruz to plead guilty to Parkland school massacre, attorney says
[Fox 59 10/15/21 by AP]

“The jury for the sentencing trial of the Parkland high school shooter was sworn in Wednesday.

Seven men and five women were chosen. Opening statements will begin July 18.

The 12-panel jury selected to assign Cruz’s punishment will reportedly hear the testimony of nearly 2,000 witnesses.

Those jurors will either send Cruz to prison for the rest of his life or they will recommend the death penalty to the judge.”

Jury sworn in to sentencing trial for Parkland high school shooter
[WPBF 7/1/22 by Taylor Lang]

Update 8:“The penalty trial for the Parkland shooter is underway. A panel of 22 people, 12 jurors and 10 alternates were sworn in on Monday. The trial is expected to last months, but will ultimately determine the fate of the man who pleaded guilty to 17 counts of first degree murder in the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Nikolas Cruz took the lives of 14 students, a teacher, a coach and an athletic director at the high school on Feb. 14, 2018.

Opening statements reportedly took up the majority of Monday’s hearing. The defense let prosecutors have their say and have their way. Assistant Public Defender Melisa McNeill chose to reserve the team’s opening statement until the prosecution is finished presenting its case. Prosecutor Mike Satz called seven witnesses to the stand. The defense did not ask a single question of any of them.

Gilbert was a junior at Stoneman Douglas at the time. The videos showed students and a teacher hiding in fear as about two dozen gunshots were fired nearby. Although her body is not seen until the final video clip, victim Carmen Schentrup was already dead just a few yards away from Gilbert.

When jurors heard those shots, the gunman at the defense table lowered his head and did not look up. Family members of his victims leaned on each other for support. Some couldn’t take it and left the room. Another could not wait five seconds into a video clip before declaring she’d had enough.

Satz claimed that Cruz had planned to be a school shooter for a long time. He described a video that Cruz made three days before the killing where he bragged that he was going to be the “next school shooter” and that he hoped to kill at least 20.

Prosecutors replayed the horrific day and detailed the shooter’s methodical plan. They said he was “cold, calculated and deadly.”
Penalty Trial For Parkland Shooter Begins

[OAN 7/18/22]

Update 9:Nikolas “received a life sentence on Wednesday after previously pleading guilty to multiple counts of murder and attempted murder.”

Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz gets life in prison