Tuesday, April 2, 2024

Nikolas Cruz pleads guilty to killing 17 in Parkland school shooting : NPR

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Nikolas Cruz, the expelled student suspected of killing at least 17 people and injuring more than a dozen others at his former high school in Parkland, Florida, was described by his former classmates as a loner with a temper. On Thursday, the Broward County Sheriff’s Office said Cruz confessed to being the shooter. Alyssa Alhadeff's parents said they didn’t doubt their daughter’s killer would be sentenced to death. They said the years-long trial was torture, but the eventual verdict was worse. Annika Dworet, whose 17-year-old son Nicholas was killed in the shooting, asked what crime, if not Cruz's, could warrant the death penalty. In the two days preceding the Judge's decision, anguished family members of victims verbally condemned Cruz and levied criticisms at defense attorneys.

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Manuel Oliver, the father of Parkland victim Joaquin Oliver, wore a Sex Pistols t-shirt with the famous "God Save The Queen" logo that he had altered to read "God Save Joaquin." A 17-year-old junior named Dakota Mentcher also recalled to the AP that Cruz had posted Instagrams about killing animals. Mentcher said Cruz would also talk about doing target practice in his backyard with a pellet gun. Cruz had been expelled from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last year. Though officials had declined to say why Cruz had been expelled, the mother of one student told the New York Times he had brought knives to campus.

Parkland shooting victim's father calls for Broward County public defender's resignation

The defense argued that his birth mother’s alcohol abuse during her pregnancy led to his erratic and violent behavior. This should have been the death penalty 100%,” said Lori Alhadeff, who has a “Live for Alyssa” tattoo on her arm. Following the verdict, Alyssa's parents denounced the jury's recommendation. Family members of the victims were visibly emotional, some shaking their heads and others wiping tears. Judge Elizabeth Scherer read through the verdict forms — a total of 17, one for each victim. Oliver wrote on Twitter that the sentence sends a bad message to killers.

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Nikolas Jacob Cruz (born September 24, 1998)[1][2][3] is an American mass murderer who perpetrated the Parkland high school shooting, where he shot and killed 17 people and wounded 17 others on February 14, 2018. In 2022, Cruz was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for his involvement in the deaths and injuries caused during the shooting, which is the deadliest high school shooting in U.S. history. On October 20, 2021, Cruz pleaded guilty to all charges and apologized for his crimes. Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz has been spared the death penalty and sentenced to life in prison by a Florida jury for carrying out the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that claimed 17 lives. Parkland school shooting victim Joaquin Oliver's family expressed shock and disgust after shooter Nikolas Cruz avoided the death penalty as a jury recommended life without the possibility of parole on all counts against him.

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A Florida man has pleaded guilty to murdering 17 people in a 2018 mass shooting at a high school campus in Parkland, Florida. Satz laid out the tragic and horrifying details of how each person died or was injured, including victims' ages and where they were in the school building when they were shot — many of them repeatedly. On a Zoom videoconference from the courthouse, relatives of the victims could be seen weeping. Cruz, 23, faced 17 charges of first-degree murder and an additional 17 charges of attempted murder. He had initially pleaded not guilty to all of the crimes, but his attorneys recently said they would not contest his guilt. Instead, the group of public defenders who represent Cruz have asked the court to sentence him to 17 life sentences.

The gunman was arrested shortly after the killings, and his responsibility for the heinous crime became a foregone conclusion after a video emerged in which he discussed his plans and his state of mind, in footage recorded shortly before the killings. She later asked Cruz if he believes it's in his best interest to waive his right to a jury trial and acknowledge guilt. At the start of Wednesday's court session, Scherer addressed Cruz directly to establish his competency and ability to understand the proceedings. As for his mental state, he acknowledged that he has previously been diagnosed with depression and anxiety. The long-running case will next head to the sentencing phase of the trial, which will be presented before a jury.

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He got none of that Wednesday, as speaker after speaker condemned him in the courtroom. Fred Guttenberg, the father of Jaime Guttenberg, 14, said his daughter was shot running down a hallway and no mitigating factors could have weighed against that. "Seventeen beautiful lives were cut short by murder — heinous, prepared, torturous murder. And the monster that killed them gets to live another day," he said.

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Defense attorneys had argued Cruz's birth mother's alcohol abuse left him with severe behavioral problems that eventually led to his 2018 murder of 17 people. Some families pushed back against defense attorneys who on Tuesday requested angry victim impact statements aimed at them be reigned in, suggesting that some statements could incite violence. The trial also saw tension between the defense and Scherer in which the gunman's attorneys filed a motion for her to step down, accusing her of being biased, but she refused.

The sentence, handed down by Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer, was a formality after a jury last month voted to spare Cruz of the death penalty. The shooter's sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 1 — at which time a formal ruling will be issued. It was delayed after the state argued that the surviving victims of the Parkland shooting have the right to express themselves and say what they could not during victim impact statements prior to a sentence being announced. Those mitigating factors, the defense had argued, include the shooter's birth mother’s alcohol use, his adoptive parents' failure to get him proper psychiatric care and his admission of guilt. He has not decided if he'll go to court on Nov. 1 when victims are given the opportunity to read statements.

She told the prosecutors that she thought their case was "flawless" and that they "proved every aggravating factor" at trial. Daniel Huerfano, a student who fled Wednesday’s attack, told the AP he recognized Cruz from an Instagram photo where he posed with a gun in front of his face. Cruz lived with a friend’s family after the death of his mother in November and worked at a local Dollar Tree store while attending school at an adult education center, the attorney for the family said.

In closing arguments Tuesday, lead prosecutor Mike Satz told jurors that Cruz had hunted his victims during his siege of the school, returning to some of those he'd wounded to shoot them again, and kill them. The family of 15-year-old Parkland massacre victim Peter Wang says they are "shocked" at the jury's decision in the Parkland school shooting case. The father of a 14-year-old victim in the Parkland massacre was critical of the jury's decision to recommend life without the possibility of parole for the shooter. The 19-year-old was charged Thursday with 17 counts of premeditated murder, after he allegedly opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Wednesday afternoon.

The families of Parkland shooting victims "have to live knowing the fact that the murderer is in the jail every single day, breathing, eating and getting help by their lawyers," Chen said. "What about the kids? What about the families? This is not about the shooter." We don’t know which exactly mitigating factors were in play in those discussions – but we do know which mitigating factors on Cruz’s life were presented at trial. On each count, the jury found Cruz eligible for the death penalty based on aggravating circumstances – but did not unanimously find that those aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating factors.

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"We owe it to all those we've lost and to all those left behind to grieve to make a change," Mr Biden said. Many of the shooting's survivors went on to become prominent advocates for gun legislation reform and have demanded that action be taken to prevent similar incidents. Students and staff later described him as an "outcast" and troublemaker. "I am very sorry for what I did and have to live with it every day," he said. "If I were to get a second chance, I would do everything in my power to help others." "I am very sorry for what I did, and I have to live with it every day," he said, adding that he regularly has nightmares.

Weekes had criticized some of Tuesday's testimony for verbally attacking defense lawyers, and claimed that the defendant's lawyers were just doing their jobs as the law provides criminal defendants a right to legal representation. This comes after Weekes asked the judge to direct the state to encourage its witnesses to not make any statements to or about the defense team and the jury and to stick to their feelings about how Cruz’s sentence affected them. In many of the impact statements heard by the court, some families expressed frustration and anger with the justice system, while others shared stories about what their loved one was like before they were killed in the shooting. Judge Elizabeth Scherer addressed the families of Parkland shooting victims and thanked them for their courage and for sharing their stories and the memories of their loved ones. At the end of the hearing, the judge remanded Cruz to the Department of Corrections. Members of the Broward County Sheriff's Department then escorted Cruz out of the courtroom.

Cruz, now 24, pleaded guilty last October to 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder for the shooting in Parkland, Florida, in which 14 students and three school staff members were killed, and 17 others were injured. Judge Elizabeth Scherer sentenced Nikolas Cruz to life in prison without the possibility of parole on Wednesday after a Florida jury last month failed to reach a unanimous decision on the death penalty in his penalty phase trial. To reach that decision, each juror had to vote 17 times - once for each victim. In their votes, jurors unanimously found that the established aggravating factors were sufficient to warrant a possible sentence of death.

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