FORT LAUDERDALE, July 18 (Reuters) – A prosecutor told jurors Monday that they should sentence to death the gunman who killed 17 people and injured 17 others in a mass shooting at a Florida high school in 2018.
Nikolas Cruz, 23, pleaded guilty in October to the premeditated murder of 14 students and three staff members at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, about 30 miles (48 km) north of Fort Lauderdale. Read more
Prosecutor Michael Satz told Broward County jurors on the first day of the sentencing phase that Cruz committed “a systematic and planned murder led by a target – mass murder – of 14 students, a sports director, a teacher and a coach “.
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Satz called witnesses, including students who were at school that day – a student of Shakespeare, the Holocaust – and played cell phone videos in which terrified students called for help or talked in whispers as they hid.
About three dozen relatives of the victims were present in court, some of whom wept as they watched the trial. Dressed in a gray and black sweater and a black mask, Cruz sat with his head in his hands, sometimes resting his head on the defense table, while videos were played.
Cruz, who was a 19-year-old expelled student at the time of the massacre, will be sentenced to life in prison without parole if any of the 12 jurors oppose the death penalty. Your decision could take several months.
Cruz in his guilty plea said he felt “too much” and asked to be given a chance to help others. Satz said the aggravating factors in the case, including premeditation, outweighed the leniency arguments, including Cruz’s history of mental health problems.
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz attends the criminalization phase of his trial at Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA on July 18, 2022. Cruz left plead guilty to 17 counts of premeditated murder and 17 counts of attempted murder in the 2018 shootings. Carline Jean / Pool via REUTERS
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Student Dylan Kraemer was in a Holocaust history class on the day of the shooting when he heard a loud noise.
“Finally, the shooter started firing out the window, the bullets were flying,” he said. “We grabbed each other, we waited 20 or 30 seconds, he stopped. I looked up and two people died, several people were shot.”
Professor Brittany Sinitch described having called the 911 emergency number from her classroom. His students were writing Valentine’s letters as characters in “Romeo and Juliet” when the attack began on the afternoon of February 14, 2018.
“Almost instantly, I called 911. They couldn’t hear me because of the sound of gunfire; it was very loud,” he said.
Cruz’s lawyers were expected to make their initial arguments later in the proceedings.
U.S. gun violence has drawn new attention after recent mass shootings, including one at an Independence Day parade on the outskirts of Chicago that killed seven people, and another in May at a school in Uvalde, Texas, which left 19 children and two teachers dead.
President Joe Biden signed in June the first major federal arms reform in three decades, which he has celebrated as a rare bipartisan deal. Read more
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Report by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Donna Bryson, Richard Chang, Jonathan Oatis and Cynthia Osterman
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