Following Cruz’s responsible pleas, the 12-member jury now being impaneled for the penalty section might be requested to resolve whether or not to advocate his execution. Six to eight alternates are also as a consequence of be picked, the choose mentioned final week throughout a listening to.
“There have been 17 individuals killed, so there’s a story of the dying of 17 individuals,” Assistant State Lawyer Jeff Marcus instructed the court docket in explaining why the penalty section may final into the autumn. “After which there are 17 extra which might be thought of aggravating elements within the case.”
Jurors must agree unanimously that at the very least one aggravating issue — together with the concurrent capital felony expenses to which Cruz pleaded responsible, or whether or not he knowingly created the danger of different deaths — exists among the many 34 expenses to then start to debate whether or not he ought to face the dying penalty.
If that occurs, they have to be unanimous in recommending a dying sentence, in any other case his sentence would essentially be life in jail. In the event that they do advocate capital punishment, the ultimate resolution nonetheless rests with the choose.
Cruz confessed to police quickly after the capturing, based on a possible trigger affidavit, however then pleaded not responsible. His attorneys later mentioned he’d change his pleas to responsible if prosecutors took the dying penalty off the desk, however they by no means did. All the identical, he switched his place to responsible on all 34 counts, setting the stage for the penalty section.
14 college students and three college members had been slain
On the afternoon of February 14, 2018, then-19-year-old Cruz, who had been expelled from Marjory Stoneman Douglas, took an Uber to his former highschool, based on an overview of occasions that prosecutor Michael Satz recited October 20 through the listening to at which Cruz pleaded responsible. Cruz had with him a rifle bag with an AR-15-style rifle and backpack that held firearm magazines and a tactical vest, Satz mentioned.
When he arrived, Cruz walked into the highschool’s three-story 1200 constructing, stepped into the east stairwell and began loading the rifle. As he did so, a scholar walked into the stairwell, Satz mentioned.
“You higher get out of right here,” Cruz instructed the coed, per the prosecutor. “One thing unhealthy is about to occur.”
At about 2:21 p.m., Cruz opened hearth within the hallway, Satz mentioned, capturing at college students and academics in hallways and school rooms as he made his approach by the constructing and up by every flooring. At one level, mud shaken from ceiling tiles by the gunfire set off the constructing’s hearth alarm, sending college students and academics out of the lecture rooms and into the hallways.
Of these killed, 14 had been college students: Alyssa Alhadeff, 14; Martin Duque Anguiano, 14; Nicholas Dworet, 17; Jaime Guttenberg, 14; Luke Hoyer, 15; Cara Loughran, 14; Gina Montalto, 14; Joaquin Oliver, 17; Alaina Petty, 14; Meadow Pollack, 18; Helena Ramsay, 17; Alex Schachter, 14; Carmen Schentrup, 16; and Peter Wang, 14.
Geography instructor Scott Beigel, 35; wrestling coach Chris Hixon, 49; and assistant soccer coach Aaron Feis, 37, had been additionally killed — every whereas working towards hazard or making an attempt to assist college students to security.
After the capturing, Cruz put down his weapon, the remaining magazines and his tactical vest and fled, mixing in at 2:27 p.m. with different college students, Satz mentioned. He was arrested that afternoon, about 3 miles from the college.
On the October plea listening to, Cruz responded “responsible” to every of the 34 expenses he confronted earlier than addressing the victims and their households in a brief assertion to the court docket.
“I’m very sorry for what I did,” he mentioned, partially, “and I’ve to reside with it day-after-day.”
Cruz’s apology, nonetheless, did little to consolation the mum or dad of 1 slain scholar, who known as it “ridiculous.”
“I feel he deserves as a lot of an opportunity as he gave my daughter and everybody else on February 14 of 2018,” mentioned Gina Montalto’s father, Tony Montalto, when requested about Cruz going through the dying penalty.
Cruz has already been sentenced to 25 years in jail after he pleaded responsible to attacking a jail guard in November 2018.
Hundreds of thousands awarded to victims’ households in civil instances
The capturing’s impacts reached far past Parkland, a small Florida metropolis about 50 miles north of Miami. Within the weeks that adopted, survivors and victims’ family spoke out and confronted lawmakers, demanding extra motion to handle gun violence in American faculties.
College students everywhere in the US joined them, staging their very own protests and faculty walkouts. That motion culminated simply over a month after the bloodbath with March for Our Lives as tons of of hundreds of demonstrators attending tons of of marches throughout the nation known as for gun management reform. “By no means Once more,” grew to become the protesters’ rallying cry.
Whereas the total impact of the motion is difficult to quantify, one 12 months after the bloodbath, at the very least 67 new legal guidelines geared toward gun security had been enacted in 26 states, the Giffords Regulation Heart to Forestall Gun Violence mentioned on the time.
However faculty shootings have continued, with some 130 recorded at US campuses with Okay-12 college students since Parkland, based on CNN’s tally.
Nonetheless, the activism impressed by the Parkland capturing has additionally continued. Final month, on the fourth anniversary of the March For Our Lives in Washington, activists from the group spelled out “Ideas and Prayers” on the Nationwide Mall utilizing greater than 1,100 physique baggage, CNN affiliate WJLA reported. Every represented lives the group mentioned had been misplaced in gun-related deaths since Parkland.
And civil instances introduced by the households of Parkland victims have been resolved. The US Justice Division settled 40 civil instances stemming from the capturing for $127.5 million, it mentioned in a press release final month, including the settlement “doesn’t quantity to an admission of fault by the US.” The FBI acknowledged after the capturing it didn’t act on a tip about “the potential of (Cruz) conducting a faculty capturing,” amongst different issues.
Broward County Public Colleges, the district that features Marjory Stoneman Douglas Excessive College, introduced in December it could pay greater than $26 million to 51 plaintiffs, together with those that had been injured and households of the 17 individuals killed.
“Whereas we acknowledge that no amount of cash could make these households complete, it’s the faculty board’s hope that this settlement will present our heartfelt dedication to the MSD households, college students, employees and school and the complete Broward County group,” the district’s interim basic counsel mentioned.
Meantime, Broward County Sheriff’s Deputy Scot Peterson, a faculty useful resource officer criticized for failing to confront Cruz through the capturing, has pleaded not responsible to expenses stemming from the mass capturing, together with counts of felony youngster neglect. A trial is ready for September.
