Photo via @CBSNews/Twitter
October 20, 2021, 10:23 am
Nikolas Cruz, the man who killed 14 students and three staff members in a 2018 mass shooting at his former high school in Parkland, Florida, issued a guilty plea to 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder this morning, leaving survivors and grieving parents in tears.
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Cruz could face the death penalty for his crimes and will otherwise spend the rest of his life in prison. The court is expected to interview thousands of prospective jurors who will decide the shooter’s fate.
Cruz issued an apology along with his guilty pleas, claiming remorse for taking the lives of 17 people.
“I am very sorry for what I did and I have to live with it every day,” he said. “And that if I were to get a second chance I will do everything in my power to try to help others … I have to live with this every day, and it brings me nightmares that I can’t live with myself sometimes.”
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He added that he believes that the US would “do better if everyone would stop smoking marijuana and doing all these drugs and causing racism and violence out in the streets.”
He reportedly also expressed that he wished the survivors of his massacre could decide his punishment. One such survivor who took five bullets from Cruz, Anthony Borges, rejected that idea, preferring instead to look forward.
“He made a decision to shoot the school,” said the former Marjory Stoneman Douglas student. “I am not God to make the decision to kill him or not. That’s not my decision. My decision is to be a better person and to change the world for every kid. I don’t want this to happen to anybody again. It hurts. It hurts. It really hurts. So, I am just going to keep going. That’s it.”
Survivors and loved ones of those killed could be seen wiping away tears as Cruz issues each individual guilty plea and hugged one another afterward. Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer found Cruz to be competent and aware and accepted his pleas after she asked him a series of questions designed to test his mental capabilities.
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Former Broward State Attorney Mike Satz is leading the prosecution in this case and previously rejected a plea offer from the defense, choosing to go after the death penalty. He reportedly recounted the details of the Parkland mass shooting to the court after the pleas were entered.
Cruz was expelled from the high school following a long history of behavior described as “threatening” and “frightening,” and sometimes violent. He shot at students and staff in the hallways and classrooms with an AR-15 in a seven-minute massacre that left many survivors traumatized.
Some of the surviving students turned to activism, organizing a massive nationwide “March for Our Lives” to demand stricter gun control laws that could have prevented this tragedy. The activist organization of the same name refused to call Cruz by name but emphasized that guilty pleas are not justice as long as the conditions that caused the mass shooting remain the same.
“A single guilty plea does not bring closure as long as it is still possible for another person anywhere in this country to be murdered by a gun at school, in a place of worship, or in their very own home,” they said.
“We are appalled and disgusted that policymakers continue to waffle and play games, rather than do what needs to be done to prevent any more gun deaths. We are not at peace, we are as angry and determined as ever.”
Nikolas Cruz went from picture on left to picture on right.
A coldblooded killer looking for a sympathy or did this fool get “rehabilated” by fellow inmates. pic.twitter.com/WiwGjKQg6m
— Geeknik
(@geeknikJT) October 20, 2021
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*First Published: October 20, 2021, 10:23 am
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