Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz tugs at his shirt collar as he awaits the verdict in his trial
(Picture: AP)Families of victims from the Parkland high school shooting have expressed their frustration after the gunman Nikolas Cruz was spared the death penalty.
A jury sent the Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz, 24, to prison for the remainder of his life for killing 17 people at a Parkland high school in 2018, a decision which prompted some relatives to flee the courtroom in tears.
The jury’s recommendation came after seven hours of deliberations over two days, ending a three-month trial that included graphic videos, photos and testimony from the massacre and its aftermath, heart-wrenching testimony from victims’ family members and a tour of the still blood-spattered building.
“We are beyond disappointed with the outcome today,” Lori Alhadeff, whose daughter, Alyssa was killed, said at a news conference after the jury’s decision was announced.
“This should have been the death penalty, 100%. Seventeen people were brutally murdered. I sent my daughter to school and she was shot eight times. I am so beyond disappointed and frustrated with this outcome . I cannot understand. I just don’t understand.”
Under Florida law, a death sentence requires a unanimous vote on at least one count. Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer will formally issue the life sentences on November 1.
Relatives, along with the students and teachers Cruz wounded, will be given the opportunity to speak at the sentencing hearing.
Cruz, his hair unkempt, largely sat hunched over and stared at the table as the jury’s recommendations were read. Rumblings grew from the family section — packed with about three dozen parents, spouses and other relatives of the victims — as life sentences were announced.
Many shook their heads, looked angry or covered their eyes, as the judge spent 50 minutes reading the jury’s decision for each victim. Some parents sobbed as they left court.
The jury found there were aggravating factors for each victim, however, they also found mitigating factors. And the jury could not agree that the aggravating factors that would have warranted the death penalty outweighed the mitigating ones.
Tony Montalto, father of Gina Montalto, said: “How can the mitigating factors make this shooter, who they recognized committed this terrible act — acts, plural — shooting, some victims more than once on a pass, pressing the barrel of his weapon to my daughter’s chest. That doesn’t outweigh that poor little what’s-his-name had a tough upbringing?”
“Our justice system should have been used to punish this shooter to the fullest extent of the law.”
Cruz, 24, pleaded guilty a year ago to murdering 14 students and three staff members and wounding 17 others on Valentine’s Day 2018. Cruz said he chose Valentine’s Day to make it impossible for Stoneman Douglas students to celebrate the holiday ever again.
The massacre is the deadliest mass shooting that has ever gone to trial in the US. Nine other people in the US who fatally shot at least 17 people died during or immediately after their attacks by suicide or police gunfire. The suspect in the 2019 massacre of 23 at an El Paso, Texas, Walmart is awaiting trial.
Lead prosecutor Mike Satz kept his case simple for the seven-man, five-woman jury. He focused on Cruz’s eight months of planning, the seven minutes he stalked the halls of a three-story classroom building, firing 140 shots with an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle, and his escape.
He played security videos of the shooting and showed gruesome crime scene and autopsy photos. Teachers and students testified about watching others die. He took the jury to the fenced-off building, which remains blood-stained.
In rebuttal, Satz and his team contended that Cruz did not suffer from fetal alcohol damage but has antisocial personality disorder — in lay terms, he’s a sociopath.
Their witnesses said Cruz faked brain damage during testing and that he was capable of controlling his actions, but chose not to. For example, they pointed to his employment as a cashier at a discount store where he never had any disciplinary issues.
Prosecutors also played numerous video recordings of Cruz discussing the crime with their mental health experts where he talked about his planning and motivation.
The defence alleged on cross-examination that Cruz was sexually molested and raped by a 12-year-old neighbour when he was 9.
