Editor’s note: Prosecutors seeking the death penalty against confessed Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz are tasked with convincing a jury to vote for execution over a life sentence. They are presenting graphic testimony to the jury, some of which comes in the form of video that is being withheld from the general public in compliance with privacy laws protecting victims. A handful of journalists, including South Florida Sun Sentinel reporter Rafael Olmeda, have been allowed to watch these videos in private. Their observations are shared with every media outlet covering the trial. This article, which recounts some of the disturbing evidence the jury must consider in its deliberation, is based in part on those videos. Reader discretion is advised.
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Nearly two dozen strangers swore an oath to be fair, to put their emotions aside and follow the law in deciding whether the defendant sitting 25 feet away lives or dies. He is at their mercy.
In court, he rarely looks up. He sits hunched at the defense table between two of his lawyers, often scribbling on a notepad and occasionally exchanging words with one of his lawyers. He avoids making eye contact with most witnesses and conspicuously resists looking at the screens in front of him, the monitors playing videos showing what he did at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018.
Those silent recordings, less than an hour of footage so far, were captured by school surveillance cameras and shown to the jury throughout the past week. They introduce a version of Nikolas Cruz that bears little resemblance to the defendant on trial in a Broward courtroom.
In the penalty trial that is projected to last through the summer, Cruz, who pleaded guilty to 17 counts of murder last year, is asking the jury to spare his life. He needs to convince only one. If one juror grants the mercy he seeks, Cruz will be spared a death sentence.
The jury has now seen the killer as he was that day, showing determination, focus and adrenaline-fueled energy. The only mercy he showed, arguably and only for a moment, was when he chose to warn the first person he saw instead of making that student his first victim.
Defense lawyers have objected to the introduction of so much video evidence because it forces the jury to sit through the same scenes from multiple angles, each time focusing on a different victim.
There were the cellphone videos recorded by survivors, shorter in duration but equally powerful because while they offer only glimpses of the gore, they are accompanied by the heartbreaking sounds of shooting victims crying for help, students alternating between quiet sobs and attempts to reassure one another, and horrified responses when the extent of the carnage becomes clear.
In court, the victim’s families are spared from having to watch the video. But they hear the audio, and the booming sound of gunfire proved to be too much for some. “Shut it off,” a relative of one victim called out.
Police officers on those videos warned the students not to look down. They did anyway, repeatedly crying “oh my God” as they were escorted to safety.
Prosecutors led by Assistant State Attorney Mike Satz have said the evidence they’re presenting is needed for jurors to understand just how cold and cruel Cruz’s actions were. They are not merely seeking the death penalty. They are seeking the death penalty 17 times, once for each victim whose life was cut short by the defendant.
Less evidence would be necessary if he had killed fewer people, they said.
Except for the video, it’s not new evidence. Through news accounts and previous court hearings, the public has heard much of it before.
But seeing and hearing it is different. The jury is watching what the public is not allowed to see — exactly how the victims died. They will learn later, from family members, about how the victims lived.
Even without sound, the surveillance videos were difficult to watch.
The jury followed Cruz from the moment he raised his AR-15-style rifle. They watched him fire into classrooms on the first floor. Some deaths are not explicitly shown on video. They watched him methodically stalk the stairwells, looking down briefly for more potential victims.
The jury watched him wound Anthony Borges and Kyle Laman, who both survived.
They watched him shoot athletic director and wrestling coach Chris Hixon, who led the school’s baseball team to a state and national championship two years earlier. Hixon was shown bursting onto the first floor hallway only to immediately get shot and crawl to an alcove for safety.
By this time Cruz had already killed Martin Duque, Luke Hoyer and Gina Montalto in the hallway and Alyssa Alhadeff, Nicholas Dworet, Alaina Petty, Helena Ramsey, Alex Schachter and Carmen Schentrup in classrooms. Their deaths were not explicitly shown.
Jurors watched Hixon writhing in pain, helpless as Cruz approached from the hallway, looked to his right, saw his target and fired again without breaking his stride.
The surveillance camera lingered on Hixon, who struggled to survive for nearly four minutes before police rescuers arrived and, not knowing where the gunman was, dragged him to a golf cart to seek medical assistance, leaving a streak of blood on the floor.
Stairwell video shows Cruz taking aim and shooting at a door leading outside, but it doesn’t show who was hit. It was Aaron Feis, Stoneman Douglas class of 1999, a football star turned football coach and security guard. He had raced into the school after he heard the shooting but was killed within seconds of his arrival.
On the third floor, some of the video was obscured because the firing of the weapon caused dust to fall from the ceiling in front of the security camera. The murder of geography teacher and cross-country coach Scott Beigel is not clearly seen.
One sequence of videos, from different angles, was played six times, each following the movements of different victims and witnesses. They showed teacher Ernie Rospierski leaving his classroom during what was believed to be a fire drill. Student Peter Wang held the door open for a few moments and finally let it go.
According to trial testimony, it was a tragically pivotal moment. The teacher left his keys behind. When the door shut, it locked, and when Cruz opened fire in the hallway and students tried to get into Rospierski’s classroom, they could not.
Joaquin Oliver, a Venezuelan student who became an American citizen the year before, a lover of soccer but player of basketball, ducked toward a bathroom with two other students, across the hall from those huddled outside Rospierski’s classroom. Oliver and one of the other students were wounded, according to testimony.
Meadow Pollack — before that day her sights were set on attending Lynn University and earning a law degree — panicked, darting toward a bathroom before changing course and seeking refuge with a dozen other students in the alcove outside Rospierski’s classroom. She and Cara Loughran, remembered as a beach lover who became obsessed with Irish dance after watching a Riverdance performance, were hit before they made it to the alcove.
In a few seconds, the teacher noticed Cruz was reloading. This was the time to make a break for it, Rospierski said. He and most of the students ran for the stairs. It’s not clear whether they even realize that the wounded Pollack and Loughran are left behind.
Pollack’s legs were still moving. Loughran was out of view of the surveillance camera.
From the other end of the hallway, Cruz opened fire again. Of those who tried to escape with Rospierski, all but two made it to safety.
Wang, wearing his JROTC uniform, collapsed just before reaching the safety of the stairwell.
Jaime Guttenberg, who wanted to be an occupational therapist and already was a skilled dancer who performed challenging solo routines without a hint of stage fright, was wounded outside the stairwell door. She collapsed on the other side of it and never moved again.
Cruz walked down the nearly empty hallway until he reached Pollack and Loughran, raising his weapon twice, almost casually, to shoot them both. Then he looked across the hall, where Oliver, off camera, was prone. The two students who were with him earlier had escaped. Cruz fired again, then walked to the stairwell.
When he tried to open the stairwell door, he could not. Rospierski was on the other side, blocking it.
Cruz turned his attention to Wang, who according to the video may have still been alive — his legs were still moving after he was shot the first time. Cruz fired his weapon at Wang. Prosecutors say Wang was shot 13 times in all.
Wang was the last person to be shot by Cruz.
Cruz is seen ditching his gun and tactical vest and running away from the 1200 building, running past the football field, bounding across the campus to school grounds to catch up and blend in with the escaping throng of fleeing students.
Jurors in the future will get a more literal opportunity to follow in Cruz’s footsteps. Prosecutors are planning to bus them to the Stoneman Douglas campus and open the 1200 building for them to inspect the crime scene. That jury view has not been scheduled.
The cumulative effect of the evidence, defense lawyers led by Assistant Public Defender Melisa McNeill have said, is outweighing the value. It’s too much, they argue, for anyone to endure while being asked to be fair.
Cruz killed 17 people at the Parkland high school. Later in the trial, defense lawyers will have their chance to present evidence their client deserves mercy.
For now, Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer has allowed the prosecution to make its case.
Testimony, and the introduction of more evidence, is scheduled to continue on Monday.
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