Furious families of the victims killed in the Parkland school shooting have spoken out after Nikolas Cruz was spared the death penalty as the jury recommended life in prison without parole.
The families voiced their outrage at a press conference following the verdict on Thursday.
Lori Alhadeff, the mother of slain student Alyssa Alhadeff, told reporters she was “beyond disappointed”.
“Rhis should have been the death penalty, 1,000 per cent,” she said.
Alyssa’s father, Ilan Alhadeff, asked jurors: “What were you thinking? ... Jail is about rehabbing someone. There is no rehabbing [Cruz].”
“I pray that animal suffers every day of his life in jail. And it should be a short life,” he continued.
“What a load of hogwash. There were no mitigating circumstances. He’s not a human being. He’s an animal.”
Tony Montalto, the father of Gina, said it was “pretty unreal that nobody paid attention to the facts of this case, that nobody can remember who a victim is and what they look like”.
“I know every day because I see my beautiful daughter’s face,” he added, calling the ruling “yet another gut punch”.
“Our justice system should have been used to punish this shooter to the fullest extent of the law, not as an act of revenge, but to protect our nation’s schools to stop others from attacking the future of this country when they attack our schools,” he said.
Fred Guttenberg, who lost his daughter Jaime in the shooting, said: “I’m stunned. I’m devastated. There are 17 victims that did not receive justice today.”
“This jury failed our families today,” he added.
“He should have received a death sentence today. There was no mercy for a murder that was planned over a long period of time.”
“I don’t know how this jury came to the conclusions that they did today,” Mr Guttenberg continued. “But 17 families did not receive justice. Because of what happened to our families, we are all in this position now of doing the work that we do around this country to keep this from happening to another family, and this decision today only makes it more likely that the next mass shooting will be attempted.”
Mr Guttenberg went on to criticise the defence team.
“Their inability to ever for a second either in the courtroom or outside of the courtroom have a human moment with us, a civil moment, was despicable,” he said.
Debbi Hixon lost her husband, Chris Hixon, in the shooting. The athletic director, aged 49, entered the school to try to stop the shooting.
“I’m just completely devastated and shocked by this,” Ms Hixon told reporters.
“How does any one of those mitigators outweigh those aggravating factors that they all agreed were true?” she asked. “How do you say ‘yes, it’s cruel’, that it was heinous, that it was planned, and we all agree on that, but oh, he might have had a mental illness or he had trouble growing up.”
“There is no way that you could look at those mitigating circumstances and believe for one second, that they outweigh the aggravators and that the life of that person is more important,” she added.
Several family members of the victims shook their heads as the verdict was read out count by count. On each count, jurors affirmed that the state had proven aggravating factors warranting the death penalty, but found that those factors did not outweigh the mitigating factors presented by the defence.
Cruz showed little to no emotion during the verdict readout.
The parents of Gina Montalto were seen holding each other’s hands and crying as the verdicts were read, according to CNN. The mother of Luke Hoyer also cried.
Mr Guttenberg, as well as the mother of Alaina Petty, were seen holding their heads in their hands.
Last year, Cruz pled guilty to 17 counts of first-degree murder following the shooting on 14 February 2018 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Fourteen students and three staff members were killed in the shooting and another 17 people were injured.
Over the months-long trial, jurors listened to detailed accounts of what happened in the Valentine’s Day massacre, as well as evidence put forward by the defence regarding Cruz’s childhood and mental state.
Journalist Christina Boomer Vazquez tweeted about the body language of the jurors as the verdict was read.
“It is astonishing - the striking contrast in body language as the Judge reads verdict forms that so far - have been a recommendation for life. While two young male jurors huddle over in the first row of the jury box looking visibly pained, an older female in the back is calm,” she wrote.
“Two other female jurors in the front row were tearing up,” she added. “All this while the older female juror in the back row stretched her back, took a sip from an insulated coffee mug, looked over at the family members with ease, looks comfortable. The juror next to her has her [head] down.”
