Florida school shooter sentenced to 17 life sentences

The guy who fired at the school in Parkland, Florida, was officially sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Writes about it CNN.

Photo: IStock

The jury failed to reach a unanimous decision on the death penalty, which greatly disappointed and angered the families of the 17 victims. In Florida, the decision on the death penalty must be accepted by the entire jury, otherwise it is commuted to life imprisonment.

Broward District Judge Elizabeth Scherer issued the statutory sentence. Nicholas Cruz, 24, is due to serve a life sentence without the possibility of parole for each of the 17 counts of murder to which he pleaded guilty, with the sentences being executed consecutively.

In addition, Sherer was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum prison term of 20 years on 14 of the 17 counts of attempted murder and life imprisonment without the possibility of parole on the remaining three counts of attempted murder. All calculations must be carried out sequentially, the judge ruled.

Before sentencing, she addressed the families of the victims, thanking them for "the privilege of learning about each of their loved ones."

“I can tell you that they will not be forgotten and I feel like I know each of them from the personal stories you told,” Scherer said. "You've all been so strong and patient throughout this process and I can't help but think about how I would act or react if I were you."

“If I could bear your pain for you for at least five minutes so that you can breathe, I would,” the judge added. “Because I can’t even imagine what you go through every day.”

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The end of a months-long trial to decide Cruz's fate comes after two days of victim testimony in which the families of those killed and those who survived the February 2018 shooting at the Marjorie-Stoneman-Douglas School in Parkland confronted the shooter explaining to the court what he had taken from them. .

“It's terrible that anyone who heard and saw all this did not punish the killer with the worst possible punishment,” said Annika Dvoret, the mother of one of the victims, 17-year-old victim Nicholas Dvoret. As we all know, the worst punishment in the state of Florida is the death penalty. How serious does a crime have to be to merit the death penalty?

"You took away my daughter's ability to create memories," Lori Alhadeff, mother of 14-year-old victim Alyssa Alhadeff, told the shooter. She will never finish school. Alyssa will never go to college and will never play football. She will never marry and she will never have a child."

“I hope you will be miserable for the rest of your miserable life,” Lori Alhadeff added. “I hope the pain of what you did to my family burns and hurts you every day.”

Last year, Cruz pleaded guilty to 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder in connection with the shooting, which, despite an ongoing epidemic of gun violence in the US, remains the deadliest mass school shooting in the US.

The state was seeking the death penalty, and so Cruz's trial moved to the sentencing stage, in which the jury was instructed to hear prosecutors and defense attorneys explain why they thought he should or should not be executed.

The prosecution, in particular, argued that the shooting was particularly brutal, as well as deliberate and calculated. The defense, pushing for a life sentence, pointed to the shooter's mental impairment, which they said was due to prenatal alcohol exposure.

The three jurors were persuaded to vote for life, sparing Cruz the death penalty, which in Florida must be passed by a unanimous jury. Scherer is required to follow the jury's recommendation of life in prison without parole under state law.

During the testimony, the shooter remained unconscious, wearing a red prison jumpsuit and glasses. He wore a medical mask but took it off after Jennifer Guttenberg, the mother of Jaime's 14-year-old victim, told him it was disrespectful.

“You shouldn't be sitting there with a mask on your face. It's disrespectful to hide your expression behind a mask when we as family members sit here and talk to you,” she said. “You hunched over, trying to make yourself look innocent, when you really didn’t, because you confessed to what you did.” And everyone knows what you did."

He then took off his mask, but his expression did not change.

shooting victims

Of those killed, 14 of the victims were schoolchildren, and three were employees who died while running into danger and trying to help the students escape.

The students killed were: 14-year-old Alyssa Alhadeff; 14-year-old Martin Duque Anguiano; 17-year-old Nicholas Dvoret; 14-year-old Jaime Guttenberg; 15-year-old Luke Hoyer; 14-year-old Kara Lofran; 14 year old Gina Montalto; 17 year old Joaquin Oliver; 14-year-old Alaina Petty; 18-year-old Meadow Pollak; 17 year old Helena Ramsay; 14-year-old Alex Schechter; 16-year-old Carmen Szentrup; 15 year old Peter Wang.

Among adults, the victims were: 35-year-old geography teacher Scott Beigel; 49-year-old wrestling coach Chris Hickson; 37-year-old assistant football coach Aaron Face.

A life sentence did not fit with what many of the families of Cruise's victims wanted. Some said the jury gave more weight to his life than to the lives of the 17 who died.

“It's really very embarrassing. I miss my little boy,” said Max Schechter, father of Alex Schechter.

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Samantha Fuentes, one of the survivors of the shooting, met with Cruz and assured him that she was very "angry" because of such a verdict. But, unlike him, she said: “I never take out my anger, pain and suffering on others, because I am stronger than you. This whole community behind me is stronger than you."

Fuentes reminded Cruz that they were walking down the same corridors.

“We were kids then,” she said. “As a child, I saw you standing in the window looking into my classroom and holding your AR-15 in your hands. I was still a child when I saw you kill two of my friends. I was still a child when you shot me."

Victoria Gonzalez, Joaquin Oliver's girlfriend, also reminded the shooter that they were in the same class together. She remembered how the teacher would walk around the classroom every day and ask the students for the answer to their homework to make sure that each of them did it. Every day, she said, she hoped that Cruz did his thing - for his own sake.

“I silently cheered for you at my desk. You had no idea who I was, and I was rooting for you,” Gonzalez admitted. “Because I felt that you needed someone or you needed something.”

But Joaquin's murder prevented Gonzalez from making friends, getting close to others, and allowing others to love her the way he did.

“I would like you to meet Joaquin,” she said. “Because he would become your friend and give you a helping hand.”

Michael Shulman, father of Scott Beigel, told the court about the altruistic nature of the geography teacher and the impact he had on his students. According to him, the shooter took the life of a great teacher.

“You are a spineless and soulless monster. My son Scott was a man, and he remains him - what you never were and never will be, ”Shulman emphasized.

Linda Beigel Shulman also addressed the court and the shooter: "I never said your name and never will."

She ended her statement by holding up a photo of the dead victims. “These are the names and faces that I want you to remember,” she said.

Some of this week's victim testimony was directed not only to Cruz, but to the public defenders who represented him.

This caused the defense to object. Broward Gordon Wicks asked not to. They were just doing their job, he said, because the law gives all defendants the right to legal representation.

This further angered some family members of the victims, including Fred Guttenberg, Jaime's father, who urged Weeks to resign.

“I understand that you have a job to protect those who cannot be justified, to protect the mass murderer of 17 people. I understand it's hard," he told defense lawyers. And you did your job the right way. But I'm not sure that somewhere along the way you were required to give up your humanity and decency. It was your choice."

The further fate of the shooter

Much remains to be seen as to what's in store for Cruz in the near future. Most likely, he will be in custody in Broward County, and then he will be transferred to the Florida Department of Corrections, which will identify the offender at one of their centers in the state.

Cruz will spend weeks there for physical and mental examinations, Florida criminal defense attorney Janet Johnson said.

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“They will look at his file, assess the level of the crime for which he is convicted, which is obviously the highest, and recommend an institution somewhere in the state,” she explained.

As a rule, those convicted of the most serious crimes or those with the longest sentences are placed in the most secure institutions.

Since Cruz is a high-risk criminal, he will most likely be placed in jail along with other very dangerous criminals.

“But he will not be isolated, which poses a real threat to him, because there may be an arbiter of “prison justice” in custody, since the sentence pronounced in court will seem insufficient to him,” Johnson added.

During the trial, the Broward County Sheriff's Office released over 30 pages of Cruise's letters and drawings. They reveal disturbing thoughts he had during his detention. They focus on weapons, blood and death.

On one page, Cruz wrote that he wanted to go to death row, and on another, he told his family that he was sad and hoped to die of a heart attack while taking painkillers.

As for the victims and their families, the end of the shooter's trial marks the closing of a chapter in a lifelong journey of grief.

“I want to leave this behind,” said Max Schechter. Today I'm going to court. He will be sentenced to life imprisonment and I will never think about this murderer again."

As ForumDaily wrote earlier:

• February 14 2018 years at high school in Parkland, Florida, occurred shooting, in which 17 people died and several injured. This crime was one of the most massive school shootings in US history. Read eyewitness accounts of school shooting in Florida, stories of dead victims, shocking details from the life of arrow nicholas cruz and interview with the family that sheltered him.

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