Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz sits at the defense table, Wednesday, Oct. 20, 2021, at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Cruz pleaded guilty Wednesday to murder in the 2018 high school massacre in Parkland, Fla.,, that left 17 dead. (Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun Sentinel via AP, Pool)
By Terry Spencer
Nikolas Cruz pleaded guilty Wednesday to murdering 17 people during a rampage at his former high school in Parkland, Florida, leaving a jury to decide whether he will be executed for one of the nation's deadliest school shootings.
Relatives of the victims who sat in the courtroom and watched the hearing via Zoom shook their heads or broke down in tears as Cruz entered his pleas and later apologized for his crimes.
“Today we saw a cold and calculating killer confess to the murder of my daughter Gina and 16 other innocent victims at their school," Tony Montalto said. “His guilty pleas are the first step in the judicial process but there is no change for my family. Our bright, beautiful, and beloved daughter Gina is gone while her killer still enjoys the blessing of life in prison."
Fred Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter Jaime died in the shooting, said he visited her grave this week to ask her for the strength to get through Wednesday’s hearing.
“She was the toughest, wisest person I ever knew,” he said. “My daughter always fought for what was right. My daughter despised bullies and would put herself in the middle of someone being bullied to make it stop.”
The guilty pleas will set the stage for a penalty trial in which 12 jurors will determine whether Cruz, 23, should be sentenced to death or life in prison without parole. Given the case’s notoriety, Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer plans to screen thousands of prospective jurors. Hearings are scheduled throughout November and December, with a goal to start testimony in January.
Cruz entered his pleas after answering a long list of questions from Scherer aimed at confirming his mental competency. He was charged with 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted first-degree murder for those wounded in the Feb. 14, 2018, attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, located just outside Fort Lauderdale.
As several parents shook their heads, Cruz apologized, saying, “I'm very sorry for what I did. ... I can't live with myself sometimes." He also added that he wished it was up to the survivors to determine whether he lived or died.
Following the pleas Wednesday, former Broward State Attorney Mike Satz recounted the details of the murders. Cruz killed 14 students and three staff members on Valentine’s Day 2018 during a seven-minute rampage through a three-story building at Stoneman Douglas, investigators said. They said he shot victims in the hallways and in classrooms with an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle. Cruz had been expelled from Stoneman Douglas a year earlier after a history of threatening, frightening, unusual and sometimes violent behavior that dated back to preschool.
The shootings caused some Stoneman Douglas students to launch the March for Our Lives movement, which pushes for stronger gun restrictions nationally.
Since days after the shooting, Cruz's attorneys had offered to have him plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence, saying that would spare the community the emotional turmoil of reliving the attack at trial. But Satz rejected the offer, saying Cruz deserved a death sentence, and appointed himself lead prosecutor. Satz, 79, stepped down as state attorney in January after 44 years, but remains Cruz’s chief prosecutor.
His successor, Harold Pryor, is opposed to the death penalty but has said he will follow the law. Like Satz, he never accepted the defense offer — as an elected official, that would have been difficult, even in liberal Broward County, where Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than 2 to 1.
By having Cruz plead guilty, his attorneys will be able to argue during the penalty hearing that he took responsibility for his actions.
__
Associated Press reporter Will Weissert in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.
John Bencich, CEO of Achieve Life Sciences, joins Cheddar Innovates to discuss a new plant-based compound that's being used to fight nicotine addiction.
On this episode of Cheddar Innovates: CEO of Achieve Life Sciences discusses a new plant-based compound that's being used to fight nicotine addiction; President & CEO OF DiaMedica Therapeutics explains a new ischemic stroke treatment option that expands the window for effective therapy for stroke patients; Cheddar gets a look at Curiosity Stream's 'Asteroid Rush.'
Catching you up on today's entertainment headlines with the Tribeca Film Festival has kicked off in NYC, "Black Adam," starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson dropped its first full trailer, the musical "Come From Away" based on a true story set during 9/11 will be closing on Broadway this October, and more.
Survivors of Larry Nassar, including Olympian Simone Biles, are seeking $1 billion in damages from the FBI due to its failure to investigate the former gymnastics team doctor convicted of committing years of serial sexual abuse of minors. Jack Queen, a senior reporter at Law360, joined Cheddar News to break down the legal grounds of this case. "This is one of the biggest black eyes that the Bureau has faced in generations, quite frankly, and the FBI has taken full responsibility and admitted that it completely botched this investigation," he said. "So, there's a lot of pressure to settle."
The Elevate Prize Foundation is donating $10,000 to different grassroots organizations based on a theme every month to help scale their work, focusing on a different theme each time. Upcoming prizes will help uplift an organization supporting the LGBTQ community and one mobilizing to help end gun violence. The foundation's CEO Carolina Garcia Jayaram joined Cheddar to discuss the initiative and why it's important to uplift these grassroots organizations. "We are identifying social entrepreneurs around the world to help them scale their work. but the ultimate purpose of that is to create the first-ever fanbase for good," she said. "We're trying to make good famous and by inspiring people to think about the role they can play in doing good in the world."
With real estate being a largely male-dominated industry, Stephanie Shojaee, vice president and chief marketing officer at development company Shoma Group, joined Cheddar News to discuss how she took on the gender gap for women to achieve leadership roles, starting at her own company. “It's been very important to teach all the women that work here, especially the younger ones, that they shouldn't change themselves," she said. "You need to be happy with who you are and just keep breaking barriers."
We are already starting to feel the effects of summer. Heat waves in Texas and California are already sending temperatures soaring. That could spell trouble for the nation's power supply. there are new concerns about outages in many areas of the country. Cheddar's Shannon Lanier explains the two main causes of blackouts, and what states are doing to keep the lights on and the air conditioning running.
If you have been on the road this past year, you've probably seen more accidents on the road than you ever have. You're not wrong. Traffic fatalities are not only increasing they are hitting historic highs. Almost 43,000 people died in motor vehicle accidents in 2021. Cheddar's Shannon Lanier investigates - and finds out why.
U.S. stocks close Tuesday at session highs after a subpar start to the trading day. Tim Chubb, Chief Investment Officer at the wealth advisory firm, Girard, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss. 'We're starting to see the moderation of three core things -- we've seen the moderation of prices, we've seen the moderation of wage growth we've seen in the labor market, and we've also seen a moderation of job openings,' he says.
The victims from the USA gymnastics sexual abuse scandal continue to seek justice. Survivors of Larry Nassar are seeking more than one-billion dollars from the FBI for failing to stop the convicted sports doctor when the agency first received allegations. According to a report released by the Justice Department's Inspector General, FBI agents knew
in July of 2015 that Nassar was accused of abusing gymnasts; however, Nassar wasn't arrested until December of 2016. The group that filed the claim includes Olympic medalist Simone Biles and around 90 other women. Louise Radnofsky, sports reporter at The Wall Street Journal, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
