Parkland, Florida, school shooter Nikolas Cruz will be sentenced after the conclusion of a monthslong trial, in which a jury recommended he be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Cruz, 24, evaded the death penalty for the February 2018 shooting that killed 14 students and three school staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. He pleaded guilty to 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder.
Families of those killed began victim impact testimony one after the other on Tuesday, each of them expressing the pain the shooter caused them and the way their lives were altered by the 2018 shooting. Statements are expected to last for two days ahead of Cruz’s sentencing.
JURY RECOMMENDS LIFE SENTENCE, NOT DEATH PENALTY, FOR PARKLAND SCHOOL SHOOTER
MOMENTS AGO: Theresa Robinovitz, grandmother of victim Alyssa Alhadeff, to #NikolasCruz: “You should write a book on how you and your defense counsel beat the judicial system and got away with murder. … Repent for your sins, Nikolas, and burn in hell.” https://t.co/rcQxBumGn9 pic.twitter.com/D319sCvrHp
— WPEC CBS12 News (@CBS12) November 1, 2022
Theresa Robinovitz, a grandmother of victim Alyssa Alhadeff, told Cruz on Tuesday he should “write a book on how you and your defense counsel beat the judicial system and got away with murder. … Repent for your sins, Nikolas, and burn in hell.”
Debbie Hixon, the widow of the school’s wrestling coach Chris Hixon, was the first to speak and said Cruz “stole him from us,” adding, “You did not receive the justice that you deserve.”
After a 12-person jury ruled to recommend a life sentence for Cruz earlier this month, the prosecution argued that Cruz’s actions were calculated and premeditated.
“What he wanted to do, what his plan was and what he did, was to murder children at school and their caretakers,” lead prosecutor Michael Satz said on Oct. 13. “The appropriate sentence for Nikolas Cruz is the death penalty.”
Defense attorneys said Cruz’s lifetime of struggles in both home and school should prevent him from receiving the death penalty, citing 41 possible mitigating circumstances. They noted that in his youth, he was exposed to drugs, alcohol, and nicotine in utero and that he had a “neurodevelopmental disorder associated with prenatal alcohol exposure.”
“You can’t fix evil!”
Max Schachter – “Where’s his brain damage?! To say that is insulting to people that really suffer from brain damage!”#ParklandMurderer pic.twitter.com/v7lzL74KmF
— Cathy Russon (@cathyrusson) November 1, 2022
Max Schachter, the father of the deceased 14-year-old Alex Schachter, said Tuesday that opting to give Cruz a life sentence rather than the death penalty “is insulting to people that really suffer from brain damage.”
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“How could you sit there listening to what he did and say this is not the worst of the worst?”
“He hunted down innocent children and staff, terrified, then tortured them — blew their heads apart like a water balloon and enjoyed it,” Schachter added, expressing frustration with the jury’s decision.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
