A jury will soon determine if confessed Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz will be sentenced to death.
Opening arguments began Monday in the penalty phase of Cruz’s trial. The trial is expected to take several months. At the conclusion, the jury’s decision must be unanimous to sentence him to death.
Prosecutor Mike Satz said in his opening statement: “Three days before the massacre, Cruz made a video saying, ‘My name is Nik. I’m going to be the next school shooter of 2018. My goal is at least 20 people with an AR-15 and some tracer rounds. It’s gonna be a big event and when you see me on the news you’ll know who I am. You’re all gonna die. … I can’t wait.'”
Satz described the shooting as a “planned, systematic … mass murder.”
Gena Hoyer, mother of Luke Hoyer, hugs Debbie Hixon during a court recess following the guilty pleas of Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Oct. 20, 2021.
Amy Beth Bennett/POOL via Reuters
On Feb. 14, 2018, Cruz, then 19, gunned down 14 students and three staff members at his former school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in South Florida.
On the day of the shooting, Cruz, wearing a backpack and carrying a case with a rifle inside, walked 360 feet from the road to the doors of Building 12, Satz said. Cruz warned a student in the stairwell to leave, saying “something bad is about to happen,” after which that student ran to find a campus monitor, Satz said.
The rampage began at 2:21 p.m. as Cruz opened fire on four students standing in a first floor hallway, Satz said.
Seventy shots were fired on the first floor, Satz said.
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz with his attorneys, Chief Assistant Public Defender David Wheeler, left, and Assistant Public Defender Tamara Curtis, right, stands before opening statements in the penalty phase of his trial at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., July 18, 2022. Cruz, who has pleaded guilty to gunning down 17 people at his former high school in Parkland, will receive either the death penalty or a life sentence.
Carline Jean/Pool via AFP/Getty Images
Satz went on to outline the rest of the timeline, walking the jury through how teachers and students on the second floor heard the gunfire and hid inside their classrooms.
After firing shots on the second floor, Cruz went to the third floor, where among those killed was teacher Scott Beigel, who was shepherding kids to safety in his classroom, Satz said.
A total of 139 rounds were fired in Building 12, Satz said, and Cruz then fled the school by blending in with other students. He was arrested around 3:40 p.m. about 2.9 miles from the school, Satz said.
Relatives and family members arrive for the first day of the sentencing trial for convicted Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz at the Broward County Judicial Complex in downtown Fort Lauderdale, Fla., July 18, 2022.
Carl Juste/Pool via AP
Cruz pleaded guilty in October 2021 to 17 counts of first-degree murder and 17 counts of attempted first-degree murder.
Cruz said in court last year, “I am very sorry for what I did and I have to live with it every day. … It brings me nightmares and I can’t live with myself sometimes.”
Cruz, the deadliest mass shooter to ever go before a jury, said in court he believes the victims’ families should be the ones to decide whether he gets the death penalty.
Cameron Kasky, a Parkland student in 2018 and now a gun-reform activist, called the death penalty “barbaric” in a tweet Sunday.
The death penalty “will not bring any of the victims back” and will “create a false sense of Justice, which will only come when the gun manufacturers and the politicians who support them are held accountable,” Kasky wrote.
The “shooter does not deserve to live, but the U.S. government and our ‘justice’ system is incapable of responsibly wielding the power to determine value in life,” he wrote. “It’s the politicians who support the gun lobby that should be held accountable.”
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz crosses the courtroom in handcuffs, Oct. 20, 2021, at the Broward County Courthouse after being sentenced on four criminal counts stemming from his attack on a Broward County jail guard in November 2018, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Amy Beth Bennett/Pool via Getty Images, FILE
Manuel Oliver, whose 17-year-old son Joaquin died in Parkland, told Miami ABC affiliate WPLG, “I think he should die and I think that is not enough. … Not even the death penalty is enough.”
Fred Guttenberg, who has been fighting for gun reform since his 14-year-old daughter Jaime was killed in Parkland, tweeted Monday, “One week ago today I was at the @WhiteHouse to celebrate @POTUS signing gun safety legislation. Today, I am at the Courthouse for the start of the penalty phase of the criminal trial of the person who murdered my daughter with an AR 15. This is the reality of gun violence.”
“Jaime, I miss you beyond words,” he added in another tweet.
Max Schachter, whose 14-year-old son Alex was killed, tweeted Monday morning, “I love you Alex.”