FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida (AP) – Prosecutor asking for death penalty for gunman who massacred 17 people at a high school in Parkland, Florida, told jurors Monday how Nikolas Cruz cold-cut his victims , returning to some while they were wounded. to finish them off with a second volley.
Some parents cried as prosecutor Mike Satz described in his initial statement how Cruz killed his children at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on February 14, 2018. Others sat stoically, arms crossed over their chests. . A woman who lost her daughter fled the room, crying and grabbing a handkerchief in her face.
Satz’s comments came at the start of the trial to determine whether Cruz is executed or serving life imprisonment without parole.
The prosecutor’s presentation explained how Cruz shot each of the 14 students and three staff members who died and some of the 17 who were injured. Some were shot while sitting at their desks, some as they fled and others as they were bleeding to the ground as Cruz methodically walked through a three-story building for nearly seven minutes.
Cruz, 23, pleaded guilty in October to murder and attempted murder and only challenges his conviction. The trial, which is expected to last four months, was due to begin in 2020, but was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic and legal fights.
Satz called the killings cold, calculated, cruel and hateful, citing the video Cruz, then 19, made three days before the shooting.
“That’s what the defendant said,‘ Hello, my name is Nik. I will be the next school shooter of 2018. My target is at least 20 people with an AR-15 and some tracer rounds. It’s going to be a big event, and when you see me on the news, you’ll know who I am. You will all die. Oh yeah, I can’t wait, ”Satz said.
The jury of seven men and five women is supported by 10 alternates. It is the deadliest mass shooting in the country in front of a jury.
Nine more gunmen who killed at least 17 people died during or immediately after their shootings, either by suicide or by police shooting. The suspect in the 2019 murder of 23 people at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, is awaiting trial.
It was unclear if anyone was present in the courtroom to support Cruz, who sat at the defense table among his lawyers. He was mostly looking at a block of paper with a pencil in his hand, but he didn’t seem to be writing. Sometimes he would look up to look at Satz or the jury, look at the audience, or whisper to his lawyers.
After Satz spoke, Cruz’s lawyers announced that they would not make their initial statement until it was time to file their case in a few weeks. This is a rare and risky strategy because it gives Satz the only word before the jurors examine horrifying evidence and hear the testimony of the survivors and the parents and spouses of the victims.
When senior advocate Melisa McNeill makes her statement, she will likely emphasize that Cruz is a young adult with lifelong emotional and psychological issues who allegedly suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome and abuse.
The first witness of the prosecution will be summoned on Monday afternoon. They have not said who it will be.
It is the first death penalty trial for circuit judge Elizabeth Scherer. When jurors finish the case in the fall, they will vote 17 times, once for each of the victims, on whether to recommend the death penalty.
Each vote must be unanimous. A non-unanimous vote for any of the victims means Cruz’s conviction for that person would be life imprisonment. Jurors are told that in order to vote in favor of the death penalty, the aggravating circumstances that the prosecution has presented for the victim in question must, in their view, “exceed” the mitigating factors presented by the defense.
Regardless of the evidence, any jury can vote on life imprisonment out of mercy. During the jury selection, the panelists said under oath that they are able to vote for any of the sentences.