Prosecutor recollects coldness, cruelty of Parkland gunman

The prosecutor looking for the demise penalty for the gunman who massacred 17 individuals at a Parkland, Florida, highschool detailed for jurors Monday how Nikolas Cruz coldly mowed down his victims, returning to some as they lay wounded to complete them off with a second volley.

Some mother and father wept as prosecutor Mike Satz described in his opening assertion how Cruz killed their kids at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018. Others sat stoically, their arms crossed over their chests. One lady who misplaced her daughter fled the courtroom, sobbing and holding tissue to her face.

Satz’s feedback got here at first of the trial to find out whether or not Cruz is executed or serves life in jail with out parole.

The prosecutor’s presentation went over how Cruz shot every of the 14 college students and three workers members who died and a few of the 17 who had been wounded. Some had been shot sitting at their desks, some as they fled and a few as they lay bleeding on the ground whereas the previous Stoneman Douglas pupil methodically stalked via a three-story constructing for nearly seven minutes with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle.

Cruz, 23, pleaded responsible in October to homicide and tried homicide and is contesting solely his sentence. The trial, which is anticipated to final 4 months, was supposed to start in 2020, however it was delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic and authorized fights.

Satz referred to as the murders chilly, calculated, merciless and heinous, quoting the video Cruz, then 19, made three days earlier than the taking pictures.

“This is what the defendant said: ‘Hello, 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 going to be a big event, and when you see me on the news, you’ll know who I am. You’re all going to die. Ah yeah, I can’t wait,’” Satz stated.

Among the primary witnesses was Danielle Gilbert, a junior who was in psychology class when the taking pictures started. The instructor advised college students to get behind her desk.

“We were sitting like sitting ducks. We had no way to protect ourselves,” stated Gilbert, who’s now a pupil on the University of Central Florida.

The jury was then proven cellphone video Gilbert took contained in the classroom. The footage started with a lady curled up beneath the instructor’s desk and others, together with Gilbert, largely unseen as they crouch behind it. About two dozen pictures that gave the impression to be coming from simply exterior the door are heard in fast succession as the hearth alarm sounds. An unseen wounded boy cries out twice, “Someone assist me.

“The gunshots get additional away, however the college students stay quiet and huddled, talking solely in whispers. Eventually, the voices of cops may be heard approaching. The instructor stands up, holding her head.

“They’re coming, they’re coming, we’re OK,” a boy whispers.

SWAT officers, carrying rifles, then burst in, eager to know if anybody is damage. The college students level and Gilbert stands up together with her digital camera. A wounded boy and woman are carried out. A lifeless woman lies in a pool of blood. The officers inform the scholars to expire. They handed two extra our bodies mendacity within the hallway earlier than exiting right into a parking zone.

Her testimony over, Gilbert broke down in sobs. Her father put his arm round her and led her from the courtroom.

Prosecutors additionally offered cellphone video from one other pupil that confirmed classmates crouching behind chairs as Cruz fired via the classroom door window, the bangs reverberating over screams.

From the again of the courtroom, a relative of a lady who died in that classroom yelled for prosecutors to show it off earlier than bailiffs requested the girl to be quiet. The protection requested a mistrial over the outburst, however it was denied.

The seven-man, five-woman jury is backed up by 10 alternates. It is the nation’s deadliest mass taking pictures to go earlier than a jury.

Nine different gunmen who killed a minimum of 17 individuals died throughout or instantly after their shootings, both by suicide or police gunfire. The suspect within the 2019 slaying of 23 individuals at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, is awaiting trial.

It wasn’t clear if anybody was within the courtroom to help Cruz, who sat on the protection desk between his attorneys. During Satz’s opening assertion, he largely seemed down at a pad of paper with a pencil in his hand, however he didn’t seem to jot down. He would typically look as much as stare at Satz or the jury, peer on the viewers or whisper to his legal professionals.

After Satz spoke, Cruz’s legal professionals introduced that they might not give their opening assertion till it’s time to current their case weeks from now. That is a uncommon and dangerous technique as a result of it offers Satz the one say earlier than jurors study grisly proof and listen to testimony from survivors and the victims’ mother and father and spouses.

When lead defender Melisa McNeill offers her assertion, she’s going to possible emphasise that Cruz is a younger grownup with lifelong emotional and psychological issues who allegedly suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome and abuse.

It’s the primary demise penalty trial for Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer. When jurors ultimately get the case within the fall, they may vote 17 instances, as soon as for every of the victims, on whether or not to suggest capital punishment.

Every vote have to be unanimous. A non-unanimous vote for any one of many victims means Cruz’s sentence for that particular person could be life in jail. The jurors are advised that to vote for the demise penalty, the irritating circumstances offered by the prosecution for the sufferer in query should, of their judgment, outweigh mitigating elements offered by the protection.

Regardless of the proof, any juror can vote for all times in jail out of mercy. During jury choice, the panelists stated below oath that they’re able to voting for both sentence.