The trial against the author of the shots that caused the biggest student massacre in Florida (2018) entered the final stretch this Monday before a jury that has to decide whether the young man who murdered 17 people will be sentenced to death or life imprisonment.
In Monday’s session, prosecutor Mike Satz detailed before jurors how Nikolas Cruz coldly cut down his victims, even finishing them off when he realized they were injured.
In footage broadcast on local TV stations in Fort Lauderdale, north of Miami, some parents were seen crying as Satz described in great detail how Cruz killed their children at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018. Others they sat stoically with their arms crossed over their chests. A woman who lost her daughter ran from the courtroom, sobbing and holding a handkerchief to her face.
Satz’s comments came at the start of the trial to determine whether Cruz will be executed or serve life in prison without parole once he has pleaded guilty, avoiding a lengthy and complex trial.
The prosecutor recalled that Cruz, armed with an AR-15 automatic rifle, shot each of the 14 students and three staff members who were killed and the 17 who were wounded.
Some were shot while sitting at their desks; others as they fled or bled on the ground.
Cruz, 23, pleaded guilty in October to murder and attempted murder and is only contesting his sentence. The trial, expected to last four months, was supposed to start in 2020 but was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic and legal mechanisms.
Satz called the killings “cold, calculated, cruel and heinous,” citing the video Cruz, then 19, made three days before the shooting.
“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 all are going to die. Oh yeah, I can’t wait,’” Satz said.
Among the witnesses presented to the jury is Danielle Gilbert, a junior who was in a psychology class when the shooting began. The teacher told the students to dive under the desks. “We were sitting like unprotected whites. We had no way to protect ourselves,” said Gilbert, who is now a student at the University of Central Florida. Four people were shot in that room, including one who died, she said.
It was unclear if anyone was in the courtroom to support Cruz, who sat at the defense table between his attorneys. Most of the time she looked at a pad of paper with a pencil in her hand, but she didn’t seem to write. She occasionally looked up to look at Satz or the jury, the audience or whisper something to her lawyers.
After Satz spoke, Cruz’s attorneys announced that they would not give their opening statement until it was time to present their case in a few weeks, a rare and risky strategy because it gives Satz the only word before members of the jury review evidence and hear testimony from survivors and parents and spouses of victims.
