School on fire is every child’s dream during exam times, but childhood ideas turning into reality can lead to not just school holidays but even more deadly consequences. Considering the deadliest school massacre of 1999, another mass murder horrifies students and their parents with PTSD.
Who is Nikolas Cruz?
Nikolas Cruz started a school fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida on February 14, 2018. The 19-year-old managed to kill 17 students and staff, with 17 others injured. Nickolas was a former school student who tried to escape by blending with the students under the hurdle. He was captured and arrested by the police under one hour before the Coral Springs incident.
This school mass murder broke the records of the historically deadly high school shooting of April 1999, known as the Columbine High School massacre, which killed 15 people. Later, the perpetrators committed suicide in Colorado.
Who were Nikolas Cruz’s victims?
Seventeen victims were killed, while seventeen survivors were injured. After the incident, three patients were kept under critical conditions, which lasted to only one survivor by the second day.
Twelve people died at the spot of the incident, while three were rescued but died under the school premises, and the other two died at the hospital. Out of all the dead victims, fourteen were students, and three were staff members.
All the 17 survivors of the mass murder were left traumatized with survivor’s guilt and post-traumatic stress disorder. A 19-year-old survivor committed suicide after she struggled to attend college. Less than a week later, a 16-year-old survivor committed suicide as he was experiencing PTSD.
Nikolas Cruz’s behavioral issues:
Police and prosecutors concluded, based on Nikolas’s cause and motive, that he seemed to have disciplinary issues and threatening behavior. It was later revealed that Nikolas had behavioral problems ever since middle school. This caused him to transfer between six schools in 3 years to deal with his behavioral issues. In 2014, he was expelled from school due to emotional learning disabilities. He returned to Stoneman Douglas High School two years later but was removed again in 2017 due to disciplinary issues. In February 2017, Nikolas bought an AR-15 rifle, and he carved swastikas on them with his backpack saying, “I hate niggers’. He was known to be racist, homophobic, antisemitic, and xenophobic, openly declaring he hated Jews, the black community, and immigrants. He once jokingly said in a group chat that he would kill people.
Nikolas Cruz’s punishment:
At first, there were 17 charges pressed against Nikolas, and he was placed on suicide watch after considering the school mass murder of the past. In 2018, the charges increased to 34 and 17 first-degree murder and 17 attempted murder charges. The prosecution requested a death penalty to prove five factors that qualify murder for the death penalty in Florida. The other alternative seemed to be a bail price of $200,000 and charges to add 25 years or 34 life terms. Nikolas’s complicated death penalty case was on September 29, 2022, with him receiving life in prison without the possibility of release. In his confession, Nikolas blamed his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend for sexually humiliating him on Instagram.
Why did Nikolas Cruz not get the death penalty?
On October 13, 2022, the jury suggested life-long imprisonment for Nikolas instead of the death penalty. This is not an official statement, but under the laws of Florida, this recommendation cannot be interrupted. The victims’ families and supporters were disappointed by this decision and said it was like a “gut punch” to them.
Prosecutors argue that the gunman must be sentenced to death as his gun shooting was heinous and calculated, not as the defense claimed due to neurological issues.
The defense attorneys of Nokilas continued to put forward Nikolas’s neurodevelopmental disorder connected to Cruz’s mother using substances during her pregnancy.
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