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Thread: Shooting at Parkland high school in Florida

  1. #151
    What do you care? Boston Babe 73's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ron_NYC View Post
    Whenever someone says "no one wants to take all your guns" I have to correct them because I absolutely want to take all their guns. Fuck em.
    Agreed. Anyone that throws a super toddler tantrum over it is questionable to begin with and probably shouldn't be trusted with any weapons.
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  2. #152
    Cousin Greg Angiebla's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Boston Babe 73 View Post
    Agreed. Anyone that throws a super toddler tantrum over it is questionable to begin with and probably shouldn't be trusted with any weapons.
    Especially assault rifles. No civilian should have one.

    "The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man" -Charles Darwin

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    Chelsea, if you are a ghost and reading mds, I command you to walk into the light.

  3. #153
    Cousin Greg Angiebla's Avatar
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    Has anyone seen shit like this floating around?
    Attached Images Attached Images

    "The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man" -Charles Darwin

    Quote Originally Posted by bowieluva View Post
    Chelsea, if you are a ghost and reading mds, I command you to walk into the light.

  4. #154
    Certified Grumple Bottoms Ron_NYC's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Angiebla View Post
    Has anyone seen shit like this floating around?
    I was about to ask what this means, but I guess that's the shooter's name. Women being fangirls for killers isn't exactly new, Angie.
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    Ron was the best part, hands down.

  5. #155
    Cousin Greg Angiebla's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ron_NYC View Post
    I was about to ask what this means, but I guess that's the shooter's name. Women being fangirls for killers isn't exactly new, Angie.
    I know. It grosses me out every time.

    "The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man" -Charles Darwin

    Quote Originally Posted by bowieluva View Post
    Chelsea, if you are a ghost and reading mds, I command you to walk into the light.

  6. #156
    Certified Grumple Bottoms Ron_NYC's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Angiebla View Post
    I know. It grosses me out every time.
    Right? But I can't get a text back.
    Quote Originally Posted by bowieluva View Post
    Ron was the best part, hands down.

  7. #157
    (ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧ Amy1217's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ron_NYC View Post
    Right? But I can't get a text back.
    You don't have any Casey Anthony pen pals?

  8. #158
    Senior Member Meshuga's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Amy1217 View Post
    You don't have any Casey Anthony pen pals?
    A man married Susan Atkins, so it goes both ways.

  9. #159
    Certified Grumple Bottoms Ron_NYC's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Amy1217 View Post
    You don't have any Casey Anthony pen pals?
    I need to get on that, thanks. They can't be like Casey though, cause her sexy ass is free.
    Quote Originally Posted by bowieluva View Post
    Ron was the best part, hands down.

  10. #160
    Senior Member curiouscat's Avatar
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    Curious?

    What about this school shooting is different from all the school shootings before it?!
    Why do companies now care about dropping support for the NRA?
    Why are kids now staging walkouts?
    Why are gun laws changing?
    If I were a parent of a victim of Virginia Tech or Columbine, I'd be pissed that this type of support wasn't shown to my child.
    Quote Originally Posted by Boston Babe 73 View Post
    I don't have a thousand dollars hanging around to buy a fart in a jar lol.

  11. #161
    Senior Member Jinkasaurus's Avatar
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    My personal opinion is that its a combination of three things:

    1. The socioeconomic status of many at this school is high, which leads to having more youth with privilege (parents who support activism, education, prep for college, etc);

    2. The number of shootings just keeps increasing, and these kids are the age where this has happened their entire lives, and the older ones (juniors/seniors) are finally old enough to do something about it now they've actually had it happen to them;

    3. This group of kids has spent their teen lives immersed in social media, and so they naturally turned to that platform to communicate their feelings. Kids in earlier shootings did not have such a tool.

  12. #162
    Senior Member Meshuga's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jinkasaurus View Post
    My personal opinion is that its a combination of three things:

    1. The socioeconomic status of many at this school is high, which leads to having more youth with privilege (parents who support activism, education, prep for college, etc);

    2. The number of shootings just keeps increasing, and these kids are the age where this has happened their entire lives, and the older ones (juniors/seniors) are finally old enough to do something about it now they've actually had it happen to them;

    3. This group of kids has spent their teen lives immersed in social media, and so they naturally turned to that platform to communicate their feelings. Kids in earlier shootings did not have such a tool.
    I agree with all of that. Mostly #3. These kids don't know life without social media, and will kick ass.

  13. #163
    Senior Member curiouscat's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Meshuga View Post
    I agree with all of that. Mostly #3. These kids don't know life without social media, and will kick ass.
    Facebook was around when Virginia Tech happened.
    Quote Originally Posted by Boston Babe 73 View Post
    I don't have a thousand dollars hanging around to buy a fart in a jar lol.

  14. #164
    Senior Member Meshuga's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by curiouscat View Post
    Facebook was around when Virginia Tech happened.
    These kids have always had social media. Also, they were born AFTER Columbine, so they have also always had school shootings. I believe this is why they are making a difference where others haven't.

  15. #165
    Senior Member SuchAClassicGirl's Avatar
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    My husband and his brother were both in the building next to Cho?s massacre at VT that day. I crouched on the floor with my newborn bc a loudspeaker kept going off saying to stay away from doors and windows and my townhouse was minutes from campus. Terrifying day.

    Sorry, back to Florida.
    Quote Originally Posted by blighted star
    I was about to be annoyed that this thread was still active, but I see now it's morphed into offers of sex for chilli confectionary, so carry on guys :)

  16. #166
    Senior Member Meshuga's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by SuchAClassicGirl View Post
    My husband and his brother were both in the building next to Cho?s massacre at VT that day. I crouched on the floor with my newborn bc a loudspeaker kept going off saying to stay away from doors and windows and my townhouse was minutes from campus. Terrifying day.

    Sorry, back to Florida.
    How horrifying. I'm so sorry.

  17. #167
    What do you care? Boston Babe 73's Avatar
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    I'm proud of the kids protesting today. I came upon one of the marches and honked my horn over and over and they kept cheering. Amazing
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  18. #168
    Senior Member curiouscat's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by SuchAClassicGirl View Post
    My husband and his brother were both in the building next to Cho?s massacre at VT that day. I crouched on the floor with my newborn bc a loudspeaker kept going off saying to stay away from doors and windows and my townhouse was minutes from campus. Terrifying day.

    Sorry, back to Florida.
    I went to college with a guy who played high school baseball with one of the victim's twin (VT).
    Quote Originally Posted by Boston Babe 73 View Post
    I don't have a thousand dollars hanging around to buy a fart in a jar lol.

  19. #169
    Scoopski Potatoes Nic B's Avatar
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    A middle school right by my house was put on lockdown after reports of gunshots. It legit happened a minute after the scheduled walk out. Makes me think someone didn't want that to happen....so let's shoot off a gun. Makes total sense.


    Quote Originally Posted by marakisses View Post
    yes i said i will leave it under you storage he said cuddle with me i said shut up it over??? what am i doing wrong??
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    Happy Birthday! I hid a dead body in your backyard to celebrate. Good luck finding it under the cement. You can only use a stick to look for it.

  20. #170
    Senior Member blighted star's Avatar
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    I feel like I must be missing something here? I assume this was his school too. He's 17, both his parents are dead, his brother has just committed an horrific mass shooting & this kid also has to deal with the fact that his closest surviving blood relative is a white supremacist.

    Is it really surprising the kid feels drawn to the school campus for moments of reflection?

    I get that him turning up like that will be frightening & upsetting for many, but surely there's a better way of dealing with it? He copped a $500,000 bond for riding his skateboard & trespassing on school grounds ffs & he's not going to get the help he needs in custody

    I hope someone steps in & helps this kid. jfc he must feel so alone in the world.

    http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/br...319-story.html

    The system that failed to protect the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School from mass shooter Nikolas Cruz cannot afford to make the same mistake with his brother, a Broward prosecutor argued Tuesday.

    Zachary Cruz, 18, poses the same threat as his older brother and his decision to trespass onto the Stoneman Douglas campus after school Monday is a warning sign that cannot be ignored, Assistant State Attorney Sarahnell Murphy said in court.


    Weeks after his brother "murdered, injured and terrorized" the school, Zachary Cruz showed up on campus "with no legitimate purpose," Murphy said. "He has all the same flags present as his brother."

    A judge set bond at $500,000 for Cruz and ordered a host of pretrial conditions more often seen in felony cases than misdemeanors. And before Cruz is released from jail, police are to search his caretaker's home in Lantana and remove all firearms.

    Later Tuesday, the Broward Sheriff's Office filed a petition for a "temporary risk protection order" under the state's new gun law, identifying Zachary Cruz as someone who "poses a significant danger of causing personal injury to himself or others by having a firearm."


    If granted, the order would give the Sheriff?s Office the legal authority to seize guns found in Cruz's home and prevent him from purchasing or possessing a firearm for one year.

    In the meantime, authorities involuntarily hospitalized Zachary Cruz for a mental-health evaluation under the state's Baker Act, according to a sheriff's news release.

    Deputies said one reason they are concerned with Zachary Cruz, according to the petition, is that they asked him his plans for the future and he responded, "I don't know right now."


    His brother Nikolas Cruz is charged with 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder in the Feb. 14 mass shooting at the Parkland high school.

    Zachary Cruz admitted to police Monday that he rode his skateboard onto the campus, ignoring orders to stay away from the school, to reflect on what his brother had done, according to an arrest report.

    Murphy said Cruz's late afternoon visit left the Stoneman Douglas community in fear, with some parents refusing to let their teenage children go back to the school on Tuesday. "They have again been terrorized," she said.


    Zachary Cruz, 18, was booked into the Broward Main Jail Monday, the same jail where his older brother is locked up. (Broward Sheriff's Office / courtesy)

    At least one student at the school Tuesday said he thought the bail amount was excessive.

    "I'm not worried about the Cruz family, " said Chris Donnelly, 17, a junior.

    Others said it's frightening that Zachary Cruz admitted trespassing on the school campus three times since the massacre.

    "That's crazy," said Josef Bagiv, 16, a junior. "Just weird."

    Conner Gandy, 17, a senior, said Zachary Cruz should have at least warned people before he visited the school. Cruz's showing up "frightens everyone," given how depressed he might be, he said.

    "It's weird and suspicious, but I don't think he would do anything," he said.

    Since his arrest Monday, Zachary Cruz has had contact in jail with his brother, Murphy said.

    "He has been heard and observed discussing how popular his brother is now," she said. "That his face is everywhere and his name is national."

    Murphy said there has been a discussion about starting a pen pal or fan club and the fact that Nikolas Cruz is capable of attracting a lot of girls.

    In court Tuesday, Murphy told Broward County Judge Kim Mollica that it would be irresponsible to treat the new case as a typical trespassing infraction.

    "His mother and father are deceased, his brother is incarcerated," Murphy said.

    During his arrest, Zachary Cruz gave authorities an address where used to live in Parkland.

    No one heeded warning signs about Nikolas Cruz before school shooting

    Murphy said the guardian Cruz lives with in Lantana, Rocxanne Deschamps, was in New York when he was arrested Monday and had no idea how or why he went to the school. Deschamps was in New York to participate in a news conference, where she described her family's hardships from living with Nikolas Cruz.

    If Zachary Cruz is able to post a bond, he will be fitted with an ankle monitor to track his movements, Mollica said.

    He will not be allowed within a mile of Stoneman Douglas or within 500 feet of any school campus.

    He is not to enter Broward County except for court-related business. Cruz would have to raise 10 percent of the bond amount to go free as he waits for his case to be resolved.

    Defense lawyer Joseph Kimok objected to the bond amount, noting that a typical case of trespassing comes with a $25 bond.

    Zachary Cruz "is being held because of who he is related to, not because of anything he did," Kimok said. "The state has been seeking to make a show of this."

    Cruz did not speak during Tuesday's hearing. Kimok and prosecutors declined to comment after the hearing.


    Zachary Cruz also was committed for mental health treatment under the Baker Act after the shooting, Murphy said during Tuesday's hearing.

    State records show he had two prior run-ins in 2016 with Coral Springs police, being detained on larceny and criminal mischief charges.

    Stoneman Douglas' school day ends at 2:40 p.m. Zachary Cruz allegedly rode his skateboard across the campus at 4:30 p.m. He spent less than 10 minutes there after entering the north gate on Holmberg Road, the same gate his brother entered on the day of the shooting, and exiting at a gate near the front entrance on Pine Island Road.


    John Mansfield, 17, a junior, said perhaps Zachary Cruz was trying to make sense of the tragedy.

    "I think he's trying to understand like everyone else," he said

    Edit : I missed the Baker Act bit, I hope that means someone actually sets up some ongoing counselling & support for him while he's being held.
    Last edited by blighted star; 03-20-2018 at 09:37 PM.

  21. #171
    What do you care? Boston Babe 73's Avatar
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    Ugh. Yep, that's the end of listening to them. What a fucking hypocrite. That's depressing. I thought he was cool. Nope.
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  22. #172
    What do you care? Boston Babe 73's Avatar
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    Fucking cowards. They want respect for "putting their lives on the line" except they don't. They shoot first ask questions later and run and hide while teenagers are getting shot up. Despicable.
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    That is too pretty to be shoved up an ass.
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    You can take those Fleets and shove them up your ass



  23. #173
    Senior Member blighted star's Avatar
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    https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article...bfrelatedlinks


    The Alleged Parkland Gunman Asked School Officials For Special-Needs Help Before The Shooting

    The Alleged Parkland Gunman Asked School Officials For Special-Needs Help Before The Shooting
    A new report offers an in-depth look at Nikolas Cruz's educational history and the two mistakes school officials made that resulted in a loss of support for a troubled student.

    Posted on August 5, 2018, at 10:22 p.m. ET


    In the fall of his junior year at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Nikolas Cruz stopped receiving the special-needs services he had relied on for most of his life after school officials gave him the wrong information, according to a new report released late Friday.

    After continuing to struggle at the high school, and moving to an off-campus learning center in April 2017, Cruz asked to return to an alternative school for students with emotional problems, where he had previously been successful. However, school officials did not execute his request due to "some confusion" over his status as a student with disabilities and a fumbled effort to reevaluate him.

    Cruz's mother made several phone calls to officials explaining her son's desire to have his special-needs services reinstated, but the district "did not follow through."

    "There was some confusion regarding his exact wishes, and no further action was taken at that time," the report stated.

    The report offers a deeper look into Cruz's educational history, chronicling the Broward County school district's interactions with the troubled student, who had started exhibiting signs of developmental issues and erratic, volatile behavior when he was just 3 years old.

    Though the publicly released report was heavily redacted to protect Cruz's privacy, its blacked-out contents easily became legible when copied and pasted into another document, as first reported by the Sun Sentinel.

    Conducted by an outside consultant at the county's request, the investigation found that, overall, the district had adequately handled Cruz and his needs, allocating resources and specialists to the student, who struggled with an explosive temper and failing academics, but also had periods where he made positive strides in and out of the classroom.

    But the report identified "two specific instances" in which officials did not follow state statute or federal laws for students with disabilities ? key mistakes that resulted in him going without therapeutic services for more than a year before he allegedly opened fire on his former classmates, killing 17 students and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas.

    The report delves into Cruz's early years, in which educators first began noticing concerning signs and alarming behavior. As a student in pre-kindergarten and elementary school, he was aggressive, often "biting, pinching, scratching" other students, and required "maximum teacher assistance" when interacting with classmates.

    By the age of 3, he was found to have developmental disabilities and attention difficulties. At age 5, his "aggressive behaviors appeared to be unpredictable" and he was "impulsive with no sense of boundary," according to the report.

    However, the report said that while Cruz experienced a series of "ups and downs" during his early education, his overall progress was positive, "thanks to the help of counselors and school staff working closely with his mother."

    He then had a tumultuous time in middle school. From August 2013 to January 2014, he received about 28 different disciplinary referrals, mostly for profane language and disruptive behavior.

    Eventually, a team of educators decided to move the eighth-grader to Cross Creek, an alternative school where students could receive more intensive support. As a middle-school student there, Cruz excelled, with staff describing him as a pupil who was "trying very hard" to do well and fit in.

    By the next summer, August 2015, Cruz was deemed ready to start transitioning back to joining his peers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas in the fall ? a dream of his. Throughout his schooling, he had often shared his goal of graduating from a regular high school and joining the military.

    By January 2016, he was attending the high school as a full-time student.

    Much to the relief of his mother and school officials, Cruz acclimated to the traditional high school and "demonstrated he could be a model student," showing he could temper his impulses and seek help when needed, the report said. He even had a girlfriend. In the first semester of the 2016 school year, Cruz committed just one disciplinary infraction, resulting in two days of in-school suspension. Apart from that incident, however, educators noted that he appeared to be on track.

    But then, the report said, Cruz began to fall back into depressive, angry patterns he'd struggled with in the past. By his junior year, his grades rapidly deteriorated and he got in trouble for fighting, using profane language, and wearing a backpack with a swastika on it. He had also reportedly talked about suicide and cutting himself.

    Notes in his file mentioned that Cruz had been "begging mom to get him a Florida ID so he can buy a gun" and that his mother "thinks it is not a serious matter at all." According to the report, school staff said that Cruz's mother "had expressed that her son?s escalating behavior was due to a recent break-up with a girlfriend, and that he would soon get past it."

    In response, officials conducted a threat assessment and checked off several items in the "High Level of Threat" category, resulting in the creation of a specialized supervision plan, the report said, including daily meetings with a school resource officer. Officials had also begun to devise a plan to help him transfer back to Cross Creek.

    But because Cruz was 18, he was legally allowed to refuse their recommendation and stay where he was.

    Officials were "concerned" about how he would respond, the report said, given his fixation on graduating from Marjory Stoneman Douglas and his "history of explosive behavior." Cruz quickly lashed out when he was brought into the room to discuss his academic trajectory, the report added, and "immediately became upset and verbally aggressive."

    A Cross Creek staffer then presented Cruz with several options: He could voluntarily go back to his alternative school and work on his behavior; sue the school district to stop it from forcibly transferring him; or stay at Stoneman Douglas without any of the special-needs services he had been getting for almost as long as he'd been in school.

    Those options, the reviewers concluded, were wrong. School officials misstated that he needed to give up protections for students with disabilities to stay at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. By law and district policy, the report stated, he should have been able to stay and continue receiving extra help.

    Cruz decided to stay at the school, seen and treated as a general education student.


    However, on Feb. 8, 2017, a few months after he gave up his support, Cruz was forced to withdraw from school due to his failing grades and continued conflicts with his classmates. It would be the last time he set foot on the campus until nearly a year later. Two days after leaving school, he legally purchased the AR-15 used in the shooting.

    In the interim, Cruz also expressed a desire to go back to Cross Creek. In late April 2017, his mother made several calls to learning specialists at both schools, describing her son's wishes to leave his off-campus learning site, where teachers reported that he was "a quiet and hardworking" student.

    "She said he had come to realize that the only way he would achieve his goal of graduating from high school would be to return to Cross Creek," the report said.

    But because the 18-year-old had relinquished his specialized education services, he would have to go through the state's lengthy process of being deemed eligible as a student with disabilities all over again, despite his well-documented history of behavioral and emotional issues.

    The district is required to respond to a student or parent's request for special-needs support within 30 days, the report said. But since at that point he was, in the district's eyes, a general education student, officials told him they needed to look into his files and develop an evaluation plan. That never happened.

    By his senior year, Cruz had drifted farther into the fringes of the district's educational offerings, enrolling in several different alternative learning centers.

    On Nov. 1, 2017, his mother, who had been an integral part of his special-needs education, died suddenly. He became more withdrawn and his progress in school slowed tremendously.

    "Despite having started out on track," the report said, Cruz earned only two credits in the year and a half after he revoked his therapeutic assistance. He earned zero credits while attending the three off-campus learning centers.

    And he was still nine credits shy of graduating high school when he returned to Stoneman Douglas on Feb. 14, 2018, carrying his assault weapons, the report said.

  24. #174
    Senior Member blighted star's Avatar
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    https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article...ter-confession


    The Parkland Mass Shooter Said "Just Fucking Kill Me" During His Confession


    In video and a transcript of his initial interviews with police, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz describes his depression and multiple suicide attempts.



    Last updated on August 8, 2018, at 7:17 p.m. ET

    Posted on August 6, 2018, at 6:43 p.m. ET



    Anxious and barely audible, Nikolas Cruz insisted that he "didn't deserve" a glass of cold water, to be read his rights, or to live after he gunned down 17 of his former classmates and teachers on Valentine's Day.

    A few hours after police found him wandering near his former high school in Parkland, Florida, the 19-year-old sat alone in an interview room, telling authorities to kill him.

    "Kill me. Just fucking kill me. Fuck," Cruz said to the empty room while a detective stepped out to get some water.

    In a lengthy confession spanning about 12 hours and 217 pages, Cruz reticently told detectives about his depression, his family "putting [him] down," the times he had tried to kill himself, and the "evil," violent voice in his head that told him to "burn, kill, destroy."

    Florida prosecutors released the transcript of his initial interview with Broward County Sheriff’s Detective John Curcio on Monday, though pages of the interview describing the actual shooting and how he got to the school were redacted and will not be immediately publicized. Video of the interview, showing Cruz in a hospital gown, was released Wednesday. The confession was edited out of the footage as well.

    From the beginning, Curcio had to coax answers out of Cruz, who kept his voice low and his head down; he claimed to not remember details like his own phone number, what kind of cellphone he owned, or the address of the home where he had been living for the past few months.



    After denying he used drugs, Cruz then said he did "a lot no one knew about," ticking off substances like Xanax and marijuana. Two months before the shooting, after his mother died suddenly, he tried to kill himself by taking a large amount of ibuprofen. One night, he said he snuck out of the house he was staying at and went to Walgreen's to buy bottles of ibuprofen and Advil.

    When asked why, he said he was "depressed about everything," particularly his mother dying.

    Before she died, he tried to kill himself by drinking too much alcohol.

    "Loneliness," he explained, confirming that he did not have a lot of friends.

    Cruz went on to explain his overwhelming depression, how he was kicked out of school for failing grades and fighting, and how upset he felt when he was transferred.

    A report released Friday revealed that school district officials made two key mistakes that resulted in Cruz losing the special needs services he had been receiving since he was 3 years old, leaving him without therapeutic assistance and rendering him a "general education" student for his last two years of high school despite a long and well-documented history showing that was far from the case.

    Throughout his life, the gunman said his mother "put [him] down" and called him "crazy, stupid, and worthless." As the detective continued to pry and peel back layers of Cruz's childhood and troubled time at school, the gunman constantly referred to himself as "stupid" and a "coward," revealing that he wanted to be an Army Ranger when he grew up but failed the test.

    In his confession, he admitted to committing one of the worst school shootings in US history with a legally purchased AR-15 and a black bag full of ammunition, which he bought online.

    He said he purchased the assault-style rifle for $560 at a gun store in Margate, Florida, because it was "cool looking" and he "needed to feel safe." Overall, he estimated he had spent about $4,000 on a variety of guns and ammunition and said that his mother had gone with him when he made most of the purchases.


    For years, Cruz said he had been tortured daily by an "evil voice" that emerged right after his father died around 2005 and "started getting worse when my mom passed."

    When it tells him to "burn, kill, destroy," Cruz told the detective that he would try not to obey, but often complied, burning fire pits, killing animals, and cutting himself.

    At 18, he purchased his first firearm to protect himself from the voice and keep it "occupied so he doesn't do anything."

    "I don’t really believe there is a voice, to be honest with you,” Curcio told him later on in questioning, prodding him as to why he did not ask for help to rid himself of the demon in his head.

    "I think you like the demon," the detective suggested, to which Cruz repeatedly pushed back.

    "I don't like the demon," Cruz said.

    "Why didn't you stop it then?" the detective pressed.

    A week before the shooting, the 19-year-old said he had planned to go to a park, though he didn't have one picked out, and start shooting people, but he "didn't want to do it."

    When pressed as to why he didn’t follow through with “the bad side” telling him to gun down people at a park, Cruz said he didn’t know.

    The night before the massacre, the shooter said the "demon" voice popped into his head while he was working at the Dollar Tree.

    "What's the voice telling you?" Curcio asked.

    "To hurt people," he replied, explaining that the voice "is in [him]."

    The next morning, he said the voice told him to get an Uber with his weapons and go to his former high school.

    "It's a voice. The voice is in here," he told the detective. "And then it's me. It's just regular me just trying to be a good person."

    The "demon" voice, though, also acted as a kind of imaginary friend, Cruz said. Despite it being "bad," Cruz felt that it cared about him more than his own family, who he accused of mentally abusing him.

    "I have someone in my head who I can talk to about it," the gunman said.

    "So why do you want to be friends with somebody who just wants to tell you to do bad things?" the detective asked.

    "To have somebody," Cruz replied. "Because I have no one."

    Curcio left the room several times throughout the 12-hour interrogation, during which Cruz questioned over and over, "Why didn't he kill me?"

    "I want to die. At the end, you’re nothing but worthless shit, dude. You deserve to die because you’re fucking worthless and you fucking…everyone. Want to die," he told the empty room during another break.

    Around midnight, Curcio came back with Cruz's younger brother, Zachary Cruz. When it was his time to go, the 18-year-old told his older brother, "I love you with all my heart" and asked him, "Can I give him one more hug? Just one. Just one."

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    https://www.9news.com.au/2018/09/08/...iminal-history

    Here is an update

    The extensive criminal and drug abuse history of Parkland school suspect Nikolas Cruz's biological mother could be a key factor in whether he is sentenced to die for the massacre that killed 17 people, legal experts and officials say.

    The mother, 62-year-old Brenda Woodard, played no role in Cruz's upbringing after giving him up for adoption after he was born.

    But her past, which included a crack cocaine purchase arrest while she was pregnant with Cruz, will almost certainly be brought up for a jury considering whether he should live or die.

    "It is not necessarily her past, but how her past contributed to his genetic makeup," said David S. Weinstein, a former state and federal prosecutor now in private practice.

    "Her use of drugs and alcohol while she was pregnant with him, and how her genetic makeup was passed on to him."

    "It might not carry the day, but it will give the jurors another mitigating factor to consider," he added.

    The identity of Woodard, first reported on Wednesday by the Miami Herald, was confirmed to the Associated Press by a person close to the case who spoke on condition of anonymity because it is an ongoing prosecution.

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    The American Bar Association guidelines for defence lawyers in death penalty cases say they should closely examine all the defendant's past family, going back at least three generations.

    Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, the chairman of a state commission investigating the shooting separate from the prosecution, said Wednesday that all of Cruz's background is relevant.

    "If information has come to light about his biological mother and there is some relevance there, of course we will take a look at it," Gualtieri said. "We are looking heavily at his background and his whole life."

    Cruz, 19, is charged with 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder in the February 14 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

    His lawyers say he will plead guilty if spared the death penalty, but prosecutors have refused that offer.

    Broward County Public Defender Howard Finkelstein declined on Wednesday to discuss how Woodard's past might become part of the case.

    But he repeated that Cruz is ready to end it now.

    "Lock him up forever. Throw away the key and never speak his name," Finkelstein said in an email.

    "Maybe it will curtail some of the pain and hurt that certainly will happen if this case continues on a decades-long march to death."

    If the case goes to the death penalty phase, all 12 jurors must agree on capital punishment or Cruz will get an automatic life prison sentence.

    Cruz and his brother, Zachary, were both adopted by Roger and Lynda Cruz soon after Woodard gave birth to them.

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