Parkland school massacre: Florida jury recommends life in prison for gunman Nikolas Cruz as victims’ families say ‘it should have been death penalty’
A Florida jury has recommended a sentence of life in prison for gunman Nikolas Cruz who killed 17 people at a Parkland school in 2018.
Jurors could not unanimously agree he should be given the death penalty, despite the prosecution requesting he be executed and arguing the deadly attack was cold, calculated and meticulously planned.
Some victims’ relatives shook their heads in court when the jury rejected the prosecutors’ call.
Following the life sentences’ decision, Lori Alhadeff, whose daughter Alyssa was killed, said: “We are beyond disappointed with the outcome today.
“This should have been the death penalty, 100%. Seventeen people were brutally murdered on February 14 2018. I sent my daughter to school and she was shot eight times.
“I am so beyond disappointed and frustrated with this outcome. I cannot understand. I just don’t understand.”
Cruz, 24, pleaded guilty last year to premeditated murder at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
The expelled student was 19 years old when he used a semi-automatic assault rifle to kill 14 students and three staff members in one of America’s worst school shootings.
Following three months of testimony and lawyers’ arguments, 12 jurors reached their recommendation after seven hours of deliberations over two days.
In Florida, a death sentence could only have been handed down if jurors had unanimously recommended Cruz be executed.
Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer will formally issue the sentence at a later date.
Cruz had said he chose Valentine’s Day to make it impossible for Stoneman Douglas students to celebrate the holiday ever again.
During the three-month sentencing trial the prosecution had argued Cruz’s crime was both premeditated as well as heinous and cruel – details among the criteria which Florida law establishes for deciding on a death sentence.
His defence team had acknowledged the severity of his crimes, but asked jurors to consider mitigating factors, including lifelong mental health disorders resulting from his biological mother’s substance abuse during pregnancy.
Cruz had apologised for his crimes and asked to be given a life sentence without the possibility of parole in order to dedicate his life to helping others.
Pic: AP
The sentencing proceedings included testimony from survivors of the shooting as well as mobile phone footage of students crying out for help or whispering as they hid during the attack.
Lead prosecutor Mike Satz focused on Cruz’s eight months of planning and the seven minutes during which he stalked the halls of the school, firing 140 shots from his AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle before escaping.
Cruz’s lead attorney, Melisa McNeill, and her team did not question the horror of his actions but focused on their belief his birth mother’s heavy drinking during pregnancy had left him with foetal alcohol spectrum disorder.
Their experts said his troubling and sometimes violent behaviour, which started at the age of two, was misdiagnosed as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, meaning he never got the right treatment.
Marjory Stoneman Douglas students days after the deadly attack
Mr Satz and his team contended Cruz did not suffer from foetal alcohol damage but had anti-social personality disorder.
Their witnesses said Cruz faked brain damage during testing and was capable of controlling his actions but chose not to.
Prosecutors also played several videos of Cruz discussing the crime with their mental health experts during which he talked about his planning and motivation.
The defence alleged during cross-examination that Cruz was sexually molested and raped by a 12-year-old neighbour when he was nine.
The massacre led to renewed calls for tighter gun control in the US, which have gained further support this year following the shooting of 19 children and two teachers at a school in Uvalde, Texas and another shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, that left 10 people dead.
Donald Trump has threatened Russia with more sanctions after a series of deadly strikes across Ukraine, as he said of Vladimir Putin: “What the hell happened to him?”
The US president appeared aghast at the conduct of his counterpart in the Kremlin after drone and missile attacks in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities left 12 people dead and dozens more injured.
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Speaking to reporters at an airport in New Jersey ahead of a flight back to Washington, Mr Trump said: “I’m not happy with Putin. I don’t know what’s wrong with him.”
“He’s killing a lot of people,” he added. “I’m not happy about that.”
Mr Trump – who said he’s “always gotten along with” Mr Putin – told reporters he would consider more sanctions against Moscow.
“He’s sending rockets into cities and killing people, and I don’t like it at all,” he said.
Ukraine said the barrage of strikes overnight into Sunday was the biggest aerial attack of the war so far, with 367 drones and missiles fired by Russian forces.
It came despite Mr Trump repeatedly talking up the chances of a peace agreement. He even spoke to Mr Putin on the phone for two hours last week.
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‘Shameful’ attacks
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Ukraine is ready to sign a ceasefire deal, and suggested Russia isn’t serious about signing one.
In a statement after the latest attacks on his country, he urged the US and other national leaders to increase the pressure on Mr Putin, saying silence “only encourages” him.
Mr Trump’s envoy for the country, Keith Kellogg, later demanded a ceasefire, describing the Russian attacks as “shameful”.
Three children were among those killed in the attacks, explosions shaking the cities of Kyiv, Odesa, and Mykolaiv.
Ukrainian siblings Tamara, 12, Stanislav, eight, and Roman, 17, were killed in Russian airstrikes. Pic: X/@Mariana_Betsa
Before the onslaught, Russia said it had faced a Ukrainian drone attack on Sunday. It said around 100 were intercepted and destroyed near Moscow and in central and southern regions.
The violence has escalated despite Russia and Ukraine completing the exchange of 1,000 prisoners each over the past three days.
Donald Trump says he will delay the imposition of 50% tariffs on goods entering the United States from the European Union until July, as the two sides attempt to negotiate a trade deal.
It comes after the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said in a post on social media site X that she had spoken to Mr Trump and expressed that they needed until 9 July to “reach a good deal”.
The US president had last Friday threatened to bring in the 50% tariffs from 1 June, as European leaders said they were ready to respond with their own measures.
But Mr Trump has now said that date has been put back to 9 July to allow more time for negotiations with the 27-member bloc, with the phone call appearing to smooth over tensions for now at least.
Speaking on Sunday before boarding Air Force One for Washington DC, Mr Trump told reporters that he had spoken to Ms Von der Leyen and she “wants to get down to serious negotiations” and she vowed to “rapidly get together and see if we can work something out”.
The US president, in comments on his Truth Social platform, had reignited fears last Friday of a trade war between the two powers when he said talks were “going nowhere” and the bloc was “very difficult to deal with”.
Mr Trump told the media in Morristown, New Jersey, on Sunday that Ms Von der Leyen “just called me… and she asked for an extension in the June 1st date. And she said she wants to get down to serious negotiation”.
“We had a very nice call and I agreed to move it. I believe July 9th would be the date. That was the date she requested. She said we will rapidly get together and see if we can work something out,” the US president added.
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Shortly after, he wrote on Truth Social: “I agreed to the extension – July 9, 2025 – It was my privilege to do so.”
On his so-called “liberation day” last month, Mr Trump unleashed tariffs on many of America’s trade partners. But since then he’s backed down in a spiralling tit-for-tat tariff face-off with China, and struck a deal with the UK.
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Much of his most incendiary rhetoric on trade has been directed at Brussels, though, even going as far as to claim the EU was created to rip the US off.
Responding to his 50% tariff threat, EU trade chief Maros Sefcovic said: “EU-US trade is unmatched and must be guided by mutual respect, not threats.
“We stand ready to defend our interests.”
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