School massacre in Florida: Perpetrator escapes the death penalty

Nikolas Cruz was sentenced to life imprisonment. Foto: imago images/Amy Beth Bennett


Four and a half years after the Parkland, Florida school massacre that left 17 dead, the perpetrator escaped the threat of the death penalty. A jury in Fort Lauderdale decided in favor of life imprisonment.

Four and a half years after the Parkland, Florida school massacre that left 17 dead, the perpetrator escaped the threat of the death penalty. A Fort Lauderdale jury on Thursday ruled in favor of life imprisonment without parole for 24-year-old Nikolas Cruz.

The twelve jurors saw aggravating circumstances that would have justified a death penalty. At the same time, however, they asserted mitigating circumstances, to which they gave more weight. The penalty has not yet been formally imposed. This is to be done at a later date.

The then 19-year-old Cruz opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle on students and teachers at his former school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, on Valentine’s Day 2018. He killed 14 students and three school staff and injured 17 other people. The Parkland attack was one of the deadliest school shootings in US history.

Massacre had caused horror beyond the United States

Arrested shortly after the crime, Cruz pleaded guilty to 17 counts of murder. The trial in Fort Lauderdale was all about the sentence. A unanimous jury vote would have been required for a death sentence. The minimum penalty was life imprisonment with no prospect of parole.

Prosecutors had asked for the death penalty and accused Cruz of planning and committing a “systematic massacre”. The defense had appealed to the jury not to sentence Cruz to death. Cruz was born with brain damage because his alcoholic mother drank alcohol and used drugs during pregnancy. “He was poisoned in the womb,” said attorney Melisa McNeill.



The Parkland school massacre had caused horror beyond the United States. Shortly after the bloodbath, survivors of the attack launched a nationwide student movement calling for stricter gun ownership regulations. A month after the massacre, hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated in the US capital Washington at the “March for Our Lives”. However, tightening of the gun law remained largely absent.

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.