Nikolas Cruz is the alleged perpetrator of the mass shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that killed 17 students and staff along with others who were injured in February 2018. He has been locked up since after the shooting and is awaiting sentencing. because he has already confessed to having committed the crime on video.
Cruz had been in trouble for a long time before the shooting and had been expelled from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. The seemingly troubled young man who had lost his adoptive parents, lost his mother just 3 months before the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. In light of Cruz’s confession, his lawyers offered a plea deal to abolish the death penalty, but prosecutors refused the proposal.
Who is Nicholas Cruz? (Age, ethnicity)
Nikolas was born on September 24, 1998 and is American. His adoptive parents, Lynda and Roger Cruz adopted him at birth in Margate, Florida. His adoptive father, Roger died in 2004 at the age of 67 and Lynda, his adoptive mother died 13 years later in 1997. Cruz’s mother’s death came three months before the shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Parkland, Florida. After his mother passed away, he stayed with friends and relatives while he worked at an area dollar store and completed a GED program.
Prior to the high school shooting incident, Cruz had been a member of the Junior Officers Training Corps and received several awards. He was also on the varsity air rifle team at Stoneman Douglas High School.
Nikolas Cruz reportedly had behavioral issues since his college days. In the space of 3 years, he had changed schools 6 times. He was reported to have threatened classmates at a school for children with learning and emotional disabilities shortly after his transfer. He was later transferred to Stoneman Douglas High School where further threats against his fellow students were reported. The school authorities prohibited him from carrying a backpack on school premises.
In 2013, psychiatrists recommended that Cruz be admitted to a mental treatment facility. Even the Florida State Department of Children and Families investigated him because of a Snapchat video he uploaded with his hands cut and talked about buying a gun in 2016. investigators who examined him, however, said there was little risk of him harming himself or others. They noted, however, that he was depressed and autistic. Cruz received mental treatment for a period but stopped long before the shooting.
In the 10 years leading up to the shootings, the county sheriff, Scott Israel, mentioned that he had received more than twenty calls regarding threats from Cruz, including his threat to open fire at Marjory Stoneman High School. Douglas.
Family – Parents and brother
Nikolas Cruz’s younger brother, Zachary Cruz shared the same biological mother with him. Just like Nikolas, Zachary Cruz was also adopted as a baby. In the aftermath of his brother’s fire opening fire on students and staff at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, a distraught Zachary visited his brother in jail and asked why he had fired.
Nikolas Cruz responded by simply saying he was sorry between sobs as his younger brother Zachary hugged him. Zachary was arrested in March 2018, about a month after his brother’s mass shooting for trespassing on the grounds of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and arraigned.
He pleaded for the trespassing charge, pointing out that he only went to school to try to understand the devastation caused by his brother. However, the presiding judge had him jailed on $500,000 bond. This caused the attorney defending him to point out that Zachary Cruz had suffered unimaginable trauma and deserved some leniency and compassion instead of being punished because of his brother. Eventually, the bail amount was reduced and he was sentenced to six months probation.
It was discovered that the biologically diverse Nikolas Cruz mother has a long history of criminal offenses, some of which involved violence. This often caused her to go in and out of prison. She would have indulged in the consumption of alcohol and drugs while she was pregnant with Cruz and her half-brother Zachary.
His mother had a daughter named Danielle before Cruz. Danielle who was taken from her mother in state care soon after she was born. She was raised by her grandmother and later started living on the streets after her grandmother died.
Cruz never met his biological sister Danielle, who herself was allegedly involved in several crimes and once took a gun to her high school. Danielle at the time of this writing is in jail for attempted murder and won’t have a chance to get out until 2020.