A young man who fatally shot 17 people at his former high school in Parkland, Florida, will go on trial Monday, with a jury handing down the death penalty or life in prison.
Nikolas Cruz took an AR-15 assault rifle to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Valentine’s Day in 2018 and killed 17 students and staff members.
Cruz, who was 19 at the time, has already pleaded guilty to 17 counts of first-degree murder and 17 counts of attempted murder of those injured during the massacre.
The trial is underway to determine his sentence. The death penalty requires a unanimous jury decision; Otherwise, Cruz will receive life in prison without parole.
The shooting in Florida stunned a country accustomed to gun violence and prompted new efforts, led by students from the same school, to get lawmakers to pass tougher gun control laws.
Parkland survivors founded “March for Our Lives”, organizing a rally that drew hundreds of thousands of people to Washington, DC in 2018.
Thousands of people attended rallies organized by the group last month following two other mass shootings: one at a Texas elementary school that killed 19 young children and two teachers, and another at a New York supermarket that left 10 black dead.
Those shootings helped galvanize support for the first major federal gun safety bill in decades.
More than 24,000 dead President Joe Biden signed the bill into law in late June. It included enhanced background checks for younger buyers and federal cash for states that introduce “red flag” laws that allow courts to temporarily remove guns from people deemed a threat.
Cruz legally purchased the gun he used in the 2018 attack, despite having a documented history of mental health issues.
Expelled from school for disciplinary reasons, Cruz was known to be obsessed with firearms and had reportedly been identified as a potential threat to his classmates.
On the day of the attack, Cruz arrived at the school in an Uber, began shooting indiscriminately at students and staff, and fled nine minutes later, leaving behind a scene of carnage.
He was arrested nearby shortly after.
Footage recovered from his phone showed that he had filmed his plans to attack his former school, saying his goal was to kill “at least 20 people”.
Cruz told a detective after his arrest that he heard demons ordering him to “buy guns, kill animals and destroy everything.”
According to the Gun Violence Archive website, more than 24,000 people have been killed by firearms in the United States so far this year, including more than 13,000 who have committed suicide.
