During the sentencing trial of the confessed Parkland shooter, jurors and families have had to hear the blasts of rifle shots echo in the hallways of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. They listened to the recording of a boy moaning and pleading for help. Jurors intently watched video clips of Nikolas Cruz opening fire against a group of students who cowered in an alcove. They saw footage of athletic director Christopher Hixon crawl to safety after being wounded only to have Cruz catch up to him, raise his weapon and shoot him.
As the sound of heavy gunfire echoed in the Broward County courtroom, a family member pleaded from the audience, “Shut it off!”
And Cruz? He lowered his head. He looked down as that horrific video played. He didn’t meet a witness’s gaze as she glared in his direction while describing her injuries, the Sun Sentinel reported.
Was it shame, remorse, a tactic to gain sympathy from jurors who will decide whether he should be executed?
Who knows what’s in the mind of the young man who pleaded guilty last year to killing 17 people, or how the perpetrators of such unthinkable, yet all-too-common, violence should react in court. Very few accused mass murderers stand trial as many are killed or commit suicide before they face justice.
The Cruz we saw in the courtroom this week is much different from the teenager in the video he recorded of himself three days before the massacre. Back then, he said he wanted to kill at least 20.
“You’re all going to die. Pew pew pew. Ah yeah. Can’t wait,” he said in the video.
If it feels unfair that Cruz doesn’t watch his actions while others will forever be scarred by what they saw and heard in that courtroom, it’s because it is. It makes the retelling of those tragic moments even more painful and infuriating.
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