FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The jury heard extra emotional testimony Tuesday because the sentencing trial for convicted Parkland faculty shooter Nikolas Cruz continued.
Former students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shared their gripping and heartbreaking accounts of what occurred the day 17 individuals had been killed, and 17 others had been injured on Feb. 14, 2018.
The trial lastly started Monday in a Broward County courtroom and is predicted to final 4 months.
Christopher McKenna, a freshman on the faculty on the time, took the stand and instructed the jury that he left his English class to go to the toilet that day.
He mentioned he gave a high-five to 2 of his fellow students, Luke Hoyer and Martin Duque, as they crossed paths within the first-floor hallway.
McKenna then described seeing Cruz in a stairwell armed with a rifle.
“Get out of here. Things are about to get bad,” McKenna testified that Cruz instructed him.
Cruz would fatally shoot Hoyer and Duque.
McKenna stood up in courtroom and recognized Cruz because the particular person he noticed that day within the stairwell, pointing at him in courtroom.
(Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel through AP, Pool)
Alexander Dworet took the stand and mentioned he heard “loud bangs” and the top of his English class however thought it may be the college’s marching band.
Dworet mentioned he recalled feeling a scorching sensation on the again of his head and mentioned he knew he was in peril.
“I remember feeling trickling down the back of my head and onto my chest,” Dworet mentioned. “I touched the back of my head, and then my hand was all bloody.”
Dworet then described watching his classmate, Alex Schachter, take his final breaths.
His brother, Nicholas Dworet, was also shot and killed in the rampage.
(Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel through AP, Pool)
WATCH LIVE: Day 2 of Parkland shooter’s sentencing trial
A tearful Dara Hass took the stand and described listening to the gunshots tear into her classroom on that day whereas she was instructing English, killing some of her students and injuring others.
She testified that initially, she thought the pictures had been a drill however mentioned her students had been screaming and shouting.
She later noticed one of her students, Schachter, was injured and knew it wasn’t a drill, later calling 911.
“It was hazy, and you could smell the sulfur from the gun,” Hass mentioned. “Debris was flying across the room. The students were crying; so many students had been injured.”
E.W. Scripps
Hass recalled seeing two of her different students, Alania Petty and Alyssa Alhadeff, very injured in her classroom, each of whom later died from their accidents.
When police arrived and evacuated her students, Hass mentioned she didn’t wish to depart, however officers satisfied her.
“I wanted to stay with the students who couldn’t go,” she mentioned.
Samantha Fuentes, a former pupil on the faculty, recalled being in her Holocaust research classroom when the taking pictures began.
She described sitting close to the classroom’s entrance door and listening to a pair of pictures from the hallway, which prompted everybody to freeze.
Fuentes mentioned extra pictures had been fired, which pierced a window of the classroom. She recalled how she and her classmates went to the again of the room as extra pictures continued to enter the room. That’s when she described seeing the gunman.
E.W. Scripps
“Unknowingly, I peeked my head past the podium to look at the door. That is where I saw Cruz standing there after he had finished firing,” Fuentes mentioned. “He was standing at the window at the door.”
She then noticed that two of her classmates had been shot lifeless, recognized as Nicholas Dworet and Helena Ramsay.
Fuentes then observed that she had additionally been shot and had holes in her pants with blood operating from the highest of her brow right down to her chest and in her eyes and hair.
Fuentes suffered a gunshot wound simply above her left knee and had different shrapnel accidents. Fuentes mentioned she hasn’t totally recovered from her wounds and nonetheless has ache from shrapnel nonetheless lodged all through her physique.
Throughout a lot of Tuesday, Cruz barely regarded up, usually noticed along with his head in his hand wanting down.
Day 1 Testimony
Jurors on Monday heard heart-wrenching testimony from a pupil and instructor from the highschool who remembered the violence that unfolded on Valentine’s Day 4 years in the past.
Witness Danielle Gilbert cringed and shed tears on the witness stand. She was a junior on the Parkland faculty when the taking pictures occurred.
Cellphone video clips that Gilbert recorded contained in the classroom had been proven to the jury. Audio included a number of gunshots as a hearth alarm sounded.
E.W. Scripps
“We were sitting like sitting ducks,” Gilbert mentioned. “We had no way to defend ourselves.”
Her story was just like Brittany Sinitch, a instructor who took the stand and recalled the precise second when a Valentine’s Day undertaking together with her students turned to darkness.
“We were having so much fun until I heard what I described as the loudest noise you could possibly imagine,” Sinitch mentioned.
She recalled that she rapidly shielded her students from hazard. Her frantic name to 911 was inaudible as a result of the gunshots had been so loud.
Carline Jean/South Florida Sun Sentinel through AP, Pool
Families of the victims who had been in courtroom turned overwhelmed listening to the testimony and video that was performed in courtroom.
Prosecutors are in search of the loss of life penalty, calling Cruz’s actions chilly and calculated.
Lead prosecutor Mike Satz highlighted a video that Cruz recorded days earlier than the taking pictures.
(Carline Jean/South Florida Sun Sentinel through AP, Pool)
“This is what the defendant said: ‘Hello, my name is Nik. I’m going to be the next school shooter of 2018. My goal is at least 20 people with an AR-15 and some tracer rounds. It’s going to be a big event, and when you see me on the news, you’ll know who I am. You’re all going to die. Ah yeah, I can’t wait,'” Satz mentioned.
Defense attorneys plan to ship opening statements after they current their case within the coming weeks.