FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Jurors within the penalty trial of Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz considered graphic video Tuesday of him murdering 17 individuals as he stalked via Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School 4 years in the past.
The video was not proven to the gallery, the place dad and mom of many of the victims sat. The 12 jurors and 10 alternates stared intently at their video screens. Many held palms to their faces as they considered the 15-minute recording, which has no sound.
Some began squirming. One juror seemed on the display, seemed up at Cruz together with his eyes large after which returned to the video.
The video was performed over the objection of Cruz’s attorneys, who argued that any evidentiary worth it has is outweighed by the feelings it will elevate within the jurors. They argued that witness statements of what occurred can be adequate.
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Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer dismissed the objection, saying a video that precisely displays Cruz’s crimes doesn’t unfairly prejudice his case.
The jurors heard testimony from Christopher McKenna, who was a freshman on the time of the shooting, Feb. 14, 2018. He had left his English class to go to the lavatory and exchanged greetings with two college students as they crossed paths. Then he entered a stairwell and encountered Cruz assembling his AR-15 semiautomatic rifle.
“He said get out of here. Things are about to get bad,” McKenna recalled.
McKenna sprinted out to the parking zone and alerted Aaron Feis, an assistant soccer coach who doubled as a safety guard. Feis drove McKenna in his golf cart to an adjoining constructing for security, after which went to the three-story constructing McKenna fled from.
By then, the sounds of gunfire had been already ringing out throughout the campus. Feis went in, and would be part of the scholars McKenna had greeted within the hallway amongst Cruz’s victims.
Cruz pleaded responsible in October to 17 counts of first-degree homicide, and 17 extra counts of tried homicide for these he wounded. The jury should resolve if he needs to be sentenced to demise or life with out parole for the nation’s deadliest mass shooting to go earlier than a jury.