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A psychologist who treated Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz when he was 8 years old testified Wednesday that Cruz was a “peculiar child” who had many behavioral and developmental issues but his widowed mother seemed overwhelmed and wasn’t consistent in her discipline or in getting him treatment.
Frederick Kravitz said he began treating Cruz in 2007 on a referral from Cruz’s psychiatrist with Lynda Cruz telling him her adopted son suffered from anxiety and nervousness and had trouble controlling his temper. But she also said he was friendly and got along fine with his peers — claims that a neighbor, preschool teachers and an elementary school special education counselor have testified were not true.
Kravitz said that while he suggested weekly sessions for Cruz, his mother only brought him 15 times over a 13-month span, a decade before he murdered 17 people at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018.
He said that was a major issue — Lynda Cruz would agree that her son needed more consistent treatment and she needed to be more consistent in her discipline of him and his younger half-brother, Zachary, but did not follow through. She was 57, depressed from her husband’s sudden 2003 death and dealing with two “tumultuous” young children, he said.
They would yell, throw tantrums and break furnishings, he said.
