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FORT The jurors who will decide whether Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz is sentenced to death or life without parole are expected to begin their deliberations Wednesday, concluding a three-month trial.
Cruz, 24, pleaded guilty last year to the murders of 14 students and three staff members at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018. The trial has only been to determine his sentence.
Cruz’s massacre is the deadliest mass shooting that has ever gone to trial in the U.S. Nine other people in the U.S. who fatally shot at least 17 people died during or immediately after their attacks by suicide or police gunfire. The suspect in the 2019 massacre of 23 at an El Paso, Texas, Walmart is awaiting trial.
The jurors will be sequestered during their deliberations, which could take hours or days — no one knows. They have been told to pack for at least two nights.
Here is a look at the case, how the seven-man, five-woman jury will come to their decision and what will happen after that.
WHAT DID CRUZ DO?
Cruz, by his own admission, began thinking about committing a school shooting while in middle school, about five years before he carried it out. He purchased his AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle almost exactly a year before the shooting and his planning became serious about seven months in advance. He researched previous mass shooters, saying he tried to learn from their experience. He bought ammunition, a vest to carry it and a bag to hide it. He picked Valentine’s Day to make sure it would never be celebrated at the school again.
He took an Uber to the school, arriving about 20 minutes before dismissal. He went inside a three-story classroom building, shooting down the halls and into classrooms for about seven minutes.
