“What do we have the death penalty for?”: the outrage of the relatives of the victims of the Parkland shooting

Nikolas Cruz, the confessed killer of 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in ParklandFlorida, escaped the death penalty on Thursday after a 12-person jury recommended that he be sentenced to life in prison.

Faced with the decision, the relatives of the victims of the attack that occurred on February 14, 2018 were visibly upset and angry.

Look: Death penalty or life in prison: Parkland killer awaits jury verdict

Tony Montalto lost his daughter Gina in the shooting. (REUTERS)

A next hearing in which a judge will confirm what the jury recommended was scheduled for November 1.

Cruz, 24, pleaded guilty to the murders in October 2021. He was the perpetrator of the deadliest mass shooting ever to come to trial in the US.

Relatives of the victims referred to the verdict that saved him from capital punishment as “unreal” and “wrong” at a subsequent press conference.

“I couldn’t be more disappointed by what happened today,” said Fred Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter Jaime was one of Cruz’s victims.

“I’m stunned. I’m devastated,” he said. “There are 17 victims who did not receive justice today. This jury failed our families today.”

Ilan and Lori Alhadeff. (REUTERS)

The jury’s decision was also a blow to prosecutors, who had repeatedly tried to show that the crimes were “cold, calculated and premeditated” and that they met Florida’s definition of “aggravating factors” that warrant the death penalty.

A unanimous decision would have been needed to dictate the so-called capital punishment.

“She was not a human being”

As each of the 17 counts was read in court, it emerged that while the jurors agreed that there were factors that warranted the death penalty, at least one of them believed that there were also “mitigating factors” that warranted life imprisonment.

As this deliberation was being read, Tony Montalto, who lost his daughter, Gina, frequently shook his head. His arm was around his wife, Jennifer, who dropped her head on her shoulder as the charges related to her child were read.

Debra, wife of Chris Hixon, who lost his life in the shooting. (REUTERS)

Other family members could be seen crying silently.

Corey Hixon, whose father, Christopher Hixon, was killed in the attack, stood up and left the room as soon as he heard the jury’s recommendation of life in prison instead of death.

Speaking to reporters after the hearing, Ilan Alhadeff, father of Alyssa, who was killed by Cruz, said the attacker “wasn’t a human being, he’s an animal.”

“I pray that the animal suffers every day of its life in jail,” he said. “And may it have a short life.”

For her part, Linda Schulman, mother of Scott Beigel, questioned with pain: “What do we have the death penalty for?

“My son was killed and this animal will continue with his life in prison,” he added.

The attacker was 19 years old when he entered the school and opened fire with a legally purchased AR-15 rifle. Within four minutes, 34 people had been shot. In the incident, 17 of them, 14 students and three staff members, were killed.

They had to prove that he planned it

The attack remains one of the deadliest school shootings in US history.

In the ensuing chaos, Cruz managed to escape the crime scene by mingling with the students and stayed in the area after buying a soda at a fast food restaurant. He was later arrested by the police about 3 km from the school.

Prosecutors were tasked with proving that the attack had been premeditated.

The Ramsay family lost their daughter Helena. (REUTERS)

The killer investigated previous shootings and posted comments online saying he would “show no mercy.” In a video, recorded days before the shooting, Cruz said that he planned to be the “school mass murderer” of the year and that his goal was to kill at least 20 people.

The attacker’s lawyers tried to portray him as mentally ill, a young man psychologically shattered by a difficult childhood in which he was “poisoned” by his mother’s drinking and substance abuse.

The shooting energized the already divisive American conversation about guns and sparked a wave of youth-led activism.

Just six weeks after the attack, some 800,000 people gathered in Washington DC for the “March for Our Lives” demonstration against gun violence.

The organization continues to campaign for greater regulation and control of firearms and to make the lobby among politicians “be accountable”.

But his legislative goals, such as a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, have proven elusive.

Source: Elcomercio