Day 2 Top Moments
The second day of Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz’s sentencing listening to introduced extra testimony from college students and academics who had been at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School through the 2018 taking pictures.
After Cruz pleaded responsible to 17 counts of first-degree homicide, the jury will now resolve whether or not Cruz will face the demise penalty or life in jail with out parole.
Here are the highest moments from day 2 of the trial:
Jury Watched Surveillance Footage
The jury watched surveillance video from the taking pictures.
After the decide overruled a movement from the protection, the prosecution introduced the footage. Ron Lowther, an digital surveillance technician for the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, was in a position to isolate Cruz within the movies from from the incident and sequence the footage from every digicam within the faculty to create a steady development.
The silent footage was solely performed for the jury, not the general public.
Former Student Identified Cruz because the Shooter in Court
Christopher McKenna, a former MSD pupil, recalled the second he bumped into Cruz moments earlier than he began taking pictures up the varsity.
McKenna was a freshman on the time of the taking pictures. After passing Luke Hoyer and Martin Duque Anguiano, who had been each killed within the taking pictures, McKenna encountered Cruz.
He stated he was “stunned” as he noticed a person with a rifle in his arms. Cruz advised McKenna to “get out of here” as a result of “things are going to get bad.”
McKenna stated he then ran out of the constructing and located Aaron Feis, an assistant soccer coach on the faculty, for assist. Feis was additionally killed within the taking pictures after he went to “check out” the gunshots coming from inside the varsity.
Prosecutor Michael Satz then requested McKenna if he would be capable to determine the person he noticed holding a rifle contained in the 1200 constructing on that day. McKenna advised Satz he would, and pointed at Cruz when requested if that particular person was within the courtroom.
“The one with the glasses,” McKenna clarified as he pointed at Cruz, who was seated in courtroom within the midst of his protection group.
Former Marjory Stoneman Douglas pupil Christopher McKenna factors out the defendant through the penalty part of Nikolas Cruz’s trial on the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale on July 19, 2022.
MIKE STOCKER/POOL/AFP through Getty Images
Several Shooting Survivors Took the Stand
Several former college students who had been wounded within the taking pictures took the stand to recall the occasions on Feb. 14, 2018.
Many stated the day began out like every other, till their fourth interval lessons had been interrupted by the loud popping sounds of gunfire.
At first, many thought it was a drill or one thing else unrelated to gunshots.
Some pupil had been shot as they ran to take cowl beneath desks and a few had been hit with gunfire whereas they huddled within the corners of the classroom.
Former Marjory Stoneman Douglas pupil Alexander Dworet describes the gunshot accidents he sustained to the again of his head through the penalty part within the trial of shooter Nikolas Cruz on the Broward County Courthouse on July 19, 2022 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Mike Stocker-Pool//Getty Images
“I think sometime during my movement is when I was grazed twice,” Isabel Chequer stated, recalling how she hid behind a submitting cupboard. She later stated she had been shot in her proper foot and left arm.
Daniella Menescal stated she didn’t understand the taking pictures was actual till she felt a pointy ache in her again and noticed blood dripping down her white pants as she hid within the nook of the room.
The college students recalled seeing their classmates wounded or lifeless as they waited for police to rescue them. They tried to calm one another down.
Those who had been wounded had been taken in ambulances to close by hospitals. The jury was proven photographs of their accidents.
Teacher Gets Emotional During Testimony
Dara Hass, an English trainer at MSD High School, started to cry on the stand as she recalled seeing her college students shot.
She stated the scholars had been quietly working after they heard “pop, pop, pop” sounds, like gunshots. She assumed it was a drill. It was solely when Hass rotated and noticed her college students had been shot did she understand it was actual.
Hass started to get emotion as she described seeing Alex Schachter lifeless at his desk.
“It was hazy,” she stated. “You could smell the sulfur from the gun debris. Debris was flying around. Students were crying. So many students were injured.”
Hass stated it was troublesome to go away the room as a result of she wished to stick with the scholars who had been shot and could not get out.
Student Still Suffers From Her Injuries
Samantha Fuentes advised the jury that she nonetheless has ache from the accidents she suffered through the taking pictures 4 years in the past.
While the pictures had been going off, Fuentes stated her imaginative and prescient and listening to “went away briefly,” making her really feel “very confused and disoriented.”
It was solely after she went to test the pulses of her two lifeless classmates that Fuentes realized she had been shot herself.
Fuentes stated she had a gunshot wound above her left knee and “multiple other locations of shrapnel” that hit her legs, arm and face.
“I also still have shrapnel just behind my right eye,” she stated. “That still is there. And I have shrapnel still lodged in all of these parts of my body.”
Fuentes stated she nonetheless feels ache from her accidents.
“I don’t have the same range of motion or stamina as I once did when I was more able-bodied,” she stated. “I get chronic spasms and pain in my legs. Whether it’s the weather change or pressure, I can really feel that in my extremities.”