The Parkland school shooter was sentenced to life in prison without parole Wednesday after he perpetrated the 2018 massacre that left 14 students and three teachers dead and another 17 innocent individuals wounded.
Nikolas Cruz received 17 life sentences for the murder of each of his victims at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. The killer stormed the campus four years ago and opened fire with an AR-15 rifle. He abandoned his gun at the scene and slipped out with evacuating students, authorities confirmed later, before police apprehended him.
Broward County Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer announced a punishment of life behind bars, rather than the death penalty, after the jury failed to come to an unanimous decision to send him to death row as required by Florida law. Three of the 12 jurors voted to give Cruz life in prison.
“Thank you family members for the privilege of learning about each and every one of your loved ones. I can tell you they will not be forgotten,” Scherer said. “If I could take the pain away or carry it for you for just five minutes so that you could breathe … I would.”
Cruz pleaded guilty in October 2021 to 17 counts of murder.
Victims and their family members gave tearful, furious testimonies about the emotional scars the experience left them with.
Ilan Alhadeff, father of Alyssa Alhadeff, 14, who was slaughtered by Cruz, said Wednesday in his victim impact statement that the sentence was not sufficient. He urged for Cruz to be given the death penalty.
“Let me show how angry and frustrated I am with the judicial system. After 4 ½ grueling years, a failed judicial system did not hand down a death sentence to the murderer of my daughter and 16 others,” he said. “Do I see this as accountability? Absolutely not. Do we now have closure? Let me be clear, absolutely not. What I see is that the system values this animal’s life over the 17 now dead. Worse, we sent a message to the next killer out there that the death penalty would not be applied to mass killing. This is wrong and needs to be fixed immediately.”
The mother of Joaquin Oliver, who Cruz shot in the head after he attempted to escape his rampage, also blasted the sentence as in injustice to her child and the other victims.
“If this, the worst mass shooting to go to trial, does not deserve the death penalty, what does?” she said.
Stacey Lippel, a teacher at Parkland suffered a gunshot wound but survived told Cruz that the trauma of the day can never be undone. “You don’t know me but you tried to kill me,” she said, staring at Cruz. “I will have a scar on my arm and the memory of you pointing your gun at me ingrained in my brain forever.”