Nikolas Cruz
Perpetrator of Parkland high school shooting
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| June 2024 | Nikolas Cruz settled a civil lawsuit with shooting victim Anthony Borges, granting Borges rights to Cruz's name. This prevents Cruz from giving interviews, making agreements with film producers or authors without Borges' permission. Cruz also agreed to donate his brain to science. |
| November 2 2022 | Cruz was formally sentenced to 34 consecutive life sentences, one for each victim murdered and wounded. |
| October 13 2022 | The jury recommended life imprisonment without parole for Cruz, declining to impose the death penalty. |
| October 11 2022 | Closing arguments were delivered in Cruz's trial. |
| September 29 2022 | The prosecution concluded their rebuttal, presenting Cruz's disturbing search history involving child pornography, racism, and violence. |
| September 27 2022 | The prosecution began their rebuttal, challenging the defense's claims about Cruz's mental health. |
| September 14 2022 | Cruz's defense team rested their case, presenting evidence of brain damage and disabilities potentially resulting from prenatal substance exposure. |
| August 20 2022 | The Sun Sentinel released prison drawings by Cruz from May, where he blamed his ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend for the shooting. |
| August 4 2022 | The prosecution rested its case in Cruz's trial. |
| July 27 2022 | Prosecutors presented digital evidence to jurors, including a list of Google search queries revealing Cruz's disturbing online searches related to school shootings. |
| July 18 2022 | Nikolas Cruz's death penalty trial began, presided over by Judge Scherer. |
| October 20 2021 | Cruz pled guilty to all charges related to the school shooting, including murder and attempted murder. During the hearing, he expressed remorse and asked victims' families to decide his fate. He was also sentenced to 26 years in prison for an assault charge against Sgt. Beltran. |
| October 14 2021 | Trial scheduled for Nikolas Cruz, with plans for him to plead guilty to a battery charge. |
| January 27 2020 | Nikolas Cruz's trial was initially scheduled to begin, but was delayed to allow his lawyers more time to prepare their case. |
| August 8 2019 | TMZ published a video of Cruz's confession filmed by the Broward County Sheriff's Office, in which Cruz can be heard crying and saying 'kill me' to the camera. |
| August 6 2019 | Cruz's confession was officially released to the public. |
| August 3 2019 | Judge Scherer added that the Broward school district's report on Cruz would be released, with some redactions to protect his privacy rights. |
| July 26 2019 | Judge Scherer ruled that Cruz's confession would be released to the public. |
| April 24 2019 | A legal determination was made that Nikolas Cruz and his half-brother Zachary would share proceeds from a MetLife insurance policy valued at $864,929, which made Cruz ineligible for public defender representation. |
| November 14 2018 | Cruz was charged with aggravated assault on an officer, battery against an officer, and use of an 'electric or chemical weapon against an officer'. Bail was set at $200,000 during an initial hearing. |
| November 13 2018 | Cruz attacked a jail officer in the Broward County jail after being asked to stop dragging his sandals, allegedly striking the officer and attempting to grab his stun gun. |
| March 13 2018 | Cruz was arraigned in court, where he declined to enter a plea. The judge entered a 'not guilty' plea on his behalf, and the prosecution filed notice to seek the death penalty. |
| March 7 2018 | Nikolas Cruz was indicted by a grand jury on 34 charges, including 17 counts of first-degree murder and 17 counts of attempted first-degree murder. |
| February 14 2018 | Cruz perpetrated the Parkland high school shooting, killing 17 people and wounding 17 others at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. |
| January 5 2018 | The FBI received a tip from someone close to Cruz about his gun ownership, desire to kill people, erratic behavior, and potential for a school shooting. |
| 2017 | Cruz was expelled from Stoneman Douglas High School and transferred to alternative placement due to disciplinary reasons. |
| November 30 2017 | An anonymous tip suggested Cruz might be a 'school shooter in the making' and that he was collecting knives and guns. |
| November 1 2017 | Lynda Cruz, Nikolas's adoptive mother, dies at age 68, leaving him orphaned. |
| September 24 2017 | Cruz posted a comment on a YouTube video stating, 'Im going to be a professional school shooter.' |
| February 2017 | Cruz legally purchased an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle from a Coral Springs gun store after passing a background check. |
| September 2016 | Three individuals (a sheriff's deputy and two school counselors) recommended that Cruz should be committed for mental evaluation. |
| September 23 2016 | A peer counselor notified the school resource officer of Cruz's suicide attempt and intent to buy a gun. The school indicated it would conduct a threat assessment. |
| February 5 2016 | An anonymous tip was made to law enforcement that Cruz had threatened to shoot up the school. |
| 2014 | Cruz was transferred to a school for children with emotional or learning disabilities due to ongoing behavioral issues. |
This contents of the box above is based on material from the Wikipedia article Nikolas Cruz, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.