Parkland Shooter Nikolas Cruz had the idea in his head of killing people years before the Feb. 14 school shooting, according to a new report from the Miami Herald.
In May 2014, a Broward County schools psychiatrist filed a report on Cruz that he “reported [a dream] last week of him killing people and covered in blood. He smiled and told the therapist that sometimes he says things for shock value.”
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Following that session with the therapist at Cross Creek School, administrators reportedly created a “safety plan” to ensure the safety of Cruz and other teens around him during summer vacation. The plan included removing “all sharp objects from his home” and encouraging Cruz to “verbalize what the problem is.”
The file, obtained by The Herald on Friday, indicated that Cruz’s mood would improve for weeks at a time, only for him to “descend again into paranoia and anger.”
Cruz was expelled from Stoneman Douglas High School in in Spring 2017 after threatening violent acts against several students. According to teacher Jim Gard, teachers were instructed by the administration not to let him back on campus.
“We were told last year that he wasn’t allowed on campus with a backpack on him,” Gard said in an interview with the Miami Herald. “There were problems with him last year threatening students, and I guess he was asked to leave campus.”
Cruz arrived Building 12 of Stoneman Douglas High School via an Uber minutes before the end of the school day on Feb. 14. Wielding an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle he legally purchased, Cruz opened fire inside the school after pulling the fire alarm, prompting students to file out of their classrooms.
Wearing an Junior ROTC polo shirt, Cruz shot and killed 14 students and three teachers before his gun jammed, forcing him to leave it in a stairwell. He managed to successfully escape the school in a crowd of panicked students, but was identified by the police as he escaped and was arrested within hours of the shooting.
He was formally charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder and an additional 17 counts of attempted murder in a Florida court last week. He had confessed to the murders in an initial interrogation following his arrest and withdrew a not-guilty plea prior to the sentencing.
Additional warning signs included students jokingly saying Cruz would shoot up the school, animal abuse, abuse of his adoptive mother prior to her death late last year and video of him wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat while firing off a gun in his backyard for “target practice.”
