FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School was a scene of chaos on Feb. 14, 2018.
There was confusion — was it a drill? There was fear — students described themselves dashing from one hiding spot to another, lying on top of each other, using their backpacks for shields. There was courage — teachers held doors open long enough to save dozens of students. Two paid for it with injuries. One paid with his life.
On the third day of the penalty trial of confessed Parkland mass shooter Nikolas Cruz, jurors were subjected to a battery of witnesses testifying about the gunshots, the screaming, the tears and injuries. The carnage.
“I remember seeing a lot of bodies on the floor,” said student Kyle Laman, injured in the ankle and still struggling to process what he saw. Laman was shot but still managed to run out of a third-floor bathroom to safety as Cruz opened fire from the other end of the hall.
“I was the only person outside of the gunman in the hall, beside the bodies on the floor, and I started running and he started shooting at me,” Laman testified.
Outside the presence of the jury, defense lawyers once again stood up to say it was too much. “He’s already pleaded guilty,” said assistant public defender Tamara Curtis. Subjecting the jury to graphic photo after photo and troubling video after video will make it impossible to get a fair verdict. The emotions, she said, would overwhelm anyone.
But prosecutor Carolyn McCann called the evidence necessary for the prosecution’s goal of showing not only that the defendant’s actions were heinous, atrocious and cruel, but just how cruel they were.
“It’s the weight,” McCann said. “We don’t have to just show that there were aggravating factors present. We have to show the weight of those factors.”
While it’s not an exact science, jurors will be tasked with weighing the aggravating factors against any mitigators that are established by the defense — factors that argue for a life sentence instead of the death penalty. The 12-member jury must be unanimous in its recommendation of death to send Cruz to death row. Otherwise, he will be sentenced to life.
It is the only reason a trial is even taking place. Cruz pleaded guilty in October to 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder.
Wednesday’s dramatic testimony added layer upon weighty layer to the traumatic evidence presented Monday and Tuesday.
Jurors met teachers Juletta Matlock, Ernie Rospierski, Ronit Reoven, Stacey Lippel and Ivy Schamis.
Schamis recalled the final peaceful moments before gunfire erupted on the first floor. She said she was beaming with pride when senior Nicholas Dworet correctly answered a question about a lesser-known historical figure in her Holocaust studies class.
“He said, ‘I know who Adi Dassler is,’” Schamis said. He was the founder of Adidas, the designer of the running shoes worn by Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympics. “The class was super excited because he knew the answer, and we were so happy for him.”
Dworet was dead minutes later. So was his classmate, Helena Ramsay.
Through painful testimony, the bodies piled up.
Carmen Schentrup was a piano player and a violinist. Had she lived one more day, she would have learned she was a National Merit Finalist. Another few weeks and she would have received her acceptance letter to the University of Washington.
“I noticed Carmen beside Ben,” said Reoven, referring to survivor Ben Wikander. Reoven struggled to maintain her composure. “I went close to get a better gauge. She wasn’t moving. She was just laying there, still, no response. And I knew that she was probably gone.”
Scott Beigel worked in a room adjacent to Lippel’s on the third floor of the freshman building. Lippel testified about how he spent his last minutes doing the same thing she was doing — holding a classroom door open to let as many students in as possible. Lippel was grazed by a bullet but shut her door in time.
Beigel was cut down, his body still holding his classroom door open with terrified, vulnerable students trapped inside, said one of those students, Veronica Steel. Cruz, however, didn’t go into the classroom. Beigel’s final act was to sacrifice his life for those students.
Some of the more difficult testimony came from Rospierski, who tried to offset his terrifying account with uncomfortable attempts at humor.
“What do you teach?” prosecutor Mike Satz asked.
“Students,” Rospierski replied. Rospierski teaches social studies, and was credited with saving at least 10 lives that day.
Rospierski was on the third floor when students evacuated their classrooms believing there was a fire drill. He ushered a group of nearly a dozen into a small alcove when bullets came flying in their direction.
While he didn’t know it at the time, two of those students were already badly hurt. Meadow Pollack and another student, who survived, stayed behind when Rospierski and the others made a run for the stairwell. In video shown in court Tuesday, Cruz can be seen walking up to the two students and shooting at them. Pollack died in the alcove.
Jurors also heard from Anthony Borges, who downplayed his efforts to help his fellow students and talked for a few short minutes about his own injuries. Borges suffered five gunshot wounds and showed them all to the jury, half-removing his loose-fitting sweater and unbuttoning his pant legs, revealing his scars without needing to undress.
Family members, as they have since the beginning of the trial Monday, consoled each other when their lost loved ones were named.
The day’s last witness described how Cruz fled the scene by blending in with the escaping crowd.
Nicolette Miciotta’s voice trembled from the first moment she spoke.
Miciotta, then a senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas, told the courtroom that she considered going home before fourth period on Feb. 14, 2018, because she didn’t feel well. She decided to stay shortly before the period began. And almost immediately after her decision is when the fire alarm went off.
Following school protocol, Miciotta and her classmates filed outside at the sound of the alarm.
”There were so many students standing there you could barely tell who was who,” Miciotta said, “we just started walking.”
At one point, she turned around. Cruz stood directly behind her.
”I had known him since middle school,” she said. “I realized he was standing with another friend of mine.”
When Miciotta spotted her friend standing beside Cruz, she joined them in line.
”When we became one line. I said ‘hi,’ he said hi back,” Miciotta said. She struggled to speak. “I said ‘you have any college plans’ and he said ‘somewhere in Florida.’”
She had not known that the moment she stood with Cruz in line would come to haunt her. In the courtroom on Wednesday, sitting mere feet away from Cruz for the first time in four years, her emotions flooded back, her voice trembling in her testimony.
But when questioned, she stood and pointed a finger directly at the confessed gunman.
The trial is scheduled to continue Thursday.
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