On Wednesday, Nikolas Cruz was indicted on 34 charges of premeditated murder and attempted murder with regards to the massacre that killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, CNN reports. Seventeen of these charges were premeditated murder in the first degree and 17 were attempted murder in the first degree. It is reportedly likely that Cruz will plead guilty to avoid the death penalty.
Cruz had been staying with the Snead family, who had taken him in after both of his parents died. He had previously stayed with Roxanne Deschamps, a family friend, but he reportedly moved in with the Sneads after Deschamps told him he could only stay with her if he got rid of his guns.
The Snead family’s lawyer, Jim Lewis, provided The Palm Beach Post with details of text messages between Cruz and the Sneads’ teenage son minutes before the massacre occurred. At 2 pm., 20 minutes before the shooter opened fire, he reportedly texted the Sneads’ son, who was in class at Stoneman Douglas, and asked him what class he was in and who the teacher was. When the son replied, Cruz asked him to ask the teacher if he remembered him (as Cruz had been expelled from Stoneman Douglas.) This teacher is not one of the people he shot.
People who are afraid of this movement because it’s “too political…”
Shooters like the one at my school don’t aim for red or blue.
This is about the lives of everybody, red, blue, or however one may identify.
The only partisanship here is those with us and those against us
— Cameron Kasky (@cameron_kasky) March 8, 2018
Cruz then texted Snead and told him he was going to see a movie, and then told him, “I’ve got something big to tell you.” Snead pressed him for details, but Cruz only said, “No big deal. Nothing bad.” At 2:18 pm, the texting stopped. Snead texted Cruz several times without a response. Then the shooting started. Cruz then murdered 17 people in about ten minutes, before leaving the school undetected in a crowd of students.
Lewis told The Palm Beach Post that Cruz hadn’t given any recent signs that this was going to occur: “No bad feelings about anybody’s school. No bad feelings about Douglas in general.” Six weeks prior to the shooting, the father of the Snead family had asked officials of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School if Cruz could re-enroll, and they had said no.
The indictment alleges that Cruz killed and murdered Luke Hoyer, Martin Duque-Anquiano, Gina Mantalto, Alexander Schachter, Alaina Petty, Alyssa Alhadeff, Nicholas Dworet, Helena Ramsay, Christopher Hixon, Carmen Schentrup, Aaron Feis, Scott Biegel, Meadow Pollack, Cara Loughran, Joaquin Oliver-Padauy, Jaime Guttenberg and Peter Wang.
Cruz has been segregated in jail due to his high-profile status and Wednesday, the day of his indictment, was the first full day back to school at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.