US school massacre accused should be executed: senator

THE man accused of killing 17 people at a Florida high school should be executed, Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio has said.

“The answer is yes,” Senator Rubio said after being asked whether suspect Nikolas Cruz should be given the death penalty if convicted, noting that “I’d imagine most people” would agree.

An attorney representing Cruz, who has been charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder following the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland but has not yet entered a plea, told reporters that his client is willing to plead guilty in an effort to avoid the death penalty.

But State Attorney Michael Satz said in a statement that a case like Cruz’s “is the type of case the death penalty was designed for”.

“This was a highly calculated and premeditated murder of 17 people and the attempted murder of everyone in that school,” Mr Satz said.

An arrest document alleges that Cruz admitted to having been “the gunman who entered the school campus armed with a AR-15 and began shooting students that he saw on the hallways and on the school grounds”.

The FBI has admitted that it received a tip earlier this year which claimed Cruz “had the desire to kill” but failed to investigate the matter fully.

Mr Cruz appeared briefly in court yesterday, with a chain encircling his waist and his eyes downcast as attorneys discussed the logistics of his case before a judge. Clockwise from above: Nikolas Cruz in court; demonstrators hold a ‘lie-in’ near the White House supporting gun control reform; and the funeral of Alaina Petty (14), who died during the shooting