Mother vetoes counsellors over gun
Nikolas Cruz’s late mother was an ‘‘enabler’’ who overrode the objections of school counsellors when the future Parkland shooter wanted to buy a gun, according to the chairman of the state commission investigating the massacre.
Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, who leads the commission reviewing the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, said several counsellors tried to help Cruz with his behavioural and disciplinary problems.
‘‘This is not a situation where there wasn’t yeoman’s work being done by a whole bunch of people to try and get this guy off the path that he was on,’’ he said. ‘‘But it just wasn’t being effective.’’
One reason, he said, was Cruz’s mother, Lynda Cruz, who died last November.
‘‘His mother was an enabler, and his mother contributed to this significantly,’’ Gualtieri said at a meeting of the commission, held in Sunrise. ‘‘To the point where at one time when they said that he wanted to buy a gun and the counsellors from the school said he shouldn’t have a gun, his mother said ‘I don’t care. If he wants a gun, he can have a gun.’’’
Meanwhile in state court yesterday, the Broward County School Board and Broward State Attorney’s Office argued that the public should not see security camera footage that may shed light on what law enforcement officers did during the school shooting.
Releasing the footage could jeopardise the ‘‘integrity’’ of the video surveillance system at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, putting students at risk, a school board attorney told a three-judge panel at the Fourth District Court of Appeal in West Palm Beach. A lawyer representing the Broward state attorney said the footage constituted ‘‘criminal investigative information’’ that should not be disclosed under Florida’s broad public records law.
Some Broward Sheriff’s Office deputies are said to have taken cover during the February 14 attack by former student Cruz that killed 17 people. The exterior camera footage – sought by nearly a dozen media outlets, – may show what actions deputies took during and shortly after a six-minute shooting spree that left students and staff bleeding to death from grievous wounds.
‘‘The footage is the only objective evidence of what occurred and when,’’ said Barbara Petersen, president of the First Amendment Foundation, which joined the media in suing for the footage. ‘‘The whole purpose of our open government laws is oversight and accountability. Access to the video footage allows us to hold those accountable who may not have done their jobs.’’ –