Fla. agency looked at Cruz’s home
Probe closed 15 months before school shooting
PARKLAND, Fla. — Florida’s state social services agency investigated Nikolas Cruz’s home life more than a year before police say he killed 17 people at his former high school, closing the inquiry after determining that his “final level of risk is low,” despite learning that the teenager had behavioral struggles and was planning to buy a gun, according to an investigative report obtained by The Washington Post and other media outlets.
The Florida Department of Children and Families report detailed several unnerving behaviors from Cruz, including that he had cut his arms on Snapchat, had a Nazi symbol and a racial epithet on his backpack and intended to purchase a gun for unknown reasons.
The investigation was closed in November 2016, just months before Cruz bought the AR-15 assault-style rifle that police say he would later use in the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.
Cruz appeared in court Monday for a procedural hearing about how legal paperwork would be handled in the case. He said nothing when he made his first in-person appearance in Broward County Circuit Court. A previous appearance had been by a video connection from jail.
Cruz, wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, kept his head down and did not appear to make eye contact with the judge or others in the courtroom, though he responded briefly to someone on the defense team.
The hearing concerned rules that will govern how documents are sealed. Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer said she was in favor of openness whenever possible.
Cruz is charged with killing 17 people and wounding many others in Wednesday’s attack at Stoneman Douglas.
His lawyers have said he will plead guilty if prosecutors agree not to pursue the death penalty. No decision has been made on that.
School and government records obtained Sunday show Cruz was diagnosed as developmentally delayed at age 3 and had disciplinary issues