Sherir: FLA. suspect’s Behavior hard to read Ferguson prosecutor loses primary to city councilman
Issues got him booted from pre-kindergarten
SUNRISE, Fla. — The sheriff leading the state commission investigating the Florida school massacre said Wednesday the suspect’s behavior before the shooting was a “roller coaster,” where he would have stretches of good conduct before it deteriorated.
Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri told the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission that Nikolas Cruz’s fluctuating behavior through the years made it difficult for school officials to determine how he should be handled. Cruz, a 19-year-old former Stoneman Douglas student, is charged with killing 17 people there Feb. 14.
“It was really a roller coaster with Cruz really from birth,” Gualtieri said. A report released last week by the Broward County school district said he began showing behavioral issues that got him kicked out of pre-kindergarten. He spent his school years shuttling between regular campuses and those for children with emotional and behavioral problems. “He had some really bad low times but at times he was without behavioral issues,” Gualtieri said.
But Gualtieri said there were times in middle school and at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that Cruz’s behavior “dive-bombed,” and he required an escort to monitor him. He didn’t go into details, but it has been previously reported
FERGUSON, Mo. — Four years after the deadly police shooting that triggered racial unrest in Ferguson and helped give rise to the Black Lives Matter movement, a black city councilman scored an election upset and ousted the white prosecutor criticized over his handling of the case.
Wesley Bell’s stunning defeat of seven-term St. Louis County prosecutor Bob Mcculloch in Tuesday’s Democratic contest all but assures Bell of victory in November. that Cruz got into fights, committed vandalism, cursed teachers and drew a swastika on his backpack. Administrators conducted a threat assessment of him in 2016, about five months before he was kicked out of the school.
Okaloosa County Sheriff Larry Ashley said that if Cruz required an escort, he had “forfeited” his right to attend a regular school. Ashley was told that would have violated Cruz’s rights under federal disability law to attend the school with the “least-restrictive” environment he could handle.
The 14 appointed members and five ex-officio members will learn more about Cruz’s educational, mental health and medical history during a closed session Thursday as they conclude their monthly meeting.
Separately, prosecutors released hours of video interrogation of Cruz by Broward Sheriff ’s Detective John Curcio shortly after the shooting. It contains the same material as a transcript released Monday, both of which were edited to remove what authorities say was Cruz’s direct confession to the crime.