New York Post

Racist tirades online & abuse of his own mom

- By LAURA ITALIANO Additional K. Li reporting by David

His hatred seemingly knew no bounds: Jews, gays, Mexicans, blacks, immigrants, white women who dated nonwhites and even his own adoptive mother — who he once struck with a vacuum hose and called “a useless bitch.”

As the next round of funerals begins Sunday for the 17 victims of the South Florida high-school massacre, a fuller, darker, more violent picture of confessed gunman Nikolas Cruz is emerging.

At home with adoptive mother Lynda, Cruz, 19, would throw violent tantrums, according to details from 39 police incident reports filed between 2011 and 2016 and obtained by CNN.

Cops were called most recently in September 2016 to the home shared by the mom, Cruz and his little brother in the quiet, prosperous neighborho­od of Parkland, Broward County, the reports showed.

One report, from Jan. 15, 2013, stands out for showing the then-14year-old’s volatile temper.

The mom told cops that when Cruz refused to go to school that day, she took away his Xbox “privileges,” hiding the game system away in her vehicle. Enraged, Cruz “retaliated and threw a chair, dog bowl and a drinking glass across the room,” she told cops, according to the report.

Cruz called her “a useless bitch” and other profanitie­s she declined to share with the police.

During that visit, the mom also told cops that Cruz had a “history of developmen­tal and learning disabiliti­es,” including attention deficit hyperactiv­ity disorder, and was “increasing­ly irate.”

Cruz was cuffed and seated in the back of a police car as the cops interviewe­d his mom, CNN reported.

A counselor from the nearby behavioral-health facility where Cruz had been a patient for years showed up and “gave Nikolas his prescribed medication,” the report said, after which the boy “began to calm down and cooperated.”

Four days after Cruz’s 18th birthday, Lynda Cruz called the Broward County Sheriff ’s deputies because they had been fighting over the paperwork the son needed to get a Florida state ID card.

The mom was worried, she said, because he mentioned wanting to get a gun and had started “cutting his arms . . . to get attention.”

The long and frequent history of police reports was just another warning sign of a teen on the downslope to a deadly rampage

In the months before he slaughtere­d 14 students and three faculty members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas HS on Valentine’s Day, Cruz ranted bloody murder online.

Cruz once declared his hatred for “jews, n-----s, immigrants” in a private Instagram group chat, according to CNN, which obtained access to the chat exchange.

“Shoot them in the back of the head,” he said of gays, the news site reported.

He rehearsed his blood-drenched plans in comments exchanged with the group’s five other members.

“I think I am going to kill people,” he once wrote, before backing down and claiming he was just playing, CNN reported.

And he once seethed that wanted to keep black people chains and cut their necks.

“My real mom was a Jew,” wrote Cruz, who was adopted at age 2 with his then-2-month-old brother, Zachary. “I am glad I never met her.” Racism was a continual theme in the group, where Cruz exchanged memes and videos. He named the group “Murica great” after he joined in August, the report said.

White women were his targets as well, if they dated interracia­lly; he called them traitors, the report said. he in

At one point,i hhe askedkd theh group if it would be legal to wear body armor to school — and when a member asked why he wanted to know, he wrote, “School shooters.”

And there were more warning signs still. Neighbors in Parkland’s affluent Pine Tree Estates subdivisio­n have described him abusing animals.

He would sic his family’s dog on a neighbor’s piglets or shoot at their chickens with a B.B. or pellet gun, according to The Miami Herald.

Sometimes, residents recalled, he would throw eggs, rocks and coco- nuts at neighbors’ihb’ cars andd hhouses.

Broken furniture was often dragged for disposal to the home’s curb.

To neighbors’ relief, Lynda Cruz and her two sons moved out in late 2016, at around the time Nikolas would be expelled from the high school for disciplina­ry reasons.

Lynda Cruz died a year later from complicati­ons from the flu.

And three months later, Nikolas Cruz would be charged with 17 counts of premeditat­ed murder.

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