Cruz quiet during routine hearing

PARKLAND, Fla. — The suspect in the Florida school shooting appeared in court Monday for a procedural hearing about how legal paperwork would be handled in the case.

Nikolas Cruz, 19, 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.

Mr. 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 the slightly built teen responded briefly to someone on the defense team.

It was a tense atmosphere — Mr. Cruz was surrounded by Broward Sheriff’s deputies as news media members and lawyers watched from the gallery.

The hearing concerned rules that will govern how documents are sealed. Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer said she was in favor of openness whenever possible.

Mr. Cruz is charged with killing 17 people and wounding many others in Wednesday’s attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, which he once attended. Police say Mr. Cruz admitted last week to the mass shooting.

His lawyers have said he will plead guilty if prosecutors agree not to pursue the death penalty. No decision has been made on that.

The court appearance came after the couple who took in the Florida school shooting suspect following the death of his mother said he told them he was sorry after the shooting.

Speaking Monday on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” James and Kimberly Snead said they’ve only seen Mr. Cruz once since the shooting that killed 17 when they briefly saw him at the police station.

Kimberly Snead said she yelled at him and “really wanted to strangle him more than anything.” The couple said Mr. Cruz — who was a friend of one of their sons — told them he was sorry.

The Sneads also said the person who’s been shown to the world since the shootings isn’t the person they knew when he lived with them. They said Mr. Cruz was very polite and followed all their rules, including keeping the AR-15 he allegedly used in the massacre locked in a gun safe with a few other firearms. (James Snead thought he had the only key to the cabinet but says Mr. Cruz must have had another key.)

The couple have been giving interviews since the weekend. They told the Sun-Sentinel newspaper they had no idea the extent of Mr. Cruz’s issues.

“We had this monster living under our roof, and we didn’t know,” Kimberly Snead told the newspaper in an interview published Sunday. “We didn’t see this side of him.”

James Snead added: “Everything everybody seems to know, we didn’t know. It’s as simple as that.”

After his arrest last week, Mr. Cruz made a first court appearance via closed-circuit television from a detention facility. He was held with no bond.