Police calls recall stream of turmoil at Cruz’s home

Shooter was handcuffed after fight over Xbox

At the age of 14, Nikolas Cruz ended up handcuffed in the back of a police car after calling his mother a “useless bitch” and throwing things at her for taking away his Xbox.

The video game incident was one of several involving the future Parkland school shooter that were included in a release Thursday of Broward Sheriff ’s Office records of calls to police from three houses where Cruz lived over the past eight years.

The calls to the Sheriff ’s Office have been at issue in the case because the agency is one of several accused of missing clues and warnings that could have allowed it to intervene before Cruz’s Feb. 14 attack that left 17 people dead at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Also accused of missing warnings are the FBI and the Florida

Department of Children & Families.

The calls were to two houses in Parkland where he lived with his mother and his brother Zachary and to the Parkland home of a family that took him in after the death of his mother last November.

Most of the 74 incidents linked to Cruz’s addresses didn’t involve him. Some concerned traffic stops on the block and other irrelevant incidents. Many involved his brother Zachary, who was constantly sneaking out of the house and getting into fights with his mother, and several involved both Nikolas and Zachary, who would get into screaming arguments with their mother, according to the reports.

The Xbox incident took place on Jan. 15, 2015, after Cruz refused to go to school because he was “having difficulty learning the material being taught,” according to a BSO report. Although his mother, Lynda Cruz, allowed him to stay home, she hid his Xbox in her car.

“Nikolas retaliated and threw a chair, dog bowl and a drinking glass across the room and called Lynda ‘a useless bitch’ along with other swearing and yelling at her, which Lynda wished to not repeat,” the report stated.

After persuading Nikolas to open the door to his room, which he had barricaded with two nightstands, a deputy placed him in handcuffs and put him in the back of his car. Asked by the deputy why he was acting that way, Cruz replied, “I am mad at my mom.” He made no threats and was apologetic, the deputy said.

At the time, Cruz was seeing a therapist at Henderson Behavioral Health. His counselor came to the house and Cruz was given medication that had been prescribed. He calmed down and was released. His therapist said he appeared to be under control and did not need to be taken into custody under the civil commitment law called the Baker Act.

In another incident when he was 18, a deputy was called after an investigator with the Florida Department of Children & Families learned of disturbing behavior by Cruz. He had been arguing with his mother over the paperwork to get a state identity card.

“He has been cutting his arms, his mother said, to get attention, as he learned it from an ex-girlfriend,” the report said. “He has mentioned in the past that he would like to purchase a firearm.”

Again, a Henderson therapist was on the scene who “deemed Nikolas to be no threat to anyone or himself at this present time,” according to the report.

A few days after the shooting at Stoneman Douglas, when Cruz’s contacts with Henderson had come to light, Henderson CEO Steve Ronik issued a statement that there was no indication in the September 2016 investigation that Cruz should have been hospitalized.

“Involuntary hospitalization can only occur if an individual is evaluated to be an imminent threat to themselves or others, at the time of the assessment,” Ronik said. “It is an evaluation at a specific point in time, and not a predictor of what someone may do more than a year later.”

Omitted from the reports released Thursday by the Sheriff’s Office were reports from a call made on Nov. 30, 2017, when a caller from Massachusetts told the Broward Sheriff ’s Office that Cruz was collecting guns and knives and “could be a school shooter in the making.”

The Sheriff’s Office said the report was omitted “due to the ongoing Internal Affairs investigation.”