Student files first lawsuit in Parkland shooting

A survivor of Nikolas Cruz’s murderous rampage through Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School became the first victim to file a lawsuit in the case.

Anthony Borges, the hero teenager who took five bullets while blocking a doorway during the shooting spree, is suing Cruz for assault and battery. Alex Arreaza, the Borges family’s attorney, filed the suit electronically in Broward Circuit Court on Tuesday morning.

The defendants are Cruz, 19, the estate of Cruz’s late mother, Lynda, and James and Kimberly Snead, the Parkland couple who allowed Cruz to stay in their home from late November until Feb. 14, the day of the shooting.

Also named as defendants are Henderson Behavioral Health, the Jerome Golden Center for Behavioral Health and the South County Mental Health Center, three facilities cited in the suit as treating Cruz for various mental health conditions.

Officials at the Jerome Golden Center said they had no connection to the Parkland shooter.

“Nikolas Cruz was never a client of the Jerome Golden Center for Behavioral Health, nor did we ever have any contact with him,” said Donna Harris, the facility’s director of psychotherapeutic services.

Arreaza said he will remove the center from the lawsuit if it can be shown that Cruz was never a patient there.

The lawsuit charges Cruz with assault and battery, while the remaining parties are charged with negligence.

Lynda Cruz died of pneumonia on Nov. 1, leaving Nikolas and his brother, Zachary, without parents — their father died in 2004. Zachary Cruz moved in with Rocxanne Deschamps, a family friend in Lantana. Nikolas Cruz stayed

with her until the Sneads offered to take him in.

After the shooting, James Snead said he had made Cruz buy a locking gun safe to put in his room. At the time, Snead said he thought he had the only key, but later concluded Cruz must have kept a copy for himself.

“It’s unfortunate that the Sneads are being dragged into this,” said their attorney, Jim Lewis. “The next time somebody in our community thinks about taking in a troubled kid, they’re going to look at a lawsuit like this and think again. This will have a chilling effect on people who out of the goodness of their heart would try to take in someone in need to help them.”

Messages left at the other two mental health treatment centers were not returned Tuesday afternoon.

It is not clear whether Cruz has much in the way of assets to offer the victims of the Parkland school shooting, which left 17 dead and 17 injured. Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer is still weighing whether Cruz has enough money to pay for a private lawyer.

At a recent hearing, Cruz’s assets were listed at less than $26,000, with lingering questions about how much his late mother’s estate is worth.

Borges, who survived the shooting, is one of a handful of victims to indicate an intent to sue the Broward School Board and the Broward Sheriff ’s Office for failing to protect the students of Stoneman Douglas. Arreaza has said he intends to focus that lawsuit on a school discipline agreement that he says codified a reluctance to turn problem students over to the criminal justice system.

State agencies are entitled to six months’ notice before lawsuits are filed, so the first litigation naming the school district, the sheriff’s office and the Department of Children and Families as defendants are still months away.

Borges and fellow survivor Kyle Laman were the first to file notices of intent to sue those agencies. They were followed by survivors Elizabeth Stout and Fernanda Gadea and by the family of murdered victim Helena Ramsay.

The Ramsay family lawyer, Craig Goldenfarb, said he expects to wait until the six-month waiting period is over before filing a single lawsuit naming all defendants.

But Cruz, his mother’s estate and the Snead family are not entitled to such notice, so Arreaza decided to file the Borges lawsuit Tuesday.