Cruz jurors can visit bullet-riddled site at Marjory Stoneman Douglas, judge rules
Jurors will be allowed to tour the shuttered, bulletriddled freshman building at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High where Nikolas Cruz fatally killed 17 people and wounded 17 more.
The decision from Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer means the jury in Cruz’s death-penalty case, which started on Monday, will eventually tour a crime scene where blood stains and bullet holes remain more than four years later.
The building has been locked but kept largely intact since the massacre on Valentine’s Day of 2018. The jury visit will clear the way for the
1200 building — a horrible reminder of Florida’s deadliest school shooting — to be demolished by the school district.
Testimony in the trial is set to begin on May 31, with jury selection expected to last nearly two senior director for the Western Hemisphere,
Juan González, whom he accused of pursuing engagement with socialist regimes.
“They’re sympathizers of opening relations with Cuba, Venezuela, and if they’re allowed, with Nicaragua, too,” Rubio said. “And this doesn’t end with Venezuela. They are focused now on Colombia. Their dream is that Colombia changes now, too. That Colombia also switches.”
This week, Democrats slammed Rubio over his opposition to a path to citizenship for Venezuelans in the U.S., who were granted Temporary Protected Status by President Biden last year. During a call on Thursday, some leaders of the Venezuelan community said they resented Rubio’s rhetoric on Venezuela because he hasn’t openly supported immigration reform. Earlier this week, Rubio signed a letter with U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, urging Biden to extend TPS benefits for Venezuelans, which include permission to live and work in the U.S. without the threat of deportation.
“We are not buying it, we are not going to be props again in his political game,” said Ade Ferro, executive director of the Venezuelan American Caucus, a Florida-based political group that advocates for Venezuelans to become more involved in the civic process.
William Diaz, founder of Casa de Venezuela in Orlando and a former supporter of Sen. Rick Scott, said he was disillusioned by Rubio when it came to causes that would help his community.
“I would like to ask Mr. Rubio why he did not support HR6,” said Diaz, referring to the American
Dream and Promise Act of 2021, which has stalled in the Senate. “We’re not going to keep playing the game that he’s been playing with the Cuban community in South Florida . ... The same things we are asking for people is the same things that your family benefited from.”
Asked about the criticism, Rubio dismissed it as bad-faith partisan attacks.
“These are Democrat groups that are more Democrats than they are Venezuelan, that have been Democrats before and they will continue being Democrats after ... and they want to turn the topic of Venezuela into an immigration issue,” he said.
He said that while he supports TPS for Venezuelans, he did not want to incentivize illegal migration by extending eligibility to Venezuelans who have arrived after the March 8, 2021, cutoff date. Asked if he would support an immigration months. The lengthy process began Monday.
Scherer, in a ruling signed Thursday, agreed that prosecutors “would assist the jury” in analyzing whether the state has proved the “aggravating” factors that merit the death penalty.
Among those factors: that Cruz acted in such a way that was “heinous, atrocious and cruel” and he “knowingly created a great risk of death to many persons.”
“There is no one video, photograph, poster, film, reform bill like the one filed by U.S. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, the DIGNITY Act, Rubio said he hasn’t read it.
“I think everything is possible, especially if — God forbid — Venezuela anything, that captures what the ... building is,” Broward prosecutor Carolyn McCann told the judge last week. “The jury has to know the footsteps, the distance, the perspective, the visual acuity the defendant had to have.”
The Broward Public Defender’s Office, however, insisted that the site visit — rare in criminal trials, but legally permissible — would only inflame the jury’s emotions unnecessarily. The jurors “don’t need to see all of those horrible things,” defense lawyer Melisa McNeill told the judge.
David Ovalle: 305-376-3379, @davidovalle305 becomes what Cuba has been for more than 60 years,” he said.
Bianca Padró Ocasio: 305-376-2649, @BiancaJoanie