Nikolas Cruz sentencing trial: Principal regrets not warning Stoneman Douglas about gunman

FORT LAUDERDALE — Testimony in the death penalty phase of the Nikolas Cruz trial resumed Thursday morning in Fort Lauderdale.

This week, the defense team for the Parkland school shooting gunman continues to call witnesses in its effort to win Cruz a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

The team of Broward County public defenders called two witnesses to the stand Thursday, both of them educators who dealt with Cruz in middle school.

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Cruz pleaded guilty in 2021 to killing 17 people and wounding 17 others at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

The 12-person jury will recommend whether Cruz, then 19 and now 23, is put to death or sentenced to life in prison. If it recommends death, a move that must be unanimous, Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer will make the final ruling, likely sometime this fall.

The Palm Beach Post is covering the daily proceedings live.

Near the end of 8th grade, Cruz had cumulative 0.416 GPA

By the end of the first quarter of his eighth grade year at Westglades Middle School, Nikolas Cruz had a cumulative 0.416 grade point average. In that first quarter of eighth grade, Cruz piled up 24 disciplinary referrals and 15 in-school suspensions.

During one in-school suspension, Cruz went into a bathroom and broke a water faucet.

John Vesey, the former principal at Westglades, testified that Cruz's "emotional needs were too extreme" to be successful in a mainstream school. Teachers were scared of him, Vesey said, and there was concern for the safety of other students.

"Teachers don't sign up for this," he said.

Cruz transferred to Cross Creek, a therapeutic day school in Pompano Beach that teaches about 150 students with special needs.

Despite Cruz's history at Westglades, he was allowed to enroll at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School after a short stint at Cross Creek.

Vesey, who worked in the school system for 35 years, said Cruz shouldn't have been permitted back at a mainstream school but did not relay that information to Stoneman Douglas administrators, whom he knew well.

"I feel very guilty about it," Vesey said from the witness stand.

Thursday's proceedings became tense several times. At one point, the defense accused Assistant State Attorney Jeff Marcus of witness tampering, saying the prosecutor spoke to Vesey and his lawyer by phone to inquire about Vesey's testimony.

8th-grade teacher warned Cruz was 'danger' to students, faculty

A little more than four years before Nikolas Cruz walked into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and killed 17 people, his eighth-grade language arts teacher wrote she "strongly" believed that "Nikolas is a danger to the students and faculty of the school."

Carrie Yon, a language arts teacher at Westglades Middle School, said her first impression of Cruz made her "very uncomfortable" and caused her to "put him on my radar" and keep detailed notes of his behavior.

On Thursday Yon recounted repeated incidents in which Cruz acted violently or inappropriately in the classroom, including cursing, simulating masturbation and drawing "creepy sexual pictures."

Yon, who appeared in the courtroom by Zoom, said that Cruz was obsessed with guns and wrote in her notes that he "doesn't understand the difference between violent video games and reality."

Did his behavior scare you, defense attorney Tamara Curtis asked Yon.

"At times, yes," she responded. "It didn't feel safe for anyone."

Copies of school work were shown to the jury. Much of it was barely legible, but included curse words, racial epithets, swastika symbols and stick figures shooting other stick figures in their faces.

Cruz "will find any excuse to bring up shooting or violence," Yon noted in 2013.

When Yon once remarked to Cruz that he was a "good kid," he answered by saying "I'm a bad kid. I want to kill."

After one incident in 2013, Yon attempted to call school security from her room, but Cruz took the phone out of her hand, wouldn't let her call and then ran out of the classroom.

Yon advised in 2013 that Cruz be transferred to another school with "smaller classrooms and locked doors.

Yon is expected to be cross-examined by prosecutors later this afternoon.

Jorge Milian is a journalist covering Boynton Beach and Lake Worth Beach at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at jmilian@pbpost.com and follow him on Twitter at Caneswatch. Help support our work, subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Nikolas Cruz sentencing trial: Gunman's behavior scared 8th grade teacher