Nikolas Cruz trial, Day 2 highlights: Students describe slain classmates' final moments
FORT LAUDERDALE — Here is Tuesday's recap from the sentencing trial of Nikolas Cruz, who pleaded guilty last year to killing 17 people and wounding 17 others at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland on Feb. 14, 2018.
A 12-person jury will decide whether to recommend that Cruz, then 19 and now 23, is put to death or sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole. If it recommends death, Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer will make the final ruling, likely sometime this fall.
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Nine Stoneman Douglas students, many of them injured in the shooting, described seeing their classmates die around them.
Some were so startled by the attack that they remained in their seats as Cruz fired into their classroom windows. Others fled into corners of the room, grabbing textbooks and desks to shield themselves.
Then-freshman William Olson was among those who remained in his seat, stunned and unsure of what was happening. He said he looked over at Alex Schacter, whose body hung limp and bleeding over his desk. It wasn't until Olson sunk to the ground that he realized he was covered in blood, too. Cruz had shot him in the arm.
Sam Fuentes testified that her classmates fled in two directions when Cruz started to shoot, leaving her standing somewhere in the middle.
"That's when I realized I messed up," she said.
Fuentes crawled across the floor to join one group, which had barricaded itself with books and desks. She was shot above the knee, and shrapnel struck her just above her eye, blinding her momentarily.
Her vision cleared enough to see the bodies of her classmates, Helena Ramsay and Nicholas Dworet, who died beside her.
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Christopher McKenna, who was a freshman at the time of the shooting, stood behind the witness stand and pointed directly at Cruz.
Lead prosecutor Mike Satz had just asked McKenna to identify the man he encountered in the stairwell of the freshman building moments before the shooting. It was Cruz, McKenna said, and he'd offered the freshman a warning there.
“Get out of here," McKenna said Cruz told him. "Things are about to get bad.”
Jurors watched surveillance-camera video of Cruz's movement throughout the building, the footage too graphic to be shown to the rest of the courtroom. The family of the victims appeared to watch the jurors' faces closely as their children's final moments played out on the screens in front of them.
What's ahead for Cruz trial
Court will resume at 9 a.m. Wednesday. in the sentencing trial for Cruz, who lived with a family friend near Lantana in the weeks before the Parkland shootings.
Jurors have yet to hear from the defense, which has opted to wait for prosecutors to finish presenting their case before it begins its own. The prosecution's case is expected to take several weeks to present.
Hannah Phillips is a journalist covering public safety and criminal justice at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at hphillips@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Nikolas Cruz trial: Memories of shooting haunt Parkland survivors
