'I feel betrayed by our justice system' - relatives of Parkland shooting victims speak at sentencing

Record ID: 1696005

  • Title: 'I feel betrayed by our justice system' - relatives of Parkland shooting victims speak at sentencing
  • Date: 1st November 2022
  • Summary: FORT LAUDERDALE, FLORIDA, UNITED STATES (NOVEMBER 1, 2022) (REUTERS) (MUTE) GUARDS ESCORTING FLORIDA SCHOOL GUNMAN NIKOLAS CRUZ (IN RED JUMPSUIT) TO HIS SEAT IN COURT CRUZ, LEFT, AND HIS LEGAL TEAM SITTING IN COURT FORT LAUDERDALE, FLORIDA, UNITED STATES (NOVEMBER 1, 2022) (REUTERS) WIDE OF COURT / MEGHAN KELLY, OLDER SISTER OF PARKLAND SHOOTING VICTIM ALAINA KELLY, APPROA
  • Embargoed: 15th November 2022 18:58
  • Keywords: Florida Nikolas Cruz Parkland death penalty life in prison parole school shooting sentencing
  • Location: FORT LAUDERDALE, FLORIDA, UNITED STATES
  • City: FORT LAUDERDALE, FLORIDA, UNITED STATES
  • Country: US
  • Topics: Crime/Law/Justice,Judicial Process/Court Cases/Court Decisions,United States
  • Reuters ID: LVA001616001112022RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text:Grieving relatives of the 17 students and teachers killed in a 2018 high school shooting in Parkland, Florida, confronted the killer, Nikolas Cruz, with tearful, angry words as his sentencing hearing began on Tuesday (November 1).
    "I wish no peace for you," Inez Hixon, daughter-in-law of shooting victim Christopher Hixon, said in emotional testimony. "I wish nothing but pain. And I hope that every breath you take you remember that's a breath that you stole.
    At the conclusion of the hearing on Wednesday (November 2), Broward County Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer is due to sentence Cruz, 24, to life in prison without possibility of parole, a sentence decided by a jury. The jury voted to spare Cruz from the death penalty for one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history, a decision several survivors' relatives decried in court as injustice.
    “I feel betrayed by our justice system,” said Meghan Kelly, whose younger sister Alaina Kelly, died in the attack. “This entire ordeal has pushed me to my emotional, physical, and mental limits and will continue to do so for the rest of my life, even more so now that he (Cruz) has escaped being managed to the fullest extent of the law, as I believe he should have been, knowing he gets to live out the rest of his natural life, something Alaina doesn't get to do.”
    Cruz pleaded guilty last year to premeditated murder. He listened to the victim impact statements at a table in the courtroom, wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, large spectacles and a COVID-19 mask.
    Many family members who sat through the three-month penalty trial said they were dismayed by the jury's decision to recommend life in prison without possibility of parole instead of the death penalty for Cruz. Florida law requires that Scherer must follow the jury's recommendation in formally sentencing Cruz.
    Cruz was 19 at the time of his attack and had been expelled from the school. Some of the survivors went on to organize a youth-led movement for tighter gun regulations in the United States, which has the highest rate of private gun ownership in the world and where mass shootings have become recurrent.
    (Production: Maria Alejandra Cardona, Christine Kiernan)
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2022. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
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