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Nikolas Cruz had two mothers: his birth mom, who gave him life, an almond-shaped head and auburn hair — and his adoptive mom, who gave him all the advantages of an upscale, suburban upbringing. His birth mother, Brenda Woodard, was sometimes homeless, and panhandled for money on a highway exit ramp. His adoptive mother, Lynda Cruz, stayed home to manage a 4,500-square-foot, five-bedroom house in the suburbs, with a two-car garage and a sprawling yard. A career criminal, Woodard’s 28 arrests include a 2010 charge for beating a companion with a tire iron; she also threatened to burn the friend’s...

The suspect in the Parkland shooting told police he heard voices in his head telling him to hurt others and himself ahead of the deadly mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, according to a transcript of his interview with a detective. Nineteen-year old Nikolas Cruz told Broward Sheriff’s Office Detective John Curcio shortly after the shooting that he had been hearing a voice in his head since the death of his father and that it had gotten worse after the death of his mother.Cruz described the voice as “the demon” and told the detective that the voice urged...

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A newly released transcript shows Florida school shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz spat out “kill me” and then cursed as he sat alone in a sheriff’s interrogation room just hours after the massacre that left 17 dead. Broward sheriff’s Detective John Curcio had just left Cruz alone to get him some water when the 19-year-old suspect made that exclamation.

It’s been six months since XXX XXX, a highly disturbed individual, shot and killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. It sparked another round in the gin control wars—and another round that saw liberal gain ground thanks to pro-NRA governors caving to anti-gun mobs; Governors Rick Scott and Phil Scott of Florida and Vermont respectively enacted new gun laws, specifically raising the age to purchase to 21, which is grossly unconstitutional. The NRA is challenging that provision of Florida’s law right now. Yet, that’s the tragedy of this incident. Liberals were quick to blame the...

School officials “did not follow through” when Nikolas Cruz asked for special assistance months before the massacre, a new report finds. While more than half of the report was redacted, the blacked-out sections of the document could still easily be read by copying and pasting into a separate document, a trick used by The Sun-Sentinel to release the unredacted report on Friday. In Cruz’s junior year, after he had already begun exhibiting behavior so disturbing it led to guidance counselors wanting to have him committed,

An unarmed security monitor in a golf cart was the first person to see Nikolas Cruz step out of an Uber, a large bag in hand, and stride toward Building 12 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High just before the worst school shooting in state history. Cruz, however, was no stranger to staff. "Nikolas Cruz. I knew the kid," security guard Andrew Medina told Broward detectives in a sworn video-recorded statement released by prosecutors on Tuesday evening. As soon as Cruz began walking "like on a mission" toward the building, Medina followed and began frantically texting fellow security guards. "We had...

roward Schools have grown so tolerant of misbehavior that students like Nikolas Cruz are able to slide by for years without strict punishment for conduct that could be criminal. The culture of leniency allows children to engage in an endless loop of violations and second chances, creating a system where kids who commit the same offense for the 10th time may be treated like it’s the first, according to records and interviews with people familiar with the process.

The he Broward school district’s repeated, emphatic — and it turns out, false — statements that Nikolas Cruz had not been in a controversial disciplinary program fit a pattern of an institution on the defensive and under siege. Facing significant legal and political exposure over the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the district has tried to keep information from the public and put out untrue and misleading statements, frustrating parents who say this is the time for maximum transparency.

Broward County schools, after over two months of claiming the opposite, admitted on Sunday that confessed Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz had been referred to the PROMISE Program. The PROMISE Program, an alternative discipline program designed to limit on-campus arrests, has been widely reported as ineffective and corrupt. It has come under intense scrutiny in the weeks since the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, but until Sunday, school officials were still denying that Cruz ever had any connection to that program.

Sheriff admits Nikolas Cruz was in program that enabled classroom-to-casket pipeline. Florida’s Broward County School District revealed Sunday that Nikolas Cruz, who on February 14 gunned down 17 students and wounded 17 others, was part of the PROMISE program, “Preventing Recidivism through Opportunities, Mentoring, Intervention, Support, and Education.” The “Obama-era program” replaced a zero-tolerance policy with leniency toward student crime.  As district official Tracy Clark told reporters Sunday, Nikolas Cruz was referred to PROMISE in 2013 after he vandalized a bathroom at Westglades Middle School. The district had previously denied that Cruz was part of the program and called such reports...

Since the Parkland school shootings, police in Broward County have seized guns from private citizens more often than any county in Florida. As of Thursday, police had obtained 34 court orders under a new law that allows guns to be taken from people considered at risk of harming themselves or others.

The alleged gunman in the Valentine's Day massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida wants to give any inheritance due him from his late mother's estate to the victims' families or an organization that will help the community heal, his attorneys said Wednesday. Nikolas Cruz, 19, appeared at a hearing in Broward County Circuit Court in Fort Lauderdale to determine whether he is truly indigent or if he stands to collect up to $800,000 from his late mother's estate and various other financial accounts in his name. It was previously determined that Cruz could not afford his own...

Nikolas Cruz has been receiving fan mail and love letters from all over the country since he killed 17 people at his former high school in Parkland last month. The South Florida Sun Sentinel has obtained copies of some of the letters addressed to the gunman, which show just how much admiration and devotion he has inspired in men, women, and particularly in young girls. Broward County Public Defender Howard Finkelstein told the local paper there's 'piles of letters' for Cruz, 19, and he worries that 'every day boys and girls are starting to view him in an elevated way,...

Mass murderer Nikolas Cruz is getting stacks of fan mail and love letters sent to the Broward County jail, along with hundreds of dollars in contributions to his commissary account. Teenage girls, women and even older men are writing to the Parkland school shooter and sending photographs — some suggestive — tucked inside cute greeting cards and attached to notebook paper with offers of friendship and encouragement. Groupies also are joining Facebook communities to talk about how to help the killer. The South Florida Sun Sentinel obtained copies of some of the letters showing that Cruz, who had few friends...

PARKLAND, Fla. — My first interaction with Nikolas Cruz happened when I was in seventh grade. I was eating lunch with my friends, most likely discussing One Direction or Ed Sheeran, when I felt a sudden pain in my lower back. The force of the blow knocked the wind out of my 90-pound body; tears stung my eyes. I turned around and saw him, smirking. I had never seen this boy before, but I would never forget his face. His eyes were lit up with a sick, twisted joy as he watched me cry. The apple that he had thrown...

Two students who survived last month’s high school shooting in Parkland, Fla., said Monday that the leadership of the National Rifle Association (NRA) has “basically threatened” them since they started speaking out about gun violence. “I think it just goes to prove exactly what they are. I don’t think NRA members are bad people at all. I think they’re responsible gun owners that want to become politically active and make their voices heard in this democracy,” David Hogg told CBS News.

By now, it is clear that many officials either willfully ignored or missed warning signs that the mass murderer who killed 17 innocent Americans in last month's shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida needed severe mental help. But, until today, it was never clear that anybody who had recommended Nikolas Cruz for involuntary institutionalization. The Associated Press now reports that school officials and a sheriff's deputy recommended that Cruz should be "forcibly committed." "From the Associated Press: ...documents in the criminal case against Nikolas Cruz and obtained by The Associated Press show school officials and a...

Stoneman Douglas HS student activist David Hogg has a new video out to promote the March 24 “March For Our Lives” in Washington, D.C. and he asks right up front, “What if our politicians weren’t the bitch of the NRA?” How adorable of him:

Full title: Judicial Watch: Broward County Sheriff’s Office Training Materials Say First One or Two Officers on Scene should ‘Confront the Shooter’ ‘Remember, every time you hear a gunshot in an active shooter incident; you have to believe that is another victim being killed.’ Four Officers on Scene at February 14 Parkland Shooting Did Not Enter School Building (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today released Broward County Sheriff’s Office training and operation materials that specifically dictate that the first one or two officers on the scene of an active shooter incident “will immediately go to confront the shooter.” The Broward...

On CBS's "60 Minutes" Sunday night, Lesley Stahl asked Education Secretary Betsy DeVos about the "institutional racism" in school discipline. It was like neither of them had ever heard of Nikolas Cruz. The Parkland, Florida, school shooter is our most recent case study of what happens when liberals start babbling about "institutional racism." There's never been such an incredible paper trail as there is with Cruz, leading straight from idiotic liberal ideas directly to mass murder. We know that Broward County Public Schools knew about Cruz's felonies. We know that his behavior wasn't reported because it would negatively impact the...