Posted on 02/18/2018 1:40:43 PM PST by billorites
Nikolas Cruz was immature, quirky and depressed when James and Kimberly Snead took him into their Parkland home. But he was pleasant and seemed to be growing happier, they said.
How the 19-year-old turned into a killer still baffles them.
“We had this monster living under our roof and we didn’t know,” Kimberly Snead told the South Florida Sun Sentinel in an exclusive interview Saturday. “We didn’t see this side of him.”
“Everything everybody seems to know, we didn’t know,” James Snead said. “It’s as simple as that.”
Cruz still lived with the Sneads on Wednesday when he walked into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School with an AR-15 rifle and killed 17 people — the worst school shooting since Sandy Hook.
Kimberly and James Snead took Nikolas Cruz into their home and let him live there for three months before the Parkland school shooting. (Staff Photographer Susan Stocker)
The Sneads’ son had asked whether his friend could move into their home last Thanksgiving. Cruz’s mother, who had adopted him, died of pneumonia Nov. 1, leaving him without parents. He stayed briefly with a family friend in the Lantana area but wanted to move on.
The Sneads quickly agreed — though they realized he was extremely depressed about his mother’s death. Prayer vigils to honor those killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School
Vigils in around South Florida mourn the 17 killed in the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland on February 14, 2018 (Mike Stocker)
Five days before the shooting, Kimberly Snead took Cruz to the office of a therapist she has been seeing. Cruz said he was open to therapy but didn’t like medication. He took a business card and was figuring out what his health insurance would cover.
(Excerpt) Read more at sun-sentinel.com ...
In dealing with juveniles...which Cruz was prior til 18...authorities always look for ‘other options’ besides jail to address their problems and prevent prison records.
Obviously this was done for years with Cruz.....and I will add there are many out there like him today. So until our laws ‘protecting’ bad behavior and criminals changes these events will continue to happen.
He had been caught smuggling in bullets and was no longer allowed to bring a backpack
The police were not called to the Snead residence but to Cruz’ former residence where he lived when his mom was still alive.
That was last year. I thought you were talking about the shooting.
Communication is the key. Discipline is the key.
What kind of communication and discipline was ongoing with these parents and their son?
All I have is the Wikipedia description of Brevik and I believe there were “problems” that were ignored by the authorities. But in that department Cruz has Brevik beat!
Well from what I understand, he was kicked out because of smuggling ammo into school.
I think Trump has this called, that the FBI was too distracted with Russia.
The couple knew he was autistic and troubled by the previous family friend and they let him bring a rifle and store it in there gun safe.
They gave a austistic kid a key to a rifle safe.
Not smart.
They are getting ready for lawsuits .
The shooter is fully to blame for putting bullets into these kids....he was a cold blooded killer when he planned this over a long period of time....and he was that the day he went to that 'chosen' school to kill those specific students attending there...and he remains that after carrying out his rampage of death and destruction.
Google translate will get you Norwegian accounts of this.
Of course
He was older than 15 past the legal age where you do not have to consent the treatment. Regardless, he should have been flagged as far as buying firearms. He should have been in the system.
My son suffer from Asperger’s and autism spectrum disorder. He often gets depressed and feels isolated. Fortunately he’s a very gentle soul and the nicest kid you would ever want to meet. He wouldn’t hurt a flea if it was biting them on the arm.
As I stated earlier, as soon as I saw that kids eyes, I knew exactly what was going on with this entire mess. Everybody totally failed that kid.
I don’t expect there to be a one-to-one match. Brevik was older, better educated and more methodical. We should be glad Cruz wasn’t Brevik or the death toll would have been much higher. One thing interesting about Brevik was that he followed all the existing gun laws in Norway and still put together a “kit” that included a ANFO/Fuel oil bomb. Be glad the similarities were only superficial!
Agree. He is a sociopath that gamed the system. But he’s also an autistic, OCD, ADD, depressed and possibly FAS individual. He should have been arrested at school at least four times and at home more than a dozen times. He planned Feb 14 for a long time.
June 2017- Writing underneath a documentary clip about the notorious 1966 University of Texas clock tower sniper, a commenter called Nikolas Cruz wrote: “I’m going to [do] what he did.”
2016-2017 Joins ROTC and acquires free marksmanship training
Sept 2017- “I’m going to be a professional school shooter.”
This was all before his mother abruptly passed away in November.
Cruz had made a plan to boost his fragile loser ego and was going to behave as necessary in order to carry out his diabolical plan. He craved the drama and stardom of carrying out a St. Valentine’s Day Massacre at school.
He was calculating and cool during the aftermath. We have to wonder what would have become of him if he could have driven away from the scene.
Reopen the insane asylums! Get these people off the streets.
Every single institution and environment failed him and failed to protect society from him and yet he was given access to firearms and it’s all Trumps fault. We live in bizzarro world.
So true. He was picked on and bullied, without enough support at home to steel himself against it. I knew that would be the case the minute I heard the story.
I think you really nailed it. He had big problems and everyone knew it. His problems were ignored and allowed to fester. Even if he hadn’t had violent tendencies that’s a pretty sad commentary.
I feel for this guy...
Trauma rejection from both birth parents by being put up for adoption.
Trauma rejection when adoptive father died.
Trauma rejection when adoptive mother died.
Trauma rejection when thrown out of school.
Trauma rejection apparently when girlfriend dumped him.
That’s a lot for a young person to deal with.
This young man was also a cutter or self mutilator. That is a strong indication that he is carrying deep seated guilt. I have often found in children and adults a reversal of the emotional subconscious reward/punishment system. These people are positively stimulated by criticism or punishment and negatively stimulated by praise.
The Florida young man is an excellent example. Children blame themselves for events in their lives even though it is not their fault. If the child blamed himself for being rejected by the birth mother when put up for adoption, the adoptive father dying and then the adoptive mother dying, the guilt internalized is extreme. Children view themselves as the center of their universe and the cause of events in their life, even when they are not the cause.(I find this frequently in young children when the parents get divorced. The children blame themselves for the parent’s divorce and act out to get punished to remove the self imposed guilt they are carrying.)
Thus Cruz felt he deserved punishment to get rid of the self imposed guilt. This is the reason for acting out while the mother was dying and the self mutilating behavior.
The shooting event was the extreme acting out to obtain the ultimate punishment.
If the child is not in an environment where they are punished, they will often do it internally through immune system suppression which in turn results in disease later in life.
I have found this reversal in 100% of the MS cases I have worked with.(It amazed me that often the extreme symptoms began when the person with MS was on their honeymoon with an excellent new spouse.) Only good people get MS as they beat themselves up internally.
All of the indications are that the young man who did the shooting in Florida was carrying extreme guilt, incorrectly blaming himself for the losses of the people he loved in his life. His extreme actions were the ultimate way for him to get the punishment he subconsciously felt he deserved.
I’m wondering if he was on drugs or withdrawing from drugs. One of the common threads that is overlooked in looking at these school massacres. Or mass shooting anywhere — mall, grocery store, gas stations, anywhere..........
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