Posted on 03/14/2018 11:34:51 AM PDT by Beautiful_Gracious_Skies
A judge entered a plea of not guilty on Nikolas Cruz's behalf as the teen was arraigned Wednesday in last month's massacre at a South Florida high school -- on the same day students across the country walked out of class to demand stricter gun laws because of the killings.
A Broward County grand jury last week indicted the 19-year-old gunman on 17 counts of premeditated murder in the first degree and 17 counts of attempted murder in the first degree. Wednesday's plea in a Fort Lauderdale court came after Cruz's defense attorney told the judge that the teen was standing mute to the charges -- meaning he was declining to enter a plea.
Cruz, wearing a red jail jumpsuit, largely kept his head down as he sat in a jury box with three law enforcement officers standing behind him. Cruz killed 17 people -- both students and school staff -- at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland on February 14, in one of the deadliest mass shootings in modern US history.
He confessed to being the gunman, according to a probable cause affidavit released shortly after his arrest. Prosecutors to seek death penalty Prosecutors announced in court filings Tuesday that they will seek the death penalty.
They listed several factors, including that Cruz knowingly created a risk of death for many people and that the shooting was "especially heinous, atrocious or cruel."Read the notice of intent for yourself. The head of the county's public defender's office, which is representing Cruz, said last month that there is no question Cruz is guilty, and that he was willing to plead guilty to avoid the death penalty.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
People see what they expect to see. That is often very different from what is really there, especially during extreme and novel stresses. Multiple eye-witnesses with contradictory and irreconcilable testimony are commonplace in lethal incidents.
I expect that security videos from the school will leave no doubt as to how many shooters were present and their identity.
Did they ever find the Uber driver?
You are also getting the eyewitness testimony second hand through a media filter which is even worse.
Did they ever find the Uber driver?
...
I don’t have anything specific, but everything they do is documented electronically, so I don’t see why not.
Maybe, but it also depends on the level of physical evidence obtained when they processed him after arrest as well as from the school. Did they find abandoned facemask and clothes and whose DNA is on it? Whose prints are on the rifle.
This school has security cameras everywhere, so if there are multiple shooters, they would have announced that and been looking for them also.
It’s easy to impeach an eyewitness as mistaken, but it is much harder to impeach physical evidence and video.
Full gear (with long gun and ammo BTW)! It takes how long to put on "full gear" by a professional? WTF were police and school "security" doing?
20 minute gap in video as well. Some audio missing.
Why do you then believe the eye witness who id’d him as the shooter? As a matter of fact, who was the witness that pointed a finger at him?
All the articles I have seen mention a 20 minute delay, not a gap. Where are you getting your information from?
Delay is what I was referring to. Poor choice of words.
I do consider all of the accounts literally and compare the patterns that emerge. The School administrators and Broward County Sheriff department officers look pretty bad. They continue making excuses and diversions to cover up their conduct. It seems to be working too.
There are video recordings of the entire incident which will confirm or refute various eye-witness statements.
There is also the objective behavior of the authorities to consider. The key checkpoint is whether they will release video files, autopsy reports, and other forensic evidence to confirm the official narrative. My guess is that they will not.
I would tentatively conclude that Cruze was the only shooter and planned the murders with considerable deliberation, including escape procedures.
If we had a sane judicial system, he would be tried, convicted, and executed this year.
It is possible that he had a handler who encouraged or assisted him. But, so far, no such evidence has appeared. A background culture of Leftist social media sites can provide more than enough encouragement and information for a psychopath to proceed. Nefarious "Deep State Operatives" are completely unnecessary.
The Broward County Sheriff department appears to have aided and abetted this atrocity by gross negligence, stupidity and malicious intent. A large number of firings would be appropriate and the persons dismissed should never work in law enforcement again.
When they went looking for the shooter, they were using the video surveillance and multiple eyewitness reports of exactly who the shooter was and what he was wearing. The police officer spotted him on the basis of that description.
That sums it up fairly well. Everyone should be very pleased that the prosecution did not trade a guilty plea in exchange for a trial.
He needs to be tried and put to death.
The evidence before he committed mass murder as well as the crime itself needs to be made public.
All who contributed and enabled him need to be exposed.
>>Why the F*K would the judge do that? The POS already confessed.<<
Insanity plea. This is part of the reason why I have stated here and elsewhere that in any truly civilized society this mass murderer would have been hanged within 10 days of his crime.
>> Perp was 20 feet away from her so unlikely she was mistaken.<<
Unlikely she was mistaken about what? Have other survivors corroborated her statement?
>>Then is it within the realm of possibility that they apprehended the wrong person?<<
Utter nonsense.
Definitely the right person if he actually floated thru his lawyer a plea deal as reported to take out the death penalty and plead guilty.
>>It would deprive high-powered attorneys the opportunity of getting the little snowflake acquitted, thereby making their careers (see Clarence Darrow, F. Lee Bailey, Johnny Cochran, etc).
Judges know where their bread is buttered<<
BINGO! You have it precisely right. Kabuki theater solely for the purpose of lining the pockets of lawyers, judges, and other scammers in the process. In a truly civilized society the perp would have already had his day in court and been summarily hanged.
>>That means he’ll be executed at between 33-38 years old.<<
In any civilized society he would have already been hanged.
One survivor corroborates the mask. Another teacher.
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