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  • Parkland shooter prosecutors call for probe of juror threat

    Parkland shooter prosecutors call for probe of juror threat

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    FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Prosecutors in the case of Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz are calling for an investigation after a juror said she felt threatened by another member of the jury during deliberations that ended Thursday with a life sentence for Cruz’s murder of 17 people.

    The motion calls for law enforcement to interview the unnamed juror after she told the state attorney’s office about what “she perceived to be a threat from a fellow juror while in the jury room.” No further details were given. A hearing is set for Friday afternoon.

    A divided jury spared Cruz the death penalty and instead decided to send him to prison for the rest of his life in a decision that left many families of the victims angered, baffled and in tears. Cruz, 24, pleaded guilty a year ago to murdering 14 students and three staff members, and wounding 17 others, at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018.

    Florida criminal defense attorneys Richard Escobar and David Weinstein, who are both former prosecutors, said that even if a threat was made, the jury’s decision will not be overturned because of double jeopardy, or trying the same defendant twice for the same crime.

    Weinstein pointed to a 1990s case involving two drug kingpins who bribed a jury and were acquitted. Even under that circumstance, prosecutors couldn’t retry the duo for drug trafficking, but did convict them on charges stemming from the bribery.

    Under Florida law, a death sentence requires a unanimous vote on at least one count. The 12-person jury unanimously agreed there were aggravating factors to warrant a possible death sentence, such as agreeing that the murders were “especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel.”

    But one or more jurors also found mitigating factors, such as untreated childhood problems. In the end, the jury could not agree that the aggravating factors outweighed the mitigating ones, so Cruz will get life without parole. Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer will formally issue the life sentences Nov. 1. Relatives, along with the students and teachers Cruz wounded, will be given the opportunity to speak.

    The jurors pledged during the selection process that they could vote for a death sentence, but some victims’ parents, some of whom attended the trial almost daily, wondered whether all of them were being honest.

    Juror Denise Cunha sent a short handwritten note to the judge Thursday defending her vote for a life sentence and denying she intended to vote that way before the trial began.

    “The deliberations were very tense and some jurors became extremely unhappy once I mentioned that I would vote for life,” Cunha wrote. She did not explain her vote and it is unknown if she is the juror who complained to the state attorney’s office.

    Jury foreman Benjamin Thomas told local reporters that three jurors voted for life on the final ballot. Two were willing to reconsider, but one was a “hard no” for the death penalty.

    “It really came down to a specific (juror) that he (Cruz) was mentally ill,” Thomas said. He did not say whether that person was Cunha.

    ———

    Izaguirre reported from Tallahassee, Florida.

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  • Jury reaches decision on sentence of Parkland school shooter

    Jury reaches decision on sentence of Parkland school shooter

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    FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A jury said Thursday that it has reached a decision on whether to recommend that Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz be executed for the 2018 massacre that killed 17 people at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

    The recommendation was not immediately released and came in the second day of deliberations, 15 minutes after jurors arrived and examined the gun Cruz used.

    The decision promises an end to a three-month trial that included graphic videos, photos and testimony from the massacre and its aftermath, heart-wrenching testimony from victims’ family members and a tour of the still blood-spattered building.

    The jury’s decision must be unanimous if it intends to recommend the death penalty, and if that happens, it will be up to Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer to make a final decision. If all jurors can’t agree on recommending death, then Cruz would get life in prison.

    The jury of 12 people had asked late Wednesday to see the AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle, but the Broward County Sheriff’s Office security team objected, even though the gun has been made inoperable and Cruz’s ammunition would be removed from the jury room.

    Lead prosecutor Mike Satz, who has more the five decades of experience, pointed out that in every murder case he has tried or knows, jurors got to examine and handle the weapon in their room — and he said a knife or machete is more dangerous than a gun without a firing pin. Security has never been an issue, he said.

    Cruz’s attorneys had no objection to jurors seeing the gun.

    Cruz, 24, pleaded guilty a year ago to murdering 14 students and three staff members and wounding 17 others on Feb. 14, 2018. Cruz said he chose Valentine’s Day to make it impossible for Stoneman Douglas students to celebrate the holiday ever again. The jury will determine only if Cruz is sentenced to death or life without parole. For Cruz to get a death sentence, the jury must be unanimous.

    During the prosecution’s rebuttal case, Satz and his team argued that Cruz’s smooth movements with the gun and his ease in reloading helps show he does not have any neurological disorders, as claimed by his attorneys.

    Lead defense attorney Melisa McNeill and her team have never disputed that Cruz committed a horrible crime, but they say his birth mother’s excessive drinking during pregnancy left him with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder and put him on a path that led to the shooting.

    The massacre is the deadliest mass shooting that has ever gone to trial in the U.S. Nine other people in the U.S. who fatally shot at least 17 people died during or immediately after their attacks by suicide or police gunfire. The suspect in the 2019 massacre of 23 at an E l Paso, Texas, Walmart is awaiting trial.

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  • Jury indicates verdict reached in Alex Jones’ trial

    Jury indicates verdict reached in Alex Jones’ trial

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    WATERBURY, Conn. — Jurors indicated Wednesday they have reached a verdict in conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Connecticut defamation trial.

    Their decision was expected to be announced shortly.

    Jones and his company were found liable for damages last year. The six-person jury is tasked with determining how much the Infowars show host should pay to 15 plaintiffs — including victims’ families and an FBI agent — for calling the 2012 massacre a hoax.

    The jury has been instructed to arrive at two compensatory damages amounts per plaintiff: one sum for defamation damages and another for emotional distress damages. Jurors also will decide whether Jones should pay punitive damages; the judge would decide the amounts later.

    Each compensatory damages amount has to be at least $1, but there is no cap. The plaintiffs’ lawyers have suggested total damages could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

    Jones has bashed the trial as a “kangaroo court,” described it as an affront to free speech rights, and called the judge a “tyrant.” His lawyer told the jury that any damages awarded should be minimal.

    THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

    WATERBURY, Conn. (AP) — Jurors revisited testimony from the husband of a Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victim as a third full day of deliberations began Wednesday in conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Connecticut defamation trial.

    At the jury’s request, court began with a replay of a roughly hourlong audio recording of William Sherlach’s trial testimony. His wife, school psychologist Mary Sherlach, was among the 26 people killed in the 2012 shooting.

    Her husband is among the lawsuit’s 15 plaintiffs, who include victims’ relatives and an FBI agent. All testified about being harassed by people who say the shooting was staged in a plot for more gun control.

    Jones and his company were found liable for damages last year. The six-person jury is tasked with determining how much the Infowars show host should pay to the plaintiffs victims’ families and the FBI agent for calling the massacre a hoax.

    William Sherlach, who goes by Bill, testified that he worried for his and his family’s safety because of the shooting deniers’ vitriol.

    Sherlach testified that he saw online posts falsely positing that the shooting was a hoax; that his wife never existed; that she didn’t have the credentials to be a school psychologist; that his family was actually named Goldberg and lived in Florida; and that he was part of a financial cabal and somehow involved with the school shooter’s father.

    Sherlach didn’t testify about receiving any harassing messages directly, though he also said that he didn’t have social media accounts or use email. Nor did he mention anything that Jones said specifically.

    The jury has been instructed to arrive at two compensatory damages amounts per plaintiff: one sum for defamation damages and another for emotional distress damages. Jurors also will decide whether Jones should pay punitive damages; the judge would decide the amounts later.

    Each compensatory damages amount has to be at least $1, but there is no cap. The plaintiffs’ lawyers have suggested total damages could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

    The plaintiffs include an FBI agent who responded to the shooting and relatives of eight victims who died. Twenty children and six educators were killed.

    Jones has bashed the trial as a “kangaroo court,” described it as an affront to free speech rights, and called the judge a “tyrant.” His lawyer told the jury that any damages awarded should be minimal.

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  • EXPLAINER: What next in the Florida school shooter trial?

    EXPLAINER: What next in the Florida school shooter trial?

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    FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The jurors who will decide whether Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz is sentenced to death or life without parole are expected to begin their deliberations Wednesday, concluding a three-month trial.

    Cruz, 24, pleaded guilty last year to the murders of 14 students and three staff members at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018. The trial has only been to determine his sentence.

    Cruz’s massacre is the deadliest mass shooting that has ever gone to trial in the U.S. Nine other people in the U.S. who fatally shot at least 17 people died during or immediately after their attacks by suicide or police gunfire. The suspect in the 2019 massacre of 23 at an El Paso, Texas, Walmart is awaiting trial.

    The jurors will be sequestered during their deliberations, which could take hours or days — no one knows. They have been told to pack for at least two nights.

    Here is a look at the case, how the seven-man, five-woman jury will come to their decision and what will happen after that.

    WHAT DID CRUZ DO?

    Cruz, by his own admission, began thinking about committing a school shooting while in middle school, about five years before he carried it out. He purchased his AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle almost exactly a year before the shooting and his planning became serious about seven months in advance. He researched previous mass shooters, saying he tried to learn from their experience. He bought ammunition, a vest to carry it and a bag to hide it. He picked Valentine’s Day to make sure it would never be celebrated at the school again.

    He took an Uber to the school, arriving about 20 minutes before dismissal. He went inside a three-story classroom building, shooting down the halls and into classrooms for about seven minutes. He returned to some wounded to kill them with a second volley. He then tried to shoot at fleeing students from a third-floor window, but the thick hurricane glass thwarted him. He put down his gun and fled, but was captured about an hour later.

    WHAT HAPPENED AT THE TRIAL?

    Lead prosecutor Mike Satz kept his case simple. He played security videos of the shooting and showed gruesome crime scene and autopsy photos. Teachers and students testified about watching others die. He took the jury to the fenced-off building, which remains blood-stained and bullet-pocked. Parents and spouses gave tearful and angry statements.

    Cruz’s lead attorney Melisa McNeill and her team never questioned the horror he inflicted, but focused on their belief that his birth mother’s heavy drinking during pregnancy left him with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. Their experts said his bizarre, troubling and sometimes violent behavior starting at age 2 was misdiagnosed as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, meaning he never got the proper treatment. That left his widowed adoptive mother overwhelmed, they said.

    WHAT’S REQUIRED FOR CRUZ TO GET A DEATH SENTENCE?

    The jurors will be voting 17 times — once for each victim. For the jurors to recommend a death sentence for a specific victim, they first must unanimously agree that the prosecution proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the killing involved at least one aggravating circumstance as proscribed under Florida law.

    This part should not be difficult — the listed aggravating circumstances include knowingly creating a great risk of death to numerous people, committing murders that were “especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel” or committed in a “cold, calculated, and premeditated manner.” They then must unanimously agree that the aggravating factors warrant consideration of the death penalty.

    They then must determine whether the aggravating circumstances “outweigh” the mitigating factors that the defense argued such as his birth mother’s drinking, his adoptive mother’s alleged failure to get him proper psychiatric care and his admission of guilt.

    If they do, the jurors can then recommend a death sentence — but that’s not required. A juror can ignore the weighing exercise and vote for life out of mercy for Cruz.

    A death sentence recommendation requires a unanimous vote on at least one victim. If one or more jurors vote for life on all victims, that will be his sentence.

    WHAT HAPPENS IF THE JURY RECOMMENDS A DEATH SENTENCE?

    Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer will schedule a sentencing hearing, likely months from now. Cruz’s attorneys will have an opportunity to persuade her to override the jury and impose a life sentence, but that rarely succeeds. If sentenced to death, he will be sent to Florida’s Death Row while his case goes through appeals. It will be years before he is executed, assuming the death sentence isn’t overturned and a retrial required.

    WHAT HAPPENS IF THE JURY IMPOSES A LIFE SENTENCE?

    If the jury cannot unanimously agree that Cruz should be executed for at least one victim, he will be sentenced to life without parole — Scherer cannot overrule the jury. She could sentence him immediately or schedule a future hearing.

    After he is sentenced, the Florida Department of Corrections would assign him to a maximum security prison where he would be part of the general population. McNeill, in her closing argument, alluded that could be an exceedingly dangerous place for someone like Cruz.

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  • Jurors deliberate for a 2nd full day in Alex Jones’ trial

    Jurors deliberate for a 2nd full day in Alex Jones’ trial

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    WATERBURY, Conn. — A Connecticut jury deliberated Tuesday but has reached no verdict so far in its effort to decide on how much conspiracy theorist Alex Jones should pay for spreading the lie that the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was staged by “crisis actors.”

    The jurors ended their second full day of discussions by asking to revisit testimony Wednesday from William Sherlach, who lost his wife, Mary, in the massacre. He is one of the plaintiffs in the defamation lawsuit.

    Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems, were found liable for damages last year to 15 plaintiffs for broadcasting a conspiracy theory that no children died in the shooting and that the victims’ relatives were part of an elaborate hoax.

    Twenty-six people died in the attack at the school in Newtown, Connecticut. Jones repeatedly told his millions of followers on his Infowars website show that the shooting didn’t happen.

    In often-emotional and tearful testimony in a Waterbury courtroom, victims’ relatives and the FBI agent said they have been tormented and threatened — in person, by mail and on social media — by people who believed those lies.

    The plaintiffs’ lawyers have suggested to the jury that a just verdict could be in the hundred of millions of dollars. Jones’ lawyer has said any damages awarded should be minimal.

    Jurors asked Tuesday morning for help interpreting a sentence in their instructions on determining damages. In response, they were advised to consider the lengthy instructions as a whole.

    The trial began Sept. 13. On the witness stand, Jones said he was “done saying I’m sorry” for calling the shooting a hoax. Outside the courthouse, he’s called the legal proceedings a “show trial” aimed at putting him out of business.

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  • Attorneys argue over school shooter’s fate: death or prison

    Attorneys argue over school shooter’s fate: death or prison

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    FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The prosecutor and defense attorney for Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz agreed Tuesday that his 2018 attack that killed 17 people was horrible, but disagreed in their closing arguments on whether it was an act of evil worthy of execution or one of a broken person who should be imprisoned for life.

    Lead prosecutor Mike Satz and his defense counterpart, Melisa McNeill, painted for the 12 jurors competing pictures of what drove Cruz’s attack at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Valentine’s Day.

    For Satz, Cruz was driven by antisocial personality disorder — in lay terms, he’s a sociopath. He deserves a death sentence because he “was hunting his victims” as he stalked a three-story classroom building for seven minutes. He fired his AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle into some victims at close range and returned to wounded victims as they lay helpless “to finish them off.”

    Satz pointed to Cruz’s internet writings and videos, where he talked about his murderous desires such as when he wrote, “No mercy, no questions, double tap. I am going to kill a … ton of people and children.”

    “It is said that what one writes and says is a window into their soul,” Satz said as the three-month trial neared its conclusion. The killings, he said, “were unrelentlessly heinous, atrocious and cruel.”

    McNeill said neither Cruz nor herself has ever denied what he did and that “he knew right from wrong and he chose wrong.” But she said the former Stoneman Douglas student is “a broken, brain-damaged, mentally ill young man,” doomed from conception by the heavy drinking and drug use of his birth mother during pregnancy. She argued for a sentence of life without parole, assuring them he will never walk free again.

    “It’s the right thing to do. Mercy is what makes us civilized. Giving mercy to Nikolas will say more about who you are than it will ever say about him,” McNeill told the jury.

    Cruz, 24, pleaded guilty a year ago to murdering 14 students and three staff members and wounding 17 others.

    The jury will only decide his sentence, and a unanimous vote is required for death. Jurors can vote for death if they believe the prosecution’s mitigating factors such as the multiple deaths and the planning outweigh the defense’s mitigating factors such as his birth mother’s drinking. They can also vote for life out of mercy for Cruz. Deliberations are expected to begin Wednesday.

    Cruz, dressed in an off-white sweater, sat impassively during the presentations, occasionally exchanging notes with his attorneys. A large number of the victims’ parents, wives and family members packed their section of the courtroom, many of them weeping during Satz’s presentation. The mother of a murdered 14-year-old girl fled the courtroom before bursting into loud sobs in the hallway. Just minutes earlier, the families had greeted each other with smiles, handshakes and hugs.

    Satz meticulously went through the murders, reminding the jurors how each victim died and how Cruz looked some in the eye before he shot them multiple times.

    “They all knew what was going on, what was going to happen,” Satz said.

    As he had during the trial, Satz played security videos of the shooting and showed photos. He talked about the death of one 14-year-old girl. Cruz shot her and then went back to shoot her again, putting his gun against her chest.

    “Right on her skin. She was shot four times and she died,” Satz said. He then noted a YouTube comment, which jurors saw during the trial, in which Cruz said: “I don’t mind shooting a girl in the chest.”

    “That’s exactly what he did,” Satz said.

    His voice breaking, Satz concluded his two-hour presentation by reciting the victims’ names, then saying that for their murders “the appropriate sentence for Nikolas Cruz is the death penalty.”

    McNeill during her presentation acknowledged the horror Cruz inflicted and said jurors have every right to be angry, “but how many times have we made decisions based solely on anger and regretted it?”

    She focused on her belief that heavy drinking by his birth mother, Brenda Woodard, during pregnancy left him with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. She said that accounts for his bizarre, troubling and sometimes violent behavior starting at age 2.

    “There is no time in our lives when we are more vulnerable to the will and the whims of another human being than when we are growing and developing in the wombs of our mothers,” McNeill said. Woodard “poisoned him in the womb. He was doomed in the womb.”

    She said Cruz’s increasingly erratic personality left his widowed adoptive mother, Lynda Cruz, overwhelmed. He punched holes in walls when he lost video games, destroyed furniture and killed animals. Visitors described the home as “a war zone,” McNeill said.

    She pleaded with the jurors to give Cruz a life sentence, telling them that even if they are the only holdout they shouldn’t fear what the reaction will be from the families or the community.

    Gesturing toward the victims’ families, she said, “There is no punishment you could ever give Nikolas Cruz that would ever make him suffer as much as those people have and as much as they will continue to suffer every single day.”

    “Sentencing Nikolas to death will not change that. It will not bring back those 17 dead people. Sentencing Nikolas to death will literally serve no purpose other than vengeance,” she said. Instead, she said, “Look into your heart. Look into your soul. The right thing here, not the popular thing, is a life sentence.”

    Cruz’s massacre is the deadliest mass shooting that has ever gone to trial in the U.S. Nine other people in the U.S. who fatally shot at least 17 people died during or immediately after their attacks by suicide or police gunfire. The suspect in the 2019 massacre of 23 at an El Paso, Texas, Walmart is awaiting trial.

    ———

    Associated Press reporters Freida Frisaro in Miami and Curt Anderson in St. Petersburg, Florida, contributed to this report.

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  • Uvalde school superintendent announces retirement

    Uvalde school superintendent announces retirement

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    UVALDE, Texas — The superintendent of the Texas school district where a gunman killed 19 elementary school students and two teachers last May announced his retirement Monday, according to his wife’s Facebook page.

    In the statement posted to Donna Goates Harrell’s Facebook page, Uvalde school Superintendent Hal Harrell said he would remain in office throughout this school year until the school board hires his successor.

    After an executive session, the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District board unanimously voted Monday night to begin a search immediately for Harrell’s successor.

    The Facebook posting was first reported by CNN. The superintendent asked his wife “to post this message since he doesn’t have Facebook.”

    Harrell, the Uvalde school board and other school district officials have faced heavy criticism over the May 24 Robb Elementary School massacre in which officers allowed a shooter with an AR-15-style rifle to remain in a fourth-grade classroom for more than 70 minutes.

    “My heart was broken on May 24th and I will always pray for each precious life that was tragically taken and their families,” the Facebook post said.

    “My wife and I love you all and this community that we both grew up in, therefore this decision was a difficult one for us. I have been blessed to work among amazing educators and staff who believe in education for more than 30 years, which have all been in our beautiful community. These next steps for our future are being taken after much reflection, and is completely my choice,” Harrell said in the post.

    “I am truly grateful for your support and well wishes,” Harrell said.

    The announcement came a week after Uvalde school district officials suspended the entire school district police force. That move came a day after the district fired a former state trooper after she was revealed to have not only been on the Robb Elementary School campus during the May attack as a Texas state trooper but was also under investigation over her actions that day.

    That the developments all came one month into the new school year in the South Texas community underscores the sustained pressure that families of some of the 19 children and two teachers killed earlier this year have kept on the district.

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  • Florida school shooter may have been his own worst witness

    Florida school shooter may have been his own worst witness

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    FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — It’s possible Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz talked himself into a death sentence.

    Prosecutors played video last week at Cruz’s penalty trial of jailhouse interviews he did this year with two of their mental health experts. In frank and sometimes graphic detail, he answered their questions about his massacre of 17 people at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018 — his planning, his motivation, the shootings.

    While it can’t be known what the 12 jurors are thinking, if any are wavering between voting for death or life without parole, his statements to Dr. Charles Scott, a forensic psychiatrist, and Robert Denney, a neuropsychologist, did not help his cause.

    “All of this made Cruz himself perhaps one of the state’s best witnesses,” said David S. Weinstein, a Miami defense attorney and former prosecutor who has been monitoring the trial.

    The jury will likely decide Cruz’s fate this week. For the 24-year-old to get a death sentence, the jury must be unanimous on at least one victim. But if all 17 counts come back with at least one vote in favor of life in prison, then that would be his sentence. Closing arguments are scheduled Tuesday, with deliberations beginning Wednesday.

    Because Cruz’s defense is that his birth mother’s heavy drinking during pregnancy left him brain damaged, prosecutors could have experts examine him for their rebuttal case.

    Scott and Denney interviewed him separately for several hours. In each, Cruz sat across the table, handcuffed, a sweater draped over his chest. He sometimes asked for a pen and paper to add diagrams and drawings to his explanations.

    “The question is: What will the jury take away from the interviews? Cold-blooded killer who was vengeful and excited about the murders, or a person so hopelessly deranged that he can’t be anything but crazy?” said Bob Jarvis, a professor at Nova Southeastern University’s law school.

    Excerpts from those interviews, some of which are graphic:

    HOW LONG HAD CRUZ BEEN CONTEMPLATING A SCHOOL SHOOTING?

    “A very long time,” Cruz told Scott, starting when he was 13 or 14, about five years before he did it.

    “It was just a thought. I was reading books,” Cruz said. “It would come and go. It would pop up in my mind.”

    The thoughts would return when he watched violent videos, particularly documentaries about mass shootings at Colorado’s Columbine High School, Virginia Tech and elsewhere, he said.

    HOW DID CRUZ PLAN THE MASSACRE?

    “I did my own research,” Cruz told Scott. “I studied mass murderers and how they did it, their plans, what they got and what they used.”

    He detailed the lessons he learned: Watch for would-be rescuers coming around corners, keep some distance from your targeted victims, attack as fast as possible — and “the police didn’t do anything.”

    “I have a small opportunity to shoot people for maybe 20 minutes,” Cruz said.

    HOW DID CRUZ PREPARE?

    He told Scott he put his AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle in a bag the night before and slipped its magazines into a shooting vest. He adjusted the gun’s sights and imagined what the recoil would feel like.

    “I didn’t get any sleep,” Cruz said.

    He donned the burgundy polo shirt he received when he was a member of the Stoneman Douglas Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps program so he could escape by mingling with fleeing students.

    “If I had all my (shooting) gear on, they would have called the cops,” Cruz said.

    When he set out at 2 p.m., he told the Uber driver he was in the school orchestra and the bag carried his instrument.

    WHAT DID CRUZ DO WHEN HE ARRIVED?

    “I walked through the gates. Hopefully, there would be no security guards, but I was wrong,” Cruz told Scott. “I was looking at the guy and he was watching me.”

    When Cruz attended Stoneman Douglas, guards frequently checked him for weapons because of his erratic and sometimes violent behavior. When he was expelled a year before the shooting, a guard predicted he would eventually return and shoot people.

    Fearing he’d been discovered, Cruz sprinted into a three-story classroom building and quickly assembled his weapon. He told a student who happened upon him to flee because something bad was about to happen.

    He then went floor to floor, shooting down hallways and into classrooms, firing 140 shots in all.

    “I thought they would scream,” Cruz said about his first three victims. He shot them point-blank outside a locked classroom door. “It was more like they passed out and blood came pouring out of their head. It was really nasty and sad to see.”

    But he continued.

    “I think I showed mercy to three girls. I was going to walk away, but they showed nasty faces and I went back,” Cruz said. “I thought they were going to attack me.”

    Cruz shot several of his victims a second time after they fell, including his final one — a student writhing from a leg wound. He said the boy “gave me a nasty look. A look of anger.”

    “His head blew up like a water balloon,” Cruz said.

    WHY DID CRUZ STOP SHOOTING?

    Students and teachers fled the building or locked themselves in classrooms. The third-floor hallway was now empty except for victims.

    “I couldn’t find anyone to kill,” he said. “I didn’t want to do it anymore and I didn’t think there was anyone else in the building.”

    He dropped his gun and vest on the stairwell and fled. He was captured an hour later — the police officer had been looking for a young male in a Stoneman Douglas ROTC polo.

    CRUZ’S FINAL SAY

    As Denney was finishing the final interview, he asked Cruz if there was anything else he should know. Cruz thought for 10 seconds before responding: “Why I chose Valentine’s Day.”

    “Because I thought no one would love me,” Cruz explained. “I didn’t like Valentine’s Day and I wanted to ruin it for everyone.”

    “Do you mean for the family members of the kids that were killed?” Denney asked.

    “No, for the school,” Cruz replied.

    The holiday will never be celebrated there again, he said.

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  • Police: 3 people shot outside Ohio high school football game

    Police: 3 people shot outside Ohio high school football game

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    TOLEDO, Ohio — Police in Ohio said three people were wounded in a shooting outside a high school football game Friday night.

    A high school student and two adults were wounded and transported to area hospitals after being shot outside the Whitmer High School stadium in West Toledo around 9:30 p.m., WTOL-TV reported.

    Police said the victims, who were note named, were expected to recover, WTOL reported

    Police said two people are in custody following the shooting during the game between Whitmer and Central Catholic High School, WTOL reported.

    The names of the suspects in custody were not immediately available.

    Washington Local Schools spokesperson Katie Peters said in a statement that the three victims were the only people hurt during the shooting, the station reported.

    “No guests were injured in the evacuation and we could not be prouder of our students, staff, Whitmer fans, and our guests from Central Catholic,” Peters said.

    The school district’s security and screening measures were used during the event, Peters said.

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  • Ex-grad student held in Arizona professor’s fatal shooting

    Ex-grad student held in Arizona professor’s fatal shooting

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    TUCSON, Ariz. — A former University of Arizona graduate student arrested in the fatal shooting of a hydrology professor was being held without bond Friday after a judge ruled there was enough evidence to try him on charges of first degree murder and aggravated assault.

    An interim complaint in the case released Friday says Thomas Meixner, who headed the school’s Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences, was shot four times on Wednesday afternoon. The shooting happened inside the Harshbarger Building, which houses the hydrology department. Meixner was pronounced dead at a hospital.

    According to the complaint, a second person, whose name was blacked out, was treated at the scene after being struck by a bullet fragment.

    The complaint signed by a judge late Thursday at Pima County Justice Court said there was reasonable cause to proceed in the case against 46-year-old Murad Dervish. In Arizona, charges are not filed until a preliminary hearing takes place, and there was no word on when that would happen.

    The Pima County Public Defender’s Office confirmed it received the case but has not yet assigned an attorney who can speak on Dervish’s behalf.

    Campus police said a female called 911 around 2 p.m. Wednesday asking for police to escort a former student from the Harshbarger Building. Officers were on their way when they received reports that a man had shot someone then fled.

    Campus alerts instructed people to avoid the area, which was under lockdown. Classes, activities and other campus events were canceled for the rest of the day.

    State troopers arrested Dervish a few hours later about 120 miles (190 kilometers) northwest of the Tucson campus.

    The complaint said officials found a 9mm handgun in the vehicle, along with ammunition consistent with the 11 casings found at the shooting scene.

    The relationship between Dervish and Meixner remains unclear, but the interim complaint said a flyer with a photograph of Dervish, a former graduate student, had been circulated to university staff in February with instructions to call 911 if he ever entered the building. It also said he was “expelled” and “barred from being on University of Arizona property.”

    “Dervish has been the subject of several reports of harassment and threats to staff members working at Harshbarger,” the complaint said.

    Meixner was an expert on desert water issues. Faculty and former students described as a kind and brilliant colleague.

    “This incident is a deep shock to our community, and it is a tragedy,” University President Robert Robbins said in a statement late Wednesday.

    Meixner earned a doctorate in hydrology and water resources from the university in 1999 and joined the faculty in 2005 before becoming the department head in 2019.

    Twenty years ago this month, a disgruntled University of Arizona nursing student shot and killed three nursing professors before taking his own life.

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  • Uvalde schools suspend entire police force after outrage

    Uvalde schools suspend entire police force after outrage

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    AUSTIN, Texas — Uvalde’s school district on Friday pulled its embattled campus police force off the job following a wave of new outrage over the hiring of a former state trooper who was part of the hesitant law enforcement response during the May shooting at Robb Elementary School.

    School leaders also put two members of the district police department on administrative leave, one of whom chose to retire instead, according to a statement released by the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District.

    The extraordinary move by Uvalde school leaders to suspend campus police operations — one month into a new school year in the South Texas community — underscored the sustained pressure that families of some of the 19 children and two teachers killed in the May 24 attack have kept on the district.

    Brett Cross, whose 10-year-old son Uziyah Garcia was among the victims, had been protesting outside the Uvalde school administration building for the past two weeks, demanding accountability over officers allowing a gunman with an AR-15-style rifle to remain in a fourth-grade classroom for more than 70 minutes.

    “We did it!” Cross tweeted.

    The Uvalde school district had five campus police officers on the scene of the shooting, according to a damning report from Texas lawmakers that laid out multiple breakdowns in the response. A total of 400 officers responded, including school district police, the city’s police, county sheriff’s deputies, state police and U.S. Border Patrol agents, among others.

    The district said it would ask the Texas Department of Public Safety, which had already assigned dozens of troopers to the district for the school year, for additional help. Spokespersons for the agency did not immediately return messages seeking comment Friday.

    “We are confident that staff and student safety will not be compromised during this transition,” the district said in a statement.

    The statement did not specify how long campus police operations would remain suspended. School police officers will be assigned to other roles in the district, the statement said.

    The move comes a day after revelations that the district not only hired a former DPS trooper who was one of the officers who rushed to the scene of Robb Elementary, but that she was among at least seven troopers later placed under internal investigation for her actions.

    Officer Crimson Elizondo was fired Thursday, one day after CNN first reported her hiring. She has not responded to voicemails and messages left by The Associated Press.

    The fallout Friday is the first in Uvalde’s school police force since the district fired former police Chief Pete Arredondo in August. He remains the only officer to have been fired from his job following one of the deadliest classroom attacks in U.S. history.

    Steve McCraw, the head of the state’s Department of Public Safety, has called the law enforcement response to the shooting an “abject failure.” McCraw has also come under pressure as the leader of a department had more than 90 troopers on the scene but still has the support of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott.

    On Thursday, after Elizondo was fired, Abbott called it a “poor decision” for the school to hire the former trooper and that it was up to the district to “own up to it.”

    ———

    For more AP coverage of the Uvalde school shooting: https://apnews.com/hub/uvalde-school-shooting

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  • Uvalde schools suspend campus police operations after outrage over hiring of former Texas trooper who was at May attack

    Uvalde schools suspend campus police operations after outrage over hiring of former Texas trooper who was at May attack

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    Uvalde schools suspend campus police operations after outrage over hiring of former Texas trooper who was at May attack

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  • Jury resumes deliberations in Alex Jones’ Sandy Hook trial

    Jury resumes deliberations in Alex Jones’ Sandy Hook trial

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    WATERBURY, Conn. — Jurors resumed deliberating Friday on how much conspiracy theorist Alex Jones should pay for spreading the lie that the 2012 Sandy Hook School shooting was a hoax.

    Deliberations in the civil trial began late Thursday afternoon but soon broke up for the day. The panel began its work Friday with a request for a dry-erase easel, markers, an eraser and a copy of the jury instructions.

    Last year, Jones was found liable for damages. The jury’s task is to decide how much Jones and his company Free Speech Systems should pay to relatives of eight Sandy Hook victims and to an FBI agent who responded to the massacre.

    The plaintiffs testified they have been tormented and threatened by people who believed that one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history was a con staged to build support for gun restrictions. Jones repeatedly publicized that false notion his “Infowars” show.

    Twenty children and six adults were killed when a gunman stormed Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, on Dec. 14, 2012.

    Jones testified in the trial, saying he was “done saying I’m sorry” for calling the school shooting a hoax. His lawyers have argued that he’s not responsible for the deeds of anyone who tormented the victims’ families, and that they are overstating how much harm the conspiracy theory caused them.

    Outside court, Jones has bashed the trial as a “kangaroo court” that aims to stomp on his free speech rights and put him out of business.

    In a similar trial in Texas in August, a jury ordered Jones to pay nearly $50 million in damages to the parents of one of the children killed in the shooting, because of the hoax lies.

    ———

    Find AP’s full coverage of the Alex Jones trial at: https://apnews.com/hub/alex-jones

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  • EXPLAINER: Jurors weigh cost of Alex Jones’ Sandy Hook lies

    EXPLAINER: Jurors weigh cost of Alex Jones’ Sandy Hook lies

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    WATERBURY, Conn. — For a decade, the parents and siblings of people killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting have been tormented and harassed by people who believe the mass shooting was a hoax.

    How do you put a price tag on their suffering?

    That’s part of the task faced by a Connecticut jury that has been asked to decide how much Infowars host Alex Jones and his company should pay for spreading a conspiracy theory that the massacre never happened.

    The six jurors deliberated for less than an hour Thursday before breaking for the evening. Their work was set to resume Friday.

    Jones now acknowledges his conspiracy theories about the shooting were wrong, but says he isn’t to blame for the actions of people who harassed the families. His lawyers also say the 15 plaintiffs have exaggerated stories about being subjected to threats and abuse.

    Here are some questions and answers about the deliberations.

    COULD THE JURY DECIDE THAT WHAT JONES DID IS PROTECTED BY THE FIRST AMENDMENT?

    No. A judge has already ruled that Jones is liable for defamation, infliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy and violating Connecticut’s unfair trade practices law. The jury’s job is to decide how much he owes for harming the people who sued him over his lies.

    HOW MUCH COULD JONES PAY?

    Jones, who lives in Austin, Texas, could be ordered to pay as little as $1 to each plaintiff or potentially hundreds of millions of dollars to them. The decision will be based on whether the jury determines the harm to the families was minimal or extensive.

    Christopher Mattei, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said the jury should award the plaintiffs at least $550 million. Jones’ lawyer, Norm Pattis, says any damages awarded should be minimal.

    HOW DOES THE JURY COME UP WITH THE DOLLAR FIGURES?

    In her instructions to the jury, Judge Barbara Bellis said there are no mathematical formulas for determining dollar amounts. Jurors, she said, should use their life experiences and common sense to award damages that are “fair, just and reasonable.”

    The jury, however, heard evidence and testimony that Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems, made millions of dollars from selling nutritional supplements, survival gear and other items. A company representative testified it has made at least $100 million in the past decade.

    WHAT KIND OF DAMAGES ARE THE JURY CONSIDERING?

    Jurors could award both compensatory and punitive damages.

    Compensatory damages are often meant to reimburse people for actual costs such as medical bills and income loss, but they also include compensation for emotional distress than can reach into the millions of dollars.

    Punitive damages are meant to punish a person for their conduct. If the jury decides Jones should pay punitive damages, the judge would determine the amount.

    DOES CONNECTICUT CAP DAMAGES?

    No, and yes. The state does not limit compensatory damages, while punitive damages are limited in many cases to attorney’s fees and costs. So if the jury says Jones should pay punitive damages, he would potentially have to shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Sandy Hook families’ lawyers’ costs.

    IS THIS THE FIRST TIME JONES HAS FACED A VERDICT LIKE THIS?

    No. At a similar trial in Texas in August, a jury ordered Jones to pay nearly $50 million to the parents of one of the children killed in the school shooting for pushing the hoax lie on his Infowars show.

    But legal experts say Jones probably won’t pay the full amount. In most civil cases, Texas law limits how much defendants have to pay in “exemplary,” or punitive, damages to twice the “economic damages” plus up to $750,000. But jurors are not told about this cap. Eye-popping verdicts are often hacked down by judges.

    A third trial in Texas involving the parents of another child slain at Sandy Hook is expected to begin near the end of the year.

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  • Police: Ex-grad student kills Arizona professor on campus

    Police: Ex-grad student kills Arizona professor on campus

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    TUCSON, Ariz. — The University of Arizona has released the name of a professor who authorities said was fatally shot on campus by a former graduate student.

    University President Robert Robbins identified the victim late Wednesday as Thomas Meixner, who had headed the school’s Department of Hydrology and Atmospheric Sciences.

    “This incident is a deep shock to our community, and it is a tragedy,” Robbins said in a statement. “I have no words that can undo it, but I grieve with you for the loss, and I am pained especially for Tom’s family members, colleagues and students.”

    Police said Meixner was shot Wednesday afternoon inside the Harshbarger Building, which houses the hydrology department.

    Meixner was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

    A few hours after the shooting, state troopers stopped a former graduate student, 46-year-old Murad Dervish, in a van about 120 miles (193 kilometers) northwest of the Tucson campus, university Police Chief Paula Balafas said during a news conference.

    Dervish was being held at the Pima County jail awaiting his initial court appearance. It wasn’t immediately clear what charges he might be face or whether he has a lawyer yet who could speak on his behalf.

    According to campus police, a female called 911 at around 2 p.m. Wednesday asking for police to escort a former student out of the Harshbarger Building. Balafas said someone recognized Dervish “and knew that he was not allowed inside the building,” although Balafas didn’t explain why.

    Officers were on their way to the building when they received reports that a man shot and wounded someone before fleeing, Balafas said.

    The building is near the university bookstore and student union, and campus alerts instructed people to avoid the area, which was under lockdown.

    Classes, activities and other campus events were canceled for the rest of the day. Classes resumed on Thursday, but Balafas said the building where the shooting happened might remain closed.

    When asked how well Dervish and Meixner knew one another, Balafas said she didn’t know.

    Meixner earned a doctorate in hydrology and water resources from the university in 1999 and joined the faculty in 2005 before becoming the department head in 2019. He was considered an expert on desert water issues.

    Various faculty members and former students took to social media to praise Meixner as a kind and brilliant colleague.

    Karletta Chief, director of the university’s Indigenous Resilience Center, said she met Meixner when she was a graduate student in 2001 and he was new to the faculty. While she was not one of his students, her research in hydrology led to frequent collaborations. The last time she saw Meixner, who was a big supporter of Native American and indigenous communities researching water issues, was a week ago at a seminar his department co-sponsored.

    Chief said she emailed Meixner and several others in the hydrology department after the shooting, and that she was devastated to learn he was the one who had been shot.

    “It’s just unimaginable that anybody would have any direct anger toward him. He was completely the opposite of that. He was just so kind and positive and always wanting to help,” said Chief, who noted that Meixner never mentioned to her if there had been any trouble with a current or former student.

    Meixner was also generous outside of campus, Chief said. He once gave money for a marathon that she ran to benefit the Lymphoma Society.

    “He shared that he was thankful for me doing this run and he was a cancer survivor,” she said.

    It was 20 years ago this month that a disgruntled University of Arizona nursing student shot and killed three nursing professors before taking his own life.

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  • Uvalde school hires ex-trooper who responded to massacre

    Uvalde school hires ex-trooper who responded to massacre

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    UVALDE, Texas — A former Texas state trooper who was part of the law enforcement response now under investigation for its actions during the deadly school shooting in Uvalde has been hired by the school district as a campus police officer.

    Families gathered Thursday outside the Uvalde Independent School District’s administrative office to protest the hiring of former Texas Department of Public Safety trooper Crimson Elizondo. News of her hiring was first reported Wednesday night by CNN.

    “We are disgusted and angry at Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District’s (UCISD) decision to hire Officer Crimson Elizondo. Her hiring puts into question the credibility and thoroughness of UCISD’s HR and vetting practices,” a statement from some of the victims’ families said. “And it confirms what we have been saying all along: UCISD has not and is not in the business of ensuring the safety of our children at school.”

    Elizondo, who resigned from DPS following the May 24 attack at Robb Elementary School, is listed on the district’s website as a campus police officer.

    The school district did not immediately return a message Thursday seeking comment and Elizondo declined to speak to CNN.

    In July, a damning report cited “egregiously poor decision making” by law enforcement officers who waited more than an hour before confronting a gunman who killed 19 children and two teachers in a classroom. The campus police chief, Pete Arredondo, was fired in August.

    Elizondo is heard speaking with other officers on body camera footage that was released after the attack, CNN reported. In the video, she says: “If my son had been in there, I would not have been outside. I promise you that.”

    State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, whose district includes Uvalde, said Elizondo’s hiring “slapped this community in the face.”

    “A DPS trooper was on scene within two minutes of the shooter and failed to follow training, protocol, and the duty they were sworn to,” he said. “People’s children died because DPS officials failed to do their job.”

    A DPS spokesman did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment Thursday.

    ———

    For more AP coverage of the Uvalde school shooting: https://apnews.com/hub/uvalde-school-shooting

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  • Closing arguments set in Alex Jones’ Sandy Hook trial

    Closing arguments set in Alex Jones’ Sandy Hook trial

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    WATERBURY, Conn. — A Connecticut jury is expected to hear closing arguments Thursday in a trial to determine how much Infowars host Alex Jones should pay for persuading his audience that the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School was a hoax perpetrated to impose more gun control laws.

    The six-person jury could begin deliberations by the day’s end in the lawsuit, one of several filed against the conspiracy theorist by relatives of the 26 people killed in the mass shooting.

    Since the trial began Sept. 13, all 15 plaintiffs in the Connecticut lawsuit have testified about being tormented for a decade by people who believed Jones’ claims that the shooting never happened, and that the parents of the 20 slain children were “crisis actors.”

    The plaintiffs said they have received death and rape threats, mail from conspiracy theorists that included photos of dead children, and had in-person confrontations with hoax believers. They sued Jones for defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and violating Connecticut’s unfair trade practices law by profiting off the hoax lies.

    The people suing Jones and his company, Free Speech System, in the Connecticut case include the relatives of eight massacre victims, as well as an FBI agent who responded to the school.

    Mark Barden, whose son Daniel was among the 26 victims, told the jury conspiracy theorists threatened to dig up the boy’s grave to prove the shooting never happened.

    “This is so sacrosanct and hallowed a place for my family and to hear that people were desecrating it and urinating on it and threatening to dig it up, I don’t know how to articulate to you what that feels like,” Barden told the jury. “But that’s where we are.”

    Jones, whose show and Infowars brand is based in Austin, Texas, was found liable for defaming the plaintiffs last year. In an unusual ruling, Judge Barbara Bellis found Jones had forfeited his right to a trial as a consequence of repeated violations of court orders and failures to turn over documents to the plaintiffs’ lawyers.

    Jones took the stand for a contentious day of testimony, saying he was “done saying I’m sorry” for calling the school shooting a hoax.

    Outside the courthouse and on his web show, he has repeatedly bashed the trial as a “kangaroo court” and an effort to put him out of business. He has cited free speech rights, but he and his lawyer were not allowed to make that argument during the trial because he already had been found liable.

    Jones’ lawyer, Norm Pattis, has been trying to limit any damages awarded to the victims’ families and claimed the relatives were exaggerating their claims of being harmed.

    In a similar trial in Texas in August, a jury ordered Jones to pay nearly $50 million in damages to the parents of one of the children killed in the shooting, because of the hoax lies. A third such trial, also in Texas, involving two other parents is expected to begin near the end of the year.

    Jones has said he expects the cases to be tied up in appeals for the next two years and has asked his audience to help him raise $500,000 to pay for his legal expenses. Free Speech Systems, meanwhile, is seeking bankruptcy protection.

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  • W.Va. Supreme Court hears arguments in school voucher case

    W.Va. Supreme Court hears arguments in school voucher case

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    CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A voucher program that would provide West Virginia parents state money to pull their children out of K-12 public schools is blatantly unconstitutional and would disproportionately impact poor children and those with disabilities, a lawyer representing parents who sued the state argued Tuesday in West Virginia’s Supreme Court.

    The Hope Scholarship Program, which was passed by the GOP-controlled state legislature last year and would have been one of the most far-reaching school choice programs in the country, “negatively and intentionally” impacts West Virginia’s system of free schools, lawyer Tamerlin Godley told justices during oral arguments.

    “It decreases enrollment, and thus funding,” said Godley, who is representing two parents of children who receive special education supports in West Virginia public schools. “It utilizes public funding for subsidizing more affluent families that have chosen private and homeschooling and it silos the poor and special needs children who cannot use the vouchers.”

    Signed by Republican Gov. Jim Justice last year, the program was set to go into effect this school year but was blocked by Circuit Court Judge Joanna Tabit in July. In a lawsuit supported by the West Virginia Board of Education and Superintendent of Schools, three parents of special education students said the scholarship program takes money away from already underfunded public schools and is prohibitive because there aren’t local private schools that could meet their children’s needs. One family has since withdrawn from the case.

    The state immediately appealed the ruling. It’s unclear when justices will make a decision on the program, although the court’s current term ends in November.

    The law that created the Hope Scholarship Program allows families to apply for state funding to support private school tuition, homeschooling fees and a wide range of other expenses. More than 3,000 students had been approved to receive around $4,300 each during the program’s inaugural cycle, according to the West Virginia State Treasurer’s Office.

    Families could not receive the money if their children were already homeschooled or attending private school. To qualify, students had to have been enrolled in a West Virginia public school last year or set to begin kindergarten this school year.

    Supporters of the scholarship say the program would actually help low-income families that want an alternative to public education but couldn’t otherwise afford to make the change. The Hope Scholarship Program gives West Virginians “the same choice that wealthier families have always enjoyed—the right to choose the best education for their children,” Institute for Justice Attorney Joe Gay argued in January when parents first filed their lawsuit against the state.

    The Institute for Justice, which has defended educational choice programs in courts across the U.S., is representing at least one parent who intervened in the case in support of the program.

    Solicitor General Lindsay See argued Tuesday in court that state legislatures have discretion in making laws, unlike a state agency, which “can only do the things the Constitution or statute specifically says it can.”

    “Public schools are critically important, but the Legislature was not out of bounds for concluding that West Virginia families should have access to other options to based on their children’s individual needs,” she said.

    See said the program would result in a loss of funding for public schools — but not enough of a decrease that school districts will not be able to “perform their constitutionally mandated functions.”

    “That’s for the simple reason that decreased revenue from one year to another is not enough on its own to prove that a company or state or a school district is going to run a deficit,” she said. “Certainly, some costs are going to go down as students leave a particular public school. That decrease may not be one to one, but it’s not zero to one.”

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  • Former Northeastern employee charged in campus bomb hoax

    Former Northeastern employee charged in campus bomb hoax

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    BOSTON — A former Northeastern University employee who said he was injured when a package he was opening on the Boston campus exploded last month was charged Tuesday with fabricating the incident.

    Jason Duhaime, formerly the new technology manager and director of the university’s Immersive Media Lab, was charged with “conveying false and misleading information related to an explosive device” and then lying to federal investigators, federal authorities said.

    “This alleged conduct is disturbing to say the least,” U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins said at a news conference. “Our city, more than most, knows all too well that a report or threat of an explosion is a very serious matter and necessitates an immediate and significant law enforcement response, given the potential devastation that can ensue.”

    Duhaime told investigators that the hard plastic case exploded when he opened it on Sept. 13, causing “sharp” objects to fly from the case and injure his arms, but his arms only had superficial marks and there was no damage to his shirt, investigators said.

    According to an FBI affidavit, “The inside and outside of the case did not bear any marks, dents, cracks, holes, or other signs that it had been exposed to a forceful or explosive discharge of any type or magnitude.”

    The case also contained a rambling typed note full of misspellings and exclamation points that railed against virtual reality, referenced Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, and threatened to “destroy” the lab.

    “It has come to our attention that this VR lab is trying to change us as a world,” the note said.

    The letter also said: “We know you are working with Mr. Mark Zuckerberg and the U.S. government.”

    It later said: “We know you are working on a secret flying project to scan buildings across the world so Mark can take over google maps,” and “the robots your (sic) building are walking around NEU, MIT and into Harvard yard.”

    The FBI affidavit said the letter was “pristine” and “bore no tears, holes, burn marks, or any other indication that it had been near any sort of forceful or explosive discharge.”

    Investigators also discovered a word-for-word, electronic copy of the letter stored in a backup folder on a university computer in Duhaime’s office that had been written just hours before he called 911.

    Authorities said they could not comment on the specific motive because of the ongoing investigation.

    “In this case, we believe Mr. Duhaime wanted to be the victim but instead victimized his entire community by instilling fear at college campuses in Massachusetts and beyond,” Joseph Bonavolonta, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Boston office said.

    Duhaime, who lives in Texas, was scheduled to make an initial court appearance Tuesday afternoon in San Antonio.

    An attorney for Duhaime did not immediately respond to a telephone message and an email seeking comment. Duhaime has previously denied staging the incident, saying in an interview with The Boston Globe that it was “very traumatic.”

    “I did not stage this … No way, shape or form … they need to catch the guy that did this,” he told the newspaper.

    Northeastern is a private university with about 16,000 students. The school in a statement Tuesday said Duhaime no longer works there.

    The reported explosion led to swarms of police including two bomb squads descending on the school, forced the evacuation of several campus buildings, and put the campus on edge even after reassurances from the school that it was safe.

    “His alleged actions diverted significant law enforcement resources away from essential public safety matters and caused fear and panic not only on campus, but also in the homes of the families and friends and loved ones of Northeastern students, faculty and staff,” Rollins said.

    It marked one of the first big scares in Boston since 2013, when two bombs planted near the finish line of the Boston Marathon killed three spectators and wounded more than 260 others.

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  • Florida school shooter contemplated massacre for years

    Florida school shooter contemplated massacre for years

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    FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz told a prosecution psychiatrist he began contemplating a mass murder during middle school, doing extensive research on earlier killers to learn their methods and mistakes to shape his own plans, video played at his penalty trial showed Monday.

    Cruz told Dr. Charles Scott during a March jailhouse interview that five years before he murdered 17 at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, 2018, he read about the 1999 murder of 13 at Colorado’s Columbine High School, which first sparked the idea of his own mass killing. Cruz told Scott how Columbine, the 2007 murder of 32 at Virginia Tech University and the 2012 killing of 12 at a Colorado movie theater all played a part in his own preparation.

    “I studied mass murderers and how they did it,” Cruz told Scott. “How they planned, what they got and what they used.” He said he learned to watch for people coming around corners to stop him, to keep some distance from people as he fired, to attack “as fast as possible” and, in the earlier attacks, “the police didn’t do anything.”

    “I should have the opportunity to shoot people for about 20 minutes,” Cruz said.

    Cruz, 24, pleaded guilty a year ago to the murders that happened during a seven-minute attack on Feb. 14, 2018, — the trial is only to decide whether he is sentenced to death or life without the possibility of parole. A unanimous vote by the seven-man, five-woman jury is required for Cruz to get death. Anything less and his sentence will be life.

    Prosecutor Mike Satz hopes Scott’s testimony will rebut the defense’s contention that heavy drinking by Cruz’s birth mother during pregnancy caused him to suffer from fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, putting him on a lifelong path of bizarre and sometimes violent behavior that culminated in the shootings. The defense also tried to show that his adoptive mother, Lynda Cruz, became overwhelmed after her husband died when Cruz was 5 and never got him complete treatment for his mental health issues. She died less than three months before the shootings.

    Scott, a University of California, Davis, forensic psychiatrist, testified Monday that his examinations of Cruz and his school and mental health records do not support the defense findings. He diagnosed Cruz with antisocial personality disorder, saying the 24-year-old former Stoneman Douglas student can control his behavior but chooses not to because he has no regard for others. For example, Scott pointed to Cruz’s 14-month employment as a cashier at a discount store with no incidents as proof he can conform.

    He also said Cruz did well in the alternative education classes he took after he was expelled from Stoneman Douglas a year before the shootings, getting a perfect score in a course he took on violence and guns.

    He said Cruz’s behavior began to spiral when a girlfriend broke up with him six months before the killings.

    Cruz told Scott that the night before the shootings, he adjusted the sights on his AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle to make sure he fired accurately. He imagined how the recoil would feel and how his victims would react. He put on the burgundy polo shirt he received when he was a member of the Stoneman Douglas Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps so he would be able blend in with students when he fled.

    “I couldn’t sleep,” Cruz told Scott.

    Satz also replayed videos Cruz made in the weeks leading up to the shooting where he talked about how he would carry out the killings and hoped for a death toll of at least 20.

    Scott said Cruz told him that he specifically chose Valentine’s Day for his massacre because “he has no one to love and love him.”

    “This was not a spur of the moment decision. This was planned out for months,” Scott said.

    Cruz told Scott he stopped shooting and fled when “I didn’t have anyone else to kill.”

    The trial, which began July 18, has been progressing slowly – Monday was only the second court session in almost three weeks. Because of Hurricane Ian, the trial met just one day last week. That came after a nearly two-week pause that followed the defense’s surprise resting of its case Sept. 14 after calling only about a third of the 80 witnesses the attorneys had said they would call. The prosecution then needed time to prepare its rebuttal case and schedule witnesses.

    That case is expected to conclude this week. Closing arguments would then be given next Monday followed by deliberations.

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