The Parkland shooter, Nikolas Cruz, pleaded guilty to all 34 charges against him in front of a circuit court judge. Judge Elizabeth Scherer thoroughly explained the charges and potential punishments to the shooter who proceeded to give a shaky apology to the families of the victims.
The Parkland shooting took place on Valentine’s Day 2018. Seventeen people were killed, and it remains one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history. The massacre spurred a national debate on gun control and led to an organized march in Washington D.C., the “March For Our Lives.”
Cruz will wait to be sentenced for the 34 charges of murder and attempted murder. The only two options are life in prison or the death sentence.
Parents of students killed, and other members of the community, were present at the hearing and gave mixed responses to the apology offered by Cruz.
The varying responses of survivors of the shooting could be explained by Ralph E. Cash, a licensed psychologist and professor at College of Psychology at Nova Southeastern University, who assisted at the local middle school a few days after the shooting.
“On average 20% of people who are exposed to trauma like this will develop some serious mental disorder that is chronic,60% of people will very likely have some significant negative consequences… they’ll be struggling mentally, but they will almost certainly get better. Then there’s going to be about 20% of people who, remarkably, are either not very much affected by the trauma itself or who are affected in a manner that, sometimes in the field, we call post traumatic growth. Some will actually get stronger as a result of it, they may do remarkably positive things as a result of it like the students did by appearing on TV shows or lobbying,” said Cash.
Nova Southeastern University went into lockdown on the day of the shooting and NSU held a candlelight vigil on Feb 19. for those killed.
“Guns kill people, people use them, but guns kill people and there’s no excuse, in my opinion, for having assault rifles as a corollary of the second amendment,” said Cash, adding that, “students who clearly have difficulties, emotional difficulties, should receive appropriate and adequate treatment for those difficulties as soon as possible.”
