A jail guard testified Wednesday that Florida college shooter Nikolas Cruz attacked him with little warning 9 months after Cruz murdered 17 college students and workers at Parkland's Marjory Stoneman Douglas Excessive Faculty 4 years in the past and tried to wrest away his electrical stun gun.
As jurors in Cruz's dying penalty trial watched a surveillance video of the Nov. 13, 2018, brawl, Broward County sheriff's Sgt. Raymond Beltran gave a play-by-play description. He mentioned it started after he instructed Cruz to stroll correctly as he supervised Cruz's recreation interval.
Cruz was being jailed in isolation for the Feb. 14, 2018, bloodbath. The video reveals Cruz in an orange jail uniform and a pair of bathe slippers, strolling laps round some tables as Beltran sat behind a desk just a few toes away.
Out of the blue, Cruz stopped and checked out Beltran. The guard testified that he instructed Cruz to stroll correctly on his slippers, fearing he would fall. Cruz, who weighs about 130 kilos (59 kilograms), flashed each center fingers at Beltran after which charged him, flipping the guard onto the bottom. Beltran was capable of flip Cruz over after which they wrestled over Beltran's Taser, which Cruz was capable of pull from its holster.
He mentioned he feared Cruz would use it towards him after which "he might do no matter he desires to me."
The Taser discharged, however the electrically charged probes missed each of them. Beltran regained management of the Taser and used it to punch Cruz, staggering him. Cruz then obtained on the bottom, was handcuffed and put again into his cell. Beltran suffered no severe accidents.
Cruz later pleaded responsible to the assault. Prosecutors are utilizing that conviction as an aggravating circumstance as they argue Cruz needs to be sentenced to dying.
Cruz, 23, pleaded responsible to 17 counts of first-degree homicide in October, that means the jury will determine solely whether or not he's sentenced to dying or life with out parole. The taking pictures left 14 college students, a instructor, the athletic director and an assistant soccer coach useless.
With the trial now in its second week, the seven-man, five-woman jury and its 10 alternates have seen terrifying video of the assault and heard from traumatized survivors and cops who rushed into the nightmarish scene inside a three-story classroom constructing. They've examined ugly post-mortem and crime scene images.
In addition they noticed video depicting Cruz's nonchalance as he walked to a sandwich store to purchase a drink after which visited a McDonald's simply minutes after he fled the college. On Monday, they noticed the AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle Cruz fired greater than 150 occasions.
That is the deadliest mass taking pictures in U.S. historical past to achieve trial. 9 U.S. gunmen in addition to Cruz who killed at the least 17 folks died throughout or instantly after their shootings, both by suicide or police gunfire. The suspect in a tenth taking pictures, the 2019 slaying of 23 folks at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, is awaiting trial.
Prosecutors mentioned Wednesday they plan to finish their case subsequent week after the jury visits the constructing the place the bloodbath occurred. It has been sealed off since shortly after the taking pictures and its partitions and flooring stay blood-stained and bullet-pocked, with rotted Valentine's Day flowers and deflated balloons strewn about.
After a one-week break, the trial will resume in mid-August with a protection case that may deal with Cruz's life, together with his delivery mom's ingesting throughout being pregnant, his lengthy historical past of emotional and psychological issues, his alleged sexual abuse and the deaths of his adopted mother and father. The prosecution will then get to current a rebuttal case.
When jurors finally get the case, most likely in October or November, they may vote 17 occasions, as soon as for every of the victims, on whether or not to advocate capital punishment.
For every dying sentence, the jury should be unanimous or the sentence for that sufferer is life. The jurors are instructed that to vote for dying, the prosecution's aggravating circumstances for that sufferer should, of their judgment, "outweigh" the protection's mitigators. A juror can even vote for all times out of mercy for Cruz. Throughout jury choice, the panelists mentioned below oath that they're able to voting for both sentence.