Nikolas Cruz reached for his cellphone before his rifle.
Sometime before killing 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, Cruz recorded three cellphone videos discussing his plan to murder students and staff.
"With the power of my AR-15 you will all know who I am," Cruz said in one video.
Prosecutors released the videos Wednesday afternoon as they prepare for a possible death penalty trial. The videos may offer insight into what motivated Cruz to commit Florida's worst school shooting, which has led to a nationwide debate over gun control.
Cruz, a former Stoneman Douglas student who seems to have meticulously planned his attack, expressed anger at his old classmates, saying they thought he was an "idiot and a dumb ass" when in fact it was they who had been "brainwashed by these f***ing political government programs." And he declared his love for a girl he identified only by her first name, saying he hoped to see her "in the afterlife."
The videos, all shorter than 90 seconds, will almost certainly bolster the prosecution's efforts to convict Cruz, 19, of first-degree murder, a capital offense: Under Florida law, such charges must be premeditated.
Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter Jaime was killed at Stoneman Douglas, said he was worried that media coverage of the videos, which he called "delusional," might inspire other school shootings. Guttenberg said he had read transcripts of the videos but would not watch them.
"I don’t want other kids to see what he said and think they’ll do it better," he told the Miami Herald Wednesday. "What he did has resulted in him being in jail where he will rot and die. He was caught and he is going to be abused in prison until he dies."
miamiherald.com
