FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A shaken juror was shown Tuesday graphic videos of Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz shooting defenseless students at close range.
The footage – which was not shown in the courtroom during Cruz’s sentencing hearing – drew pained expressions from the seven men and five women who will decide whether the confessed mass murderer will be executed or imprisoned for life.
Cruz, 23, bowed his head at the defense table as jurors watched footage of his 2018 rampage at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where he shot 17 people with an AR-15 rifle.
Footage captured by school surveillance cameras without sound shows Cruz returning to some of the wounded and shooting at them again.
Prosecutors later called a solemn parade of survivors to the stand to testify about their memories of the massacre.
Samantha Fuentes, now a student, said she hid behind a podium as Cruz, then 19, sprayed bullets into her classroom.
“I was peering across the dais to look at the door,” she told the court. “There I saw Cruz standing there. After he finished shooting, he stood at the door window.
Jurors in the sentencing trial of Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz were shown graphic videos of Cruz shooting students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel via AP, Pool Family members of the Parkland victims at Cruz’s sentencing hearing in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on July 19, 2022. Photo by Carline Jean-Pool/Getty Images
With several of her classmates dead nearby, Fuentes said she felt sharp pains and feared she had been hit.
“I realized I had holes in my pants,” she told the court. “Blood was running from the top of my forehead down to my chest. I had blood in my eyes and all over my face and in my hair. I took one of my friends phone to have a quick look around and what you would see would disgust you.
Fuentes described the horrific aftermath of Cruz’s assault after police eventually entered her classroom.
“I looked at my dead friends and turned around and they told me to run out of the building,” she said. “And they told me to look down, not up, and there I passed the bodies of two students in the hallway.”
Cruz killed 17 people at a Florida high school in 2018. Photo: Joe Riddle/Getty Images
Fuentes suffered a gunshot wound to her knee and severe shrapnel injuries that she says continue to plague her to this day, limiting her mobility and worsening during cold weather.
English teacher Dara Haas broke down in tears as she recalled the frenzy in her class after the shots started exploding. Three of her students were killed.
“It was so loud I remember shaking,” she said. “The students were screaming. Students would come up to my desk and scream and scream.
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School teacher Dara Haas wiped away tears as she testified at the trial. Photo by Mike Stocker-Pool/Getty Images Cruz bowed his head at the defense table as jurors watched the videos. Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel via AP , pool
As if describing a war zone, Haas said her room was obliterated by Cruz’s gunfire.
“You could smell the sulfur from the guns, debris flying across the room, students crying,” she said as she wiped her eyes. “So many students were injured.”
Cruz has already pleaded guilty to the 17 murders.
Prosecutors are pushing for the death penalty, while his defense is asking for life without parole in light of his troubled upbringing and mental deficits.
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