Florida Agency Investigated Nikolas Cruz After Violent Social Media Posts
PARKLAND,
Fla. — A Florida social services agency conducted an in-home
investigation of Nikolas Cruz after he exhibited troubling behavior
nearly a year and a half before he shot and killed 17 people at his former high school in Florida, a state report shows.
The
agency, the Florida Department of Children and Families, had been
alerted to posts on Snapchat of Mr. Cruz cutting his arms and expressing
interest in buying a gun, according to the report. But after visiting
and questioning Mr. Cruz at his home, the department determined he was
at low risk of harming himself or others.
The
report is the latest indication that Mr. Cruz was repeatedly identified
by local and federal agencies as a troubled young man with violent
tendencies. The F.B.I. admitted on Friday that it had failed to investigate
a tip called into a hotline last month by a person close to Mr. Cruz
identifying him as a gun owner intent on killing people, possibly at a
school. The local police were called to Mr. Cruz’s house many times for
disturbances over several years.
Mr.
Cruz also worried officials at his former school, Marjory Stoneman
Douglas High in Parkland, Fla., who on at least one occasion alerted a
mobile crisis unit to get him emergency counseling, according to the
state report.
Broward
County Public Schools disciplinary records obtained on Saturday by The
New York Times show Mr. Cruz had a long history of fights with teachers,
and was frequently accused of using profane language with school staff.
He was referred for a “threat assessment” in January 2017, the last
entry in his record, two months after the Department of Children and
Families closed its separate investigation into Mr. Cruz’s worrisome
behavior.
Howard
Finkelstein, the Broward County public defender, whose office is
representing Mr. Cruz, said the report was further evidence that Mr.
Cruz needed serious help long before the shooting but did not get enough
of it.
“This
kid exhibited every single known red flag, from killing animals to
having a cache of weapons to disruptive behavior to saying he wanted to
be a school shooter,” Mr. Finkelstein said. “If this isn’t a person who
should have gotten someone’s attention, I don’t know who is. This was a
multisystem failure.”
The
state agency investigated whether Mr. Cruz intended to harm himself in
September 2016, when he made the alarming social media posts after an
argument with his mother. Mr. Cruz, who had depression, was upset over a
breakup with a girlfriend, his mother, Lynda Cruz, told investigators.
The report does not say who called in the complaint, which was given
“immediate” priority.
The
report shows that investigators closed the case about two months later.
The agency determined that the “final level of risk is low” — an
analysis that one of Mr. Cruz’s counselors at his school felt was
premature — because his mother was caring for him, he was enrolled in
school and he was receiving counseling. By the time of the shooting,
however, Mr. Cruz had lost at least two of those elements: His mother
was dead, and he had left Stoneman Douglas High School. It is unclear if
he was still seeing a counselor.
On
Wednesday, Mr. Cruz, 19, showed up at Stoneman Douglas and unleashed
more than 100 rounds from a semiautomatic AR-15 rifle he purchased last
February, five months after the state investigation closed. As of
Saturday evening, two Broward hospitals were still treating four
patients in fair condition, according to Jennifer Smith, a spokeswoman.
The
office of Mr. Finkelstein, the public defender, suggested that it had
offered prosecutors a guilty plea in exchange for a life sentence
without the possibility of parole.
“Everybody
knows he is guilty. What we are saying is, let’s put him away for
life,” Mr. Finkelstein said. “We are not saying the death penalty is not
justified; we are saying, let’s not put this community through the
trauma and pain of a trial knowing that, three years down the road, one
juror could keep him from being put to death.”
In Florida, the death penalty requires a decision by a unanimous jury.
Michael
J. Satz, the state attorney, said prosecutors would announce their
position on the death penalty “at the appropriate time.”
“This
certainly is the type of case the death penalty was designed for,” Mr.
Satz said in a statement. “This was a highly calculated and premeditated
murder of 17 people and the attempted murder of everyone in that
school.”
Mr.
Cruz’s school disciplinary records show he attended at least six
schools, including Cross Creek School, a school for students with
emotional problems; Dave Thomas Education Center, an alternative high
school for at-risk youth; and an adult education center. He was first
identified as developmentally delayed in 2002, when he was 4 years old.
In
incidents that began in 2012, when Mr. Cruz was 13, he was disciplined
for being disobedient and unruly. In 2013, the records suggest, he was
counseled for making a false 911 call.
He
was suspended several times in the 2016-17 school year, his last year
at Stoneman Douglas, and was frequently reported for prolonged and
unexplained absences. In September 2016, he was suspended for two days
for fighting, only to return and get suspended again nine days after the
fight, this time for hurling profane insults.
That same month, the Department of Children and Families began its investigation into Mr. Cruz. The investigation, first reported
by The Sun-Sentinel of South Florida on Friday, was obtained by The
Times on Saturday. The state agency had petitioned a court on Friday to
make the confidential records public, but the court has yet to do so.
“Mental
health services and supports were in place when this investigation
closed,” Mike Carroll, the secretary of the Department of Children and
Families, said in a statement. Mr. Cruz was investigated as an adult,
and the investigation appeared aimed at determining whether he was being
neglected.
Agency
investigators identified Mr. Cruz, who had turned 18 a few days
earlier, as a “vulnerable adult due to mental illness.” In addition to
depression, Mr. Cruz had autism and attention-deficit hyperactivity
disorder, the report said. He was regularly taking medication for the
A.D.H.D. It was unclear whether he was taking anything for the
depression, according to the report.
After
the argument with his mother, an investigator visited the family’s home
in Parkland, which was clean, clutter-free and did not present any foul
odors. The investigator did not see the cuts on Mr. Cruz’s arms: He was
wearing long sleeves.
“Mr. Cruz stated that he plans to go out and buy a gun,” the report states. “It is unknown what he is buying the gun for.”
His
mother denied that she and her son had argued. She told the
investigator that Mr. Cruz did not have a gun, though he did have an air
gun she would take away from him when he did not follow rules about
shooting only at backyard targets.
His
mother, who died in November, told investigators she attributed Mr.
Cruz’s behavior to “a breakup with a girl.” Ms. Cruz “stated that she
and the girl’s mother told the kids they had to end the relationship
because it was unhealthy for everyone,” the report said. Neither the
girl nor her mother are named in the report.
A
year before, it was discovered that Mr. Cruz had a Nazi symbol and a
racial slur on his book bag. His mother said that when she confronted
her son about it, Mr. Cruz purported to not know what the sign meant,
and she said the family had never expressed negative sentiments toward
people of other races. She made him clean it off his bag.
The
report noted that a mental health center had been contacted in the past
to detain Mr. Cruz under Florida’s Baker Act, which allows the state to
hospitalize people for several days if they are a threat to themselves
or others. The center determined that he was not such a threat. Had Mr.
Cruz been involuntarily committed, state law could have prohibited him
from buying a firearm.
The
mental health counselor, from Henderson Behavioral Health, had also
visited Mr. Cruz at home and had him sign a safety contract.
Despite the assessment, a school counselor remained concerned.
“She
said Henderson found him stable enough not to be hospitalized,” the
Department of Children and Families investigator wrote of the school
counselor. “She stated that the concern she and the other staff had was
to ensure that the assessment of Henderson was not premature.”
Henderson
Behavioral Health would not comment on Saturday. Neither the mental
health counselor nor the school counselor could be reached.
According to the report, investigators also tried to speak to a school police officer, who declined to cooperate.
The
Department of Children and Families would have had no way to know if
Mr. Cruz’s behavior became more erratic after losing his mother because
the agency is not automatically notified of a caretaker’s death, said
George Sheldon, a former department secretary.
“It’s
hard to second-guess because we don’t know everything that the
department knew at the time, but clearly this young man was showing
serious signs of a mental health disorder, something that does not pop
up overnight,” said Mr. Sheldon, who left the department in 2011 and now
oversees a nonprofit foster-care agency in Miami. “He was troubled and
about to explode. And the results were devastating.”
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