Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz issues lengthy statement after pleading guilty to mass killing at high school: ‘I love you ... I’m sorry’



Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz issued a lengthy statement after he pleaded guilty to killing 17 people and injuring 17 more during a 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

Cruz pleaded guilty Wednesday to 17 charges of first-degree murder as well as 17 charges of attempted murder.

What are the details?

After entering the guilty plea, the 23-year-old Cruz addressed Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer and said he believed that the victims and their families ought to determine whether he receives the death penalty or a life sentence.

"I am very sorry for what I did and I have to live with it every day. And if I were to get a second chance, I would do everything in my power to try to help others," Cruz said. "I am doing this for you and I do not care if you do not believe me, and I love you, and I know you don't believe me but I have to live with this every day and it brings me nightmares and I can't live with myself sometimes, but I try to push through because I know that's what you would want me to do."

According to Fox News, Cruz added, "I hate drugs, and I believe this country would do better if everyone would stop smoking marijuana and doing all these drugs and causing racism and violence out in the streets. I'm sorry, and I can't even watch TV anymore. I just want you to know that I'm really sorry, and I hope you give me a chance to try to help others. I believe it's your decision to decide where I go — whether I live or die. Not the jury's. I believe it's your decision. I'm sorry."

Cruz will now face a jury that will decide whether he should serve a life term in prison or seek the death penalty.

Scherer will begin juror screenings next month with hopes testimony can begin in January.

What else?

Cruz's guilty plea comes just one day after Parkland victims and their families received a $25 million settlement with Broward County Public Schools.

In a statement on behalf of some of the parents, Attorney David Brill said, "There isn't enough money in existence that would compensate the victims and their families adequately. But this settlement provides a measure of justice and accountability to them and the other families and victims."

Parkland massacre students demand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's resignation after she branded mass killing a 'false flag'



Student survivors of the Parkland, Florida, mass killing are calling on Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) to resign from Congress after she said that the massacre was a "false flag" to push for gun control.

Greene took to her Twitter account and cleared up her position on gun control and especially its role in schools.

What did she say?

According to a Wednesday report from BuzzFeed News, Greene in a 2018 Facebook post questioned the Parkland shooting.

In the post, she shared a news article about the pension of a Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School resource officer. The officer in question did not intervene in the mass killing, which took the lives of at least 17 people and injured many more.

Responding to Greene's post, a commenter called Stacy wrote, "It's called a payoff to keep his mouth shut since it was a false flag planned shooting."

Greene responded, "Exactly Stacy!!"

Another commenter added, "Sounds like a pay off, doesn't it."

Greene responded, "Yes it does!"

What has been the response?

David Hogg, former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and March for Our Lives co-founder, tweeted, "Marjorie Greene should resign. If you spread conspiracies about mass shootings there should be no place for you in congress [sic]."

Marjorie Green should resign. https://t.co/ZR7eQi1sap
— David Hogg 🐙 (He / Him) (@David Hogg 🐙 (He / Him))1611078075.0
If you spread conspiracies about mass shootings there should be no place for you in congress.
— David Hogg 🐙 (He / Him) (@David Hogg 🐙 (He / Him))1611083370.0

He later tweeted directly at Greene — who has not responded to his remarks at the time of this reporting — writing, "Why did you call the shooting at my high school a false flag? 17 classmates and staff died — spreading conspiracies about this tragedy is disgusting."

@mtgreenee Why did you call the shooting at my high school a false flag? 17 classmates and staff died- spreading co… https://t.co/Xpnmh86e4M
— David Hogg 🐙 (He / Him) (@David Hogg 🐙 (He / Him))1611078229.0

Cameron Kasky, former student and March for Our Lives co-founder, told the outlet, "She should be removed. She should be punished. ... [But] it's probably not going to happen."

He added, "There's somebody literally making laws that denies the Parkland shooting. I mean, what the hell is next? It's inhuman what these elected officials are doing."

"Elected officials pushing Parkland conspiracies — this is not some symptom of the Trump era; this is just the Republican Party fundamentally. She'll get away with it. Of course she will. She's a Republican."

Fred Guttenberg, father of a teenage Parkland victim, wrote, "I know you have met Parkland parents. This is my daughter Jaime, she was killed that day. Do you still believe this? Why would you say this?"

.@mtgreenee, we have never met. It appears you think or at one time thought the school shooting in Florida was a f… https://t.co/6XVrXHdRGD
— Fred Guttenberg (@Fred Guttenberg)1611075438.0

Anything else?

Greene did not directly respond to the 2018 controversy, but instead shared a lengthy message about gun-free school zones and the absurdity of the student resource officer's stately pension.

"'Gun-free' school zones are a FAILURE. Laws that prevent legal ownership of firearms turn schools into targets," she wrote. "As someone who was personally locked in a classroom in 11th grade due to a fellow student who brought guns to our 'gun-free' school intent to [sic] kill others, I'm proud to say I'll cosponsor the Safe Students Act to repeal 'gun-free' school zone laws and allow Americans to protect our children."

She added, "I personally understand the fear as a student when there is no good guy with a gun to protect us from the bad guy with guns."

Greene later took aim at the school resource officer in question who did not intervene in the Parkland shooting.

"Scott Peterson allowed children to be left defenseless against an active shooter," she wrote. "When he was supposed to protect them, he was a coward and refused to go in. He allowed 17 people to die."

"Why in the world would he received such a lucrative pension after the tragic school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School?" she demanded. "It's sickening. The shooter should have never been allowed to set foot on campus and he should have been expelled long before he murdered people."

She concluded, "Our children are the most important people in our country and they should be protected by good guys with guns."

https://t.co/lVgIUjyUnJ
— Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸 (@Marjorie Taylor Greene 🇺🇸)1611090152.0

Republican Mark Robinson set to become NC's first black lieutenant governor after viral pro-gun speech



Republican Mark Robinson is set to become North Carolina's first black lieutenant governor, according to Fox News.

Robinson went viral in 2018 after delivering an impassioned pro-Second Amendment rights speech at a city council meeting following the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

What are the details?

The outlet reported that Robinson defeated Democrat Yvonne Lewis Holley. If elected, Holley would also have been the state's first black lieutenant governor.

According to WFMY-TV, Robinson took 52% of votes, while Holley pulled in 48%. The station also reported that Robinson plans to focus on funding for police and veteran care across the state.

Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper will maintain his seat, meaning that the governor and lieutenant governor will represent two different parties.

After winning the March primary, Robinson told "Fox & Friends," "Our message is so much more than the Second Amendment, which is a crucial issue. It's a message that touches on all the topics conservative North Carolinians are concerned with today."

What else?

Robinson made waves in 2018 after his stunning, pro-gun speech following the Parkland massacre, which took the lives of at least 17 people and injured many more.

You can read the transcript of Robinson's full 2018 speech — and watch the accompanying video — below:

I didn't have time to write a fancy speech. I didn't have the resource of an English teacher to sit down and write a speech with at school today and be brought over here and practice or anything.

What I really came down here for is this. I've heard a whole lot of people in here talking tonight about this group and that group and domestic violence and blacks and these minorities and that minority. What I want to know is when are you all going to start standing up for the majority? And here's who the majority is: I'm the majority.

I'm a law-abiding citizen who's never shot anybody, never committed a serious crime, never committed a felony. I've never done anything like that.

But it seems like every time we have one of these shootings, nobody wants to blame, put the blame where it goes, which is at the shooter's feet. You want to put it at my feet. You want to turn around and restrict my right—constitutional right—it's spelled out in black and white.

You want to restrict my right to buy a firearm and protect myself from some of the very people you're talking about in here tonight. It's ridiculous; I don't think Rod Serling could come up with a better script. It does not make any sense.

The law-abiding citizens of this community and many communities around this country, we're the first one taxed and the last ones considered and the first ones punished when things like this happens, because our rights are the ones being taken away.

That's the reason I came down here today. Gun show or no gun show, NRA or no NRA, I'm here to stand up for the law-abiding citizens of this community, because I'm going to tell you what's going to happen.

You can take the guns away from us all you want to, you all write a law, I follow the law, I'll bring my guns down here, I'll turn them in. But here's what's going to happen: The Crips and The Bloods on the other side town, they're not going to turn their guns in, they're going to hold on to them.

And what's going to happen when you have to send the police down there to go take them? The police can barely enforce the law as it is, as what I see we demonize the police, criminalize and vilify the police, and we make the criminals into victims. And we're talking about restricting guns? How are you going to do that? How are you going to do that when the police department is already hamstrung?

You guys aren't going to be able to go down here and take these guns from these criminals, so the criminals are going to hold on to their guns, they're still going to have them. They're still going to break in my house and they're still going to shoot me with them, and guess who is going to be the one that suffers? It's going to be me.

Well, I'm here to tell you tonight, it is not going to happen without a fight, and when I say fight, I don't mean shots fired, I don't mean fists thrown, I mean I'm going to come down here to this city council and raise hell just like these loonies from the Left do until you listen to the majority of the people in this city, and I am the majority.

The majority of the people in this city are law-abiding, and they follow the law and they want their constitutional right to be able to bear arms. They want to be able to go to the gun show and buy a hunting rifle or a sport rifle.

There are no military-grade weapons sold at the gun show. An AR-15 is not a military-grade weapon. Anybody would go into combat with an AR-15 is fool. It's a semi-automatic .22 rifle. You'd be killed in 15 minutes in combat with that thing.

So, we need to dispel all these myths and we need to drop all this division that we got going on here, because the bottom line is, when the Second Amendment was written, whether the framers liked it or not, they wrote it for everybody, and I am everybody, and the law-abiding citizens of this city are everybody, and we want our rights and we want to keep our rights. And by God we're going to keep them, come hell or high water.

"I Am the Majority" Mark Robinson addresses Greensboro City Council on gun show banwww.youtube.com

(H/T: The Daily Wire)