Not only did both the school and the students know that Nikolas Cruz was a risk, but it turns out law enforcement had many dealings with him in the last six years:
FOX NEWS – Nikolas Cruz, the 19-year-old accused of killing 17 people at his former Florida high school, had scores of run-ins with law enforcement dating back to 2010 — with one report saying sheriff’s deputies responded to his home more than 35 times in just six years.
Broward County Sheriff’s deputies received at least 36 emergency 911 calls from 80th Terrace St., in Parkland – the suburban address where the teenager lived with his younger brother, Zachary, and their adoptive mother, Lynda, BuzzFeed reported.
The calls – dating as far back as 2010 and continuing until November 2016 – shed a light on two erratic and violent boys who repeatedly “threw items,” were “out of control” and fought with their mother and each other on an apparently regular basis.
“He is a deeply troubled young man; a child that has endured significant loss,” Gordon Weekes, chief assistant for Broward County’s public defender’s office, told reporters Thursday. “He fell between the cracks and we have to try to save him now.”
Despite the repeated calls to authorities, Cruz was never arrested – and was basically cleared as being “no threat to anyone or himself,” as one therapist said in a police report from Sept. 28, 2016.
In that particular call, the sheriff’s office said Nikolas and his mother were fighting over paperwork needed for him to get an ID card.
In their report, deputies detailed how the teen had been harming himself and had talked about buying a gun.
“He had been cutting his arms, his mother said, to get attention, as he learned it from an ex-girlfriend,” deputies said. “He has mentioned in the past that he would like to purchase a firearm.”
The therapist on scene, Jared Bienenfeld with Henderson Mental Health, and the deputies concluded there were “no signs of mental illness or criminal activity.”
And much like the calls before – which were placed due to reasons ranging from the brothers beating each other to Cruz, at the age of 12, threating his mother and calling her a “useless b****” – law enforcement left without taking any further action.
I realize none of these incidents had ‘future school shooter’ written all over them and I know that’s difficult to predict. But when you put all of this with the fact that the school had warned teachers not to let him on school grounds with a backpack, it’s starting to sound like maybe the police should have been monitoring his activities closer.
Remember my proposal yesterday that states should use a pistol purchase permit process (like we have in NC) to also purchase long guns with detachable magazines like AR-15s? Well considering all of his run-ins with the law, it’s quite possible he would have been turned down in a background check process. Just sayin.