Watch: DeSantis Blasts Jury's Sentencing Recommendation for Parkland Shooter - 'You Deserve the Death Penalty'
Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis argued Thursday that Parkland mass shooter Nikolas Cruz’s crime warranted execution after a jury recommended life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
Cruz’s official sentencing is set for Nov. 1. DeSantis responded with disappointment.
WATCH: @GovRonDeSantis slammed the life sentence recommendation for Parkland school shooter.
‘You deserve the death penalty.’ pic.twitter.com/YF3StNJMe1
— Brendon Leslie (@BrendonLeslie) October 13, 2022
“I think that if you have a death penalty at all, that that is a case where you’re massacring those students with premeditation and utter disregard for basic humanity, that you deserve the death penalty,” he said. “The jurors came back, apparently it was 11-1 with one holdout, refusing to authorize the ultimate punishment, and that means that this killer’s gonna end up getting a same sentence of people who’ve committed bad acts, but acts that did not rise to this level.”
The governor commented on the jury’s decision just before announcing that all school districts would be able to reopen Oct. 18, following Hurricane Ian.
Cruz shot and killed 17 people and injured 17 others at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February 2018, pleading guilty to first-degree murder and attempted murder last year, ABC News reported.
“I’m also disappointed that we’re four and a half years after these killings, and we’re just now getting this. You know they used to do this, he would have been executed in six months,” DeSantis continued, visibly emotional. “He’s guilty, everybody knew that from the beginning, and yet it takes years and years in this legal system that is not serving the interests of victims.”
DeSantis said he has befriended many victims’ parents, noting that the Broward County sheriff and school board members in office at the time had been ousted.
“This stings, it was not, I think, what we were hoping for,” DeSantis stated. “It would have been a situation where, if that would have gone the correct way, I would have done everything in my power to expedite that process forward.”
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