Official: Florida Shooting Suspect's Mom Let Him Buy Gun

[appalachiablue]

Source: Associated Press

SUNRISE, Fla. — Mental health counselors told the mother of Florida school shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz she shouldn't let him buy guns, but she ignored their concerns and he began compiling an arsenal before her death last year, officials said Tuesday.

Lynda Cruz was "an enabler" who interfered with efforts to get her son treatment, Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, chairman of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission, told members.

About a year before the attack, Nikolas Cruz was 18 and living with his mother when he legally bought the AR-15 authorities say was used in the Feb. 14 shooting that killed 17 people. He bought other guns before and after her November death from pneumonia.

"If he wants to have a gun, he could have a gun," Gualtieri said Lynda Cruz told his counselors. Cruz's father died when he was young. Gualtieri told members that school and mental health counselors had at least 140 contacts with Nikolas Cruz over the years trying to get him help, but his mother frequently interfered. He did not go into specifics...more..


Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/official-florida-shooting-suspects-mom-let-him-buy-gun/ar-AAzQ3Rm

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The school commission agreed Tuesday that Cruz's 2013 participation in the Broward County school district's Promise Program played no part in the massacre. The program has been criticized for leniency and over questions whether Cruz completed the program, particularly by conservatives. But Gualtieri, a Republican, called the issue "a red herring."
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NOTE, there's much in the news today about the Parkland massacre shooter after the school commission's report. This article strongly emphasizes that blame for Cruz's actions should be placed solely on his mother. She died in Nov. 2017, and is not here to explain what happened. To me this reads that the school system was not responsible or liable in any way for Cruz' behavior and actions including the attack on the Marjory Stoneman Douglas HS, Feb. 14, 2018.

The school's "Promise Program" is designed to help students with behavior or emotional issues, and Nikolas Cruz was required to enter it. News articles point out that Cruz' attendance in the "Promise Program" is unclear because accurate records were not kept as to which days he was present or absent.

[appalachiablue]

1. 'Poor Record Keeping Caused School District To Lose Track Of Nikolas Cruz in 2013'

Sun Sentinel, July 10, 2018. FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Broward County schools lost track of Nikolas Cruz's whereabouts in 2013, making it difficult to know whether he completed or even attended the district's PROMISE program.

After vandalizing a restroom faucet at Westglades Middle in Parkland, Cruz was assigned to a three-day stint with the program, which provides alternatives to arrests for some misdemeanors. But what actually happened on Nov. 26 and Dec. 2 and 3 in 2013 remains a mystery. "The records are inconsistent and inconclusive as to where Cruz was during his assignment to PROMISE on the three days in 2013," says a report prepared by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for the commission investigating the Feb. 14 massacre at Stoneman Douglas High, where Cruz killed 17 people.

Cruz was supposed to start attending PROMISE at Pine Ridge Alternative Center in Fort Lauderdale on Nov. 26. That day, he was marked present both at Pine Ridge and his home school of Westglades. "Cruz obviously could not have been in two places at once, but the district is unable to determine where he was on Nov. 26, 2013," the report says. "Staff members have no recollection whether Cruz was at Westglades or Pine Ridge."

Students must take a school bus to attend PROMISE, but district transportation records do not show Cruz being transported to Pine Ridge on Nov. 26. That day, Pine Ridge records suggest Cruz started the program, although "the person who prepared the documents has no independent recollection of Cruz," the report says...More, https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/poor-record-keeping-caused-school-district-to-lose-track-of-nikolas-cruz-in-2013/ar-AAzP98t

[heaven05]

2. You better believe

if this was an AA, the privilege and ability to ignore the professionals and buy the gun would not have been so easy, in fact, would be nil. The 'commission report'? Bullshit.

[Sancho]

3. People Control, Not Gun Control

This is exactly my experience in FL...dangerous people can easily possess guns.
------------------------------------------
This is my generic response to gun threads where people are shot and killed by the dumb or criminal possession of guns. For the record, I grew up in the South and on military bases. I was taught about firearms as a child, and I grew up hunting, was a member of the NRA, and I still own guns. In the 70’s, I dropped out of the NRA because they become more radical and less interested in safety and training. Some personal experiences where people I know were involved in shootings caused me to realize that anyone could obtain and posses a gun no matter how illogical it was for them to have a gun. Also, easy access to more powerful guns, guns in the hands of children, and guns that weren’t secured are out of control in our society. As such, here’s what I now think ought to be the requirements to possess a gun. I’m not debating the legal language, I just think it’s the reasonable way to stop the shootings. Notice, none of this restricts the type of guns sold. This is aimed at the people who shoot others, because it’s clear that they should never have had a gun.

1.) Anyone in possession of a gun (whether they own it or not) should have a regularly renewed license. If you want to call it a permit, certificate, or something else that's fine.
2.) To get a license, you should have a background check, and be examined by a professional for emotional and mental stability appropriate for gun possession. It might be appropriate to require that examination to be accompanied by references from family, friends, employers, etc. This check is not to subject you to a mental health diagnosis, just check on your superficial and apparent gun-worthyness.
3.) To get the license, you should be required to take a safety course and pass a test appropriate to the type of gun you want to use.
4.) To get a license, you should be over 21. Under 21, you could only use a gun under direct supervision of a licensed person and after obtaining a learner’s license. Your license might be restricted if you have children or criminals or other unsafe people living in your home. (If you want to argue 18 or 25 or some other age, fine. 21 makes sense to me.)
5.) If you possess a gun, you would have to carry a liability insurance policy specifically for gun ownership - and likely you would have to provide proof of appropriate storage, security, and whatever statistical reasons that emerge that would drive the costs and ability to get insurance.
6.) You could not purchase a gun or ammunition without a license, and purchases would have a waiting period.
7.) If you possess a gun without a license, you go to jail, the gun is impounded, and a judge will have to let you go (just like a DUI).
8.) No one should carry an unsecured gun (except in a locked case, unloaded) when outside of home. Guns should be secure when transporting to a shooting event without demonstrating a special need. Their license should indicate training and special carry circumstances beyond recreational shooting (security guard, etc.). If you are carrying your gun while under the influence of drugs or alcohol, you lose your gun and license.
9.) If you buy, sell, give away, or inherit a gun, your license information should be recorded.
10.) If you accidentally discharge your gun, commit a crime, get referred by a mental health professional, are served a restraining order, etc., you should lose your license and guns until reinstated by a serious relicensing process.

Most of you know that a license is no big deal. Besides a driver’s license you need a license to fish, operate a boat, or many other activities. I realize these differ by state, but that is not a reason to let anyone without a bit of sense pack a semiautomatic weapon in public, on the roads, and in schools. I think we need to make it much harder for some people to have guns.

For those who want to argue legality, please reference: The Second Amendment: A Biography by Michael Waldman

[Cosmocat]

5. Great post

All suggestions well in line with "common sense."

Side note, you note having to carry insurance - that is something that is not talked about enough with this, and absolutely should be required, too.

[Sancho]

6. Insurance companies are good at gathering information on risk....

and they would ask questions on the application that the state would not, so in order to get insurance it would be another barrier to dangerous people.

[Lulu KC]

11. +1

[KG]

4. glad to know, as i'm reminded constantly by gun-humpers, that guns had nothing to do with this

massacre.

[lostnfound]

7. Gun makers produce, shops sell, lawmakers say okay, but blame the sick old dead mother

But blame the sick old woman who is now dead for not stopping her ADULT son from LEGALLY buying guns. She DIED.
There are BILLBOARDS on our highways advertise them. Politicians glorify them. Hate abounds throughout the fiber of American society. And this old sick woman was the reason? She was he one who didn’t stop it?
WHO are the enablers?

The gun makers are doing it JUST TO MAKE A BUCK.

Good luck to all the sick old women trying to contain an 18 year old man from doing what he is legally able to do.

[appalachiablue]

13. Not easy access to guns, raging gun culture here, it's the Mother's fault.

No matter that she was a widow, raising two young sons in the Gunshine state.

The officials noted in the article couldn't be more overt in avoiding responsibility and any mention of the real enablers; just dump on the deceased "enabling" old Mother. Have to watch and control those darn wimmen!

[lostnfound]

14. Calling the police on her kid took courage and was not "enabling"

14-year-old Nikolas had refused to go to school that day, so she took away his Xbox "privileges" and stashed the computer game system in her vehicle. That enraged her teen, who "retaliated and threw a chair, dog bowl and a drinking glass across the room." The boy called his mother "a useless bitch"

She’d been suffering with his behavior for four or five years. Most likely the stress created the cancer that killed her.

On edit: she actually died of pneumonia, not cancer.

[appalachiablue]

16. Tragic story, she & her husband before must have meant well despite

many troubles encountered in raising the boys. And she did try to handle and counter the difficulties and stress. Recent claims in the media that the mother was an "enabler" I find problematic, esp. since she's gone.
Towards the end, with coughing symptoms and even at her sons urging, she delayed going to the hospital for what was pneumonia due to money concerns maybe. So sad. The exact details I've not retained but I think this part is correct.

[lostnfound]

17. That's right, I forgot

Pneumonia.

[Igel]

8. Shielding the school is not an appropriate thing to do.

It made mistakes, and it made them for a number of reasons. Argumentation over the wonderfulness (or lack of wonderfulness) of the "Promise Program" are beside the point when discussing what it actually did. Motivated reasoning says "truth must be subject to desired outcomes" when that sort of thinking served everybody, from shamans to the Catholic Church to the Nazis and CP USSR to many present-day tinkers (let's leave the "h" out of that word), very, incredibly, poorly.

The mother also made mistakes. In this kind of thing where dozens of people each have enough evidence to produce actions that would have stopped Cruz, saying, "Well, she has 100% of the blame" ignores that Nikolas also "has 100% of the blame" and many, many other people have somewhere between 1 to 100% of the blame. In other words, it's not the case that there's only one pie to go around.

[raccoon]

9. Victims' families should sue her drawers off. NT

[sarisataka]

10. That will be difficult

Since she is dead

[raccoon]

12. Maybe they could sue her estate. nt

[lostnfound]

15. Why HER? She let him buy a product that Congress seems to be legal and people make money selling

He was an adult.