To longtime friend, school shooter Nikolas Cruz was lonely, volatile, ostracized
Many live in vast gated communities enveloped by horse pastures and pristine nature trails. Rated among the best high schools in
But
Cruz's
To Cruz, the campus' sun-splashed courtyards were a dark place where he was mocked and ridiculed for his odd behavior, according to interviews with close family friends, students and recently released police and mental health reports.
"Someone could have approached a faculty member, a guidance counselor, a teacher and said, 'This kid gets bullied a lot, someone should do something,' " said student
Cruz, 19, is charged with entering the school near dismissal time, armed with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. He then strolled through the halls, firing into classrooms. Fourteen students and three staffers were killed, and more than a dozen others were injured.
On Saturday, Broward County State Attorney
Yet there have been reams of reports, replete with one red flag after another, detailing Cruz's violent descent, events that were mostly dismissed, downplayed or filed away by many of those in society entrusted with recognizing the potential danger that he posed to his family and to his community.
Cruz -- at 5-foot-7 and 120 pounds -- was scrawny, and rarely, if ever, felt comfortable with other kids, either in his
Cruz had been diagnosed with the neurological disorder autism.
"It is a social communication disorder, not a violent disorder," Alessandri said.
"He was ostracized his whole life," said Gold, who said he was one of only four people, including Nikolas, and his younger brother, Zachary, who attended the funeral of his mother,
Cruz was treated for depression and attention deficit disorder, and his mother found it increasingly difficult to control his behavior from the time he was an adolescent, despite periodic interventions by mental health counselors and law enforcement authorities, records show.
"His mother made a major push to have him lead a normal life," Gold said. "But toward the end of her life, she really had given up.''
BSO deputies were summoned to their
Gold said
Cruz was about 11 when Gold and his girlfriend, Rocxanne Deschamps, moved next door to them in
He and his wife met when they were married to other people, then married later in life after divorces. Gold said he wasn't sure when the boys were adopted, but they didn't learn they were adopted until they were in their teens.
"The family had money. Lynda even had his life insurance money -- but she was very, very frugal," Gold said.
Gold said he recognized right away that
"He would bang his head with his hands, and often lose control over minor things, like loud sounds," Gold recalled.
He once smashed some golf clubs into one of Gold's vehicles. He struggled to make friends.
Gold recalled seeing Cruz as a kid attempt to join other kids riding their bicycles in the neighborhood, but the kids brushed him off and called him names.
He would come home from school angry or depressed. "He would come over after school and was visibly upset about being teased, but he pretended that he really didn't care," Gold said.
"Despite his mother's attention, he just felt horribly unloved, and felt he had no one to turn to,'' Gold said.
Gold and Deschamps tried to help their mother, who was in her 60s and in poor health.
Cruz's school life was particularly difficult to watch, Gold said.
Alvarez, 17, said he remembers Cruz being teased in 10th grade. By then, Cruz was getting attention from students for his bizarre social media postings. In some of them, he posted pictures of himself with knives and guns. In others, he showed animals, such as frogs, that he claimed to have butchered.
Other kids at the school would mock Cruz for being a loner.
The district did not release his disciplinary records or whether the district investigated the bullying. But Superintendent
In
Around that time, Cruz drew a Nazi symbol on his book bag and was using hate language. Records show that
Runcie said contrary to media reports, Cruz wasn't expelled, but rather he was transferred to a school for students with behavioral issues.
"Clearly the student had mental and behavioral issues and we have services we provide in schools when they don't fit into a normal school environment," he said.
Gold said that Cruz escaped his misery by playing video games for eight, 12, even 15 hours a day. Gold, who owns a film and video production company, sometimes would play a game or two with them.
"It was kill, kill, kill, blow up something, and kill some more, all day," he said.
Last November, someone with his name posted a threat on YouTube that was reported to the
In spite of the police reports and his mental health history, Cruz was able to pass a background check and buy the rifle in
Cruz also managed to legally purchase at least five other guns in the past year, said a law enforcement official familiar with the investigation. They were recovered from the home where he was living with a friend's family after the shootings.
After Gold and Deschamps split up and went their separate ways a few years ago, Cruz stayed in touch with Gold. His mother remained best friends with Deschamps, who took
But
"When we first had the opportunity to see those records, we were pretty stunned to learn of all the alarms that were being rung with this child,'' said Chief Assistant Public Defender
Gold said he believes a host of factors contributed to Cruz's instability: his mental illness, the bullying, an obsession with violent video games, his mother dying, no safety net.
"None of this is an excuse for the horrible, horrible thing that he did," Gold said. "None of it -- but if you wanted to create a kid who was a serial killer, this is how you would do it.''
By then she had sold the house and moved into an apartment. When she died,
"He was very strange at the funeral,'' Gold said. "He was emotionless. He was polite and grateful but he didn't shed a tear. His mother was the most important person in his life, but that boy did not feel the way that normal people feel.''
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