Parkland college taking pictures jury visits untouched, bloodstained classrooms - The Guardian

Roses brought to honor love on that Valentine's Day in 2018 lay withered, their dried and cracked petals scattered across school room floors nonetheless smeared with the blood of victims gunned down by way of a former scholar more than 4 years in the past.

Bullet holes pocked walls, and shards of glass from windows shattered through gunfire crunched underfoot at Parkland's Marjory Stoneman Douglas high faculty, the place shooter Nikolas Cruz killed 14 college students and three workforce participants.

Nothing had been modified, except for the removing of the victims' bodies and a few very own objects.

Twelve jurors and 10 alternates who will make a decision whether Cruz gets the dying penalty or life in prison made a rare discuss with to the massacre scene on Thursday, retracing Cruz's steps through the three-story freshman building, called building 12.

After they left, a bunch of journalists turned into allowed in for a a great deal faster first public view. The sight turned into deeply unsettling.

significant swimming pools of dried blood nonetheless stained lecture room flooring. A lock of darkish hair rested on the ground where some of the victims' bodies as soon as lay. A single black rubber shoe became in a hallway. Browned rose petals have been strewn throughout a hallway where six people died, and Valentines Day presents, equivalent to toy bears, and cards lay the place that they had tumbled within the havoc.

In classroom after lecture room, open notebooks displayed uncompleted training. A blood-coated publication referred to as tell Them We remember sat atop a bullet-riddled desk in the school room the place a teacher, Ivy Schamis, taught students in regards to the Holocaust.

an indication attached to a bulletin board examine: "we can by no means overlook." Two students died there.

within the school room of the English trainer Dara Hass, the place the most college students have been gunned down, there have been essays about Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager shot via the Taliban for going to college, and who has considering the fact that develop into a world advocate for schooling entry for girls and women.

The door of Room 1255, teacher Stacey Lippel's lecture room, changed into pushed open – like others to indicate that Cruz shot into it. placing on a wall interior became an indication reading: "No Bully Zone". The inventive writing assignment for the day became on the whiteboard: "the way to write the superb love letter."

And still placing on the wall of a 2nd-flooring hallway was a quote from James Dean: "Dream as if you'll reside continually, live as if you'll die these days."

In slain teacher Scott Beigel's geography school room, a laptop changed into nevertheless open on his desk. scholar assignments evaluating the tenets of Christianity and Islam remained, some graded, some not.

Prosecutors, who rested their case after the jury's tour, hope the visit will aid show that Cruz's moves have been bloodless, calculated, heinous and cruel; created a good possibility of dying to many people and "interfered with a executive characteristic" – all demanding elements below Florida's capital punishment legislations.

beneath Florida courtroom guidelines, neither the judge nor the attorneys had been allowed to speak to the jurors – and the jurors weren't allowed to speak with every different – once they retraced the course Cruz took on 14 February 2018, as he moved from ground to ground, firing down hallways and into classrooms.

earlier than the tour, the jurors had already viewed surveillance video of the shooting and photographs of its aftermath.

The building has been sealed and the Broward county faculty district plans to demolish it every time prosecutors approve. For now, it is a court docket show.

Cruz, now 23, pleaded guilty in October to 17 counts of first-diploma murder.

After jurors returned to the court docket on Thursday from the rare crime scene consult with, the moms of two victims testified that the bloodbath permanently solid a pall over now not best each Valentine's Day however other critical household celebrations.

Helena Ramsay, 17, died on her father's birthday. "That day will on no account be a party and can in no way be the identical for him," her mother, Anne Ramsay, talked about.

Hui Wang, whose 15-12 months-historical son Peter became killed, observed the taking pictures came about the day before lunar new year. A deliberate get together became canceled that 12 months and every 12 months when you consider that then. "this day of harmony became a day that hurts essentially the most," she spoke of.

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