The graphic testimony was difficult for victims’ family members sat in the gallery, with Alex’s grieving father seen covering his face and sobbing as he heard how his son died.ĭr Iouri Boiko, who carried out some of the other autopsies, detailed the horrific wounds suffered by Meadow Pollack, as she was shot seven times by Cruz while trying to hide in the alcove of a classroom on the third floor with Cara Loughran.Īs well as the autopsy photos, jurors also heard harrowing testimony from law enforcement officers who found the bodies of students and staff on the scene that day and were also shown graphic crime scene photos taken by crime scene investigators with the Broward County Sheriff’s Office. He would have been left paralysed had he survived, she said. One of the bullets entered Alex’s left chest, went through his lung and struck his spinal cord. The 14-year-old was one of the first to be killed in the massacre when Cruz shot through the window of his first-floor classroom, striking him with bullets while he was still sat at his desk. Jurors were shown graphic crime scene and autopsy photos of Cruz’s victims.īroward County Chief Medical Examiner Rebecca MacDougall, who performed autopsies on several of the victims, told jurors in distressing detail about the gunshot wounds sustained by Alex Schachter. Graphic details of victims’ wounds revealed In the aftermath of the massacre, the state raised the minimum age to legally purchase firearms from 18 to 21. He testified that he saw no red flags in his interactions with the then-18-year-old and Cruz’s firearms application was approved by Florida. When the store owner asked Cruz what he was going to do with it, he said Cruz told him he planned to “go shooting with my friends during the weekend”. Jurors also heard testimony from Michael Morrison, the owner of Sunrise Tactical Supply in Coral Springs, who sold Cruz the gun in February 2017 – one year before the massacre. He then left the black Smith & Wesson M&P 15 semi-automatic rifle on top of his tactical vest on the landing of the third-floor stairwell and fled the school.įive gun magazines containing 160 bullets were left inside the vest.Ĭruz also had a police ID card his late adoptive father Roger Cruz had been issued by a New York department. The AR-15-style rifle used by Cruz to murder 17 students and staff members was brought into the courtroom and shown to the jury.Ĭruz fired more than 100 bullets in just seven minutes as he stalked the three floors of the freshman building, jurors heard. Alaina Petty and Alyssa Alhadeff, both 14, also died in the classroom. In traumatic testimony, the survivors recounted seeing their friend Alex Schacter slumped over his desk after being fatally struck by bullets. The court also heard from students William Olson, Alex Dworet and Kheshava Manhapuram – who were all sat in the same English class that Mr McKenna had left when Cruz shot through the walls and door. Mr Feis took Mr McKenna away from the scene and ran towards the building in the direction of the shooting, where he became one of Cruz’s first victims. Mr McKenna ran out of the building and told school football coach Aaron Feis what had happened. Things are about to get bad,” Mr McKenna recalled. Cruz was holding his semi-automatic rifle. Several survivors of the shooting took the stand to relive their harrowing experiences that day, with one student recounting how Cruz warned him “things were about to get bad” moments before the massacre began.Ĭhristopher McKenna, a freshman student at the time, testified that he bumped into Cruz in the stairwell of the freshman building on his way to the restroom. Cruz warned student ‘things were about to get bad’
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