Nikolas Cruz, the now infamous shooter behind February’s Parkland school massacre, filmed his disturbing plans to attack his former school in footage released by Florida prosecutors Wednesday.
Parkland, Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz recorded a trio of chilling cell phone videos sometime before the massacre, detailing the bloodshed he was about to unleash.
“My name is Nik and I’m going to be the next school shooter of 2018,” Cruz says calmly in one of the undated videos, released Wednesday by the Broward State Attorney’s Office. “My goal is at least 20 people with an AR-15. … Location is [Marjory] Stoneman Douglas [High School] in Parkland, Florida.”
“You’re all going to die,” he added, mimicking the sounds of gunshots.
Armed with that AR-15-style assault rifle, Cruz stormed into his former high school on Valentine’s Day and carved a path of carnage through the halls, killing 17 students and staff, and wounding another 17.
He evaded cops for about an hour after the spree, but was eventually nabbed and has confessed to the attack.
His cell phone was confiscated during the arrest, and the clips it contained made public on Wednesday.
As the prosecutor’s office assembles its case against the 19-year-old mass murderer, the disturbing videos may help confirm a crucial element: premeditation.
“Here’s the plan. I’m going to take Uber in the afternoon before 2:40 p.m.,” Cruz rambles in one clip, apparently seated on a bench. “From there, I’ll go onto the school campus, walk up the stairs, load my bags, and get my AR and shooting people at the main courtyard and people will die.”
Cruz indeed arrived at the school in an Uber, and opened fire just after 2:20 p.m.
“It shows premeditation,” Peggy Brill, former head of the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office, told The Miami Herald. “It wasn’t a spur of the moment decision to shoot.” Cruz faces 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder in a case that gripped the nation and gave renewed fire to the gun control debate. Cruz’s wording in another clip seems to suggest it may have been filmed the day of the massacre.
“Today is the day, the day it all begins,” he said. “All the kids in the school will run in fear and hide. From the wrath of my power, they will know who I am.”
Cruz’s haunting words paint a portrait of a rage-filled teen lashing out after a life of ”seclusion and solitude.”
“I hate everyone and everything,” he said. “With the power of my AR, you will all know who I am.”
Cruz ended the clip by proclaiming his love for a woman he identified only by her first name — and seemingly indicating that he didn’t expect to survive the rampage.
“My love for you, Angie, will never go away,” he said. “I hope to see you in the afterlife.”
