Emergency Hearing for Cruz for August 3rd-Updated with released records

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The judge has called for a Emergency Hearing for Cruz for August 3rd, 10 AM. Florida time. I assume this is to allow his lawyers a last chance to appeal the release of his medical records that Cruz didn't want made public.

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Lawyers for the Parkland school shooter want the judge handling his criminal case to block the release of a report based on his school records — a release authorized by another judge last week.

The Broward School Board commissioned the report in the aftermath of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. An independent consultant was hired to determine what school officials should have known ahead of time about the threat posed by Nikolas Cruz, who admits killing 17 and wounding 17 more on Feb. 14.

Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer is handling the criminal case; Cruz faces the death penalty if convicted. But the school district asked a civil court judge, Patti Englander Henning, to make the report public because it is not a product of the criminal investigation into Cruz’s actions.

That didn’t stop Cruz’s defense lawyers from asking Englander Henning to withhold the report from the public, while lawyers for the South Florida Sun Sentinel and other media outlets argued that it is a public record that should not be hidden from view.

The judge decided last week that most of it should be released. Portions that violate Cruz’s privacy rights were to be blacked out.

Now lawyers are set to appear Friday morning before Scherer. In court papers filed late Monday, Cruz’s criminal defense lawyers argue that he was not properly represented by civil counsel during the hearing before Englander Henning.

“The release of any portion of the report … will significantly impair the defendant’s right to a fair trial before an impartial jury in Broward County,” the defense team wrote.

While the school board appears willing to release the report, it is moving to block the release of video footage from outside the school during the shooting. An appeals court recently authorized that video’s release, but the school board wants the Florida Supreme Court to take up the case.

Scherer decided last week that the public should be allowed to see and hear extensive portions of the statement Cruz gave to investigators after his arrest.

The statement will not include the “substance” of his confession, but it could still contain compelling information. In May, prosecutors released three cellphone videos in which Cruz could be heard plotting the rampage.

Cruz’s lawyers have until the end of this week to decide whether to appeal the release of the confession.

ShadowedGoddess wrote:

While the school board appears willing to release the report, it is moving to block the release of video footage from outside the school during the shooting.

Wonder why. 

QuestionMark wrote:

ShadowedGoddess wrote:

While the school board appears willing to release the report, it is moving to block the release of video footage from outside the school during the shooting.

Wonder why. 

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]   Don't get my conspiracy senses started!    But in this case the possibilities are fucking endless. At this point I'd almost believe Bigfoot helped Cruz.

ShadowedGoddess wrote:

QuestionMark wrote:

ShadowedGoddess wrote:

While the school board appears willing to release the report, it is moving to block the release of video footage from outside the school during the shooting.

Wonder why. 

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]   Don't get my conspiracy senses started!    But in this case the possibilities are fucking endless. At this point I'd almost believe Bigfoot helped Cruz.

Well if I was to put my tinfoil hat on I'd say the video footage displays more incompetence on the part of either the school staff or the police and the administration wants to avoid further embarrassment by burying the evidence. 

Or they're just arbitrary dickheads. Makes as much sense as anything else.

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Nik's Emergency hearing just wrapped up. Judge Scherer denies one request, and from what I gathered would rule later today or possibly Monday on another issue brought up. Honestly I zoned out on some of it.

But Cruz's defense team looked none to pleased with how this went down.

He has another court date set for August 15th.

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A judge won’t stop the release of a Broward school district report that analyzes how its teachers and staff handled the troubled years of Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz.

Defense lawyers for Cruz on Friday asked the judge to stop release of the lengthy report, saying it was “one sided” and a “whitewash” designed to protect the school district for its mishandling of Cruz’s years as a student leading up to his February rampage at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High. They said it could taint a potential jury in the future.

“It’s a disservice to the public to put it out there,” special assistant public defender David Frankel told the judge. “It’s only to absolve the school board of its responsibility.”

But Broward Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer ruled Friday that the 70-plus page report has been largely redacted by another judge in civil court to protect Cruz’s private medical and school records.

“I do find that there is nothing in the redacted report that poses a threat to the administration of justice and the defendant’s right to a fair trial,” she said.

It was unclear Friday when the school board would release the report to the public. The report will also be made available to lawyers for victims and their families suing the school board.

Cruz is facing the death penalty for fatally shooting 17 students and staffers at the high school in February. The massacre — the worst campus shooting in Florida history — led to a wave of student activism for gun control and scrutiny on the police response before and after Cruz’s rampage.

Broward’s school board has also been left to grapple with tough questions about whether it did enough to protect fellow students from Cruz, who has a long history of fights, threats toward students and a bizarre fixation on weapons and Nazi imagery.

No trial date has been set for Cruz, 19. Since his arrest hours after the shooting, many of the court hearings have dealt with defense efforts to limit the release of prosecution evidence and records pertaining to Cruz’s background.

Also on Friday, Cruz’s defense lawyers asked Scherer to consider limiting disclosure of Cruz’s mental-health records obtained by subpoena by the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission, which is scheduled to meet again on Aug. 8 and 9.


Florida lawmakers created the commission in the wake of the shooting to probe lapses that led to the shooting, and what may have hampered the response to it. The judge said she will consider the issue.

In related news, one of the defendant’s top defense lawyers blasted the State Attorney’s Office after it emerged that a few of its staffers attended a potluck arranged by members of the grand jury that indicted Cruz. The grand jury met between January and June on a host of cases, and finished its service three weeks before the potluck.

Prosecutors said no state funds were used at the event. “After a grand jury has finished their term and they have been discharged from service, there is nothing inappropriate with former grand jurors inviting staff members from our office to a potluck picnic,” according to an e-mail from the State Attorney’s Office, which was first reported by Broward’s J.A.A.B. Blog.

Chief Assistant Public Defender Gordon Weekes said in an e-mail: “It is highly inappropriate for homicide attorneys who presented indictments before the Grand Jury to socialize with jury members. It’s shocking that the State Attorney’s Office would lack the professional judgement to recognize that socializing with jury members could potentially compromise the integrity of the Grand Jury’s important work.”

It was unclear, however, if the Broward public defender’s office would bring the matter to the court’s attention.







To potlock or not to potluck, that is the question..

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Here is the link to the Redacted PDF records that were released today. It has been basically "redacted" to Hell and back. Nothing really worth the time spent reading it.

ShadowedGoddess wrote:

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Here is the link to the Redacted PDF records that were released today. It has been basically "redacted" to Hell and back. Nothing really worth the time spent reading it.

Thanks for posting.

I don't know if they intended it to be but it's not really redacted. Highlight the black spots and if you click open something else that still allows you to see the page (open a different program/browser window and pull it out of the way so you can see what's behind it on the screen, but don't click back to the page with the .pdf), you can read it there. You can also copy and paste to a separate document for easier reading but the formatting is messed up so it's not much easier to read.

I'm in the process of trying to copy Nik's educational history and manually reformat it for easier reading. I've only done his prekindergarten year so far.

Quote :

Prekindergarten – Ages 3 through 5
2001 - 02 through 2003 - 04


The student was referred for evaluation in January 2002 at the age of three. Evaluation records indicate that he was referred by his mother subsequent to a prekindergarten screening because of concerns about his behavior and temper. He had recently been asked to leave a private prekindergarten program due to behaviors such as running, kicking, and biting. After an initial screening, the parent provided consent for evaluation January 2002. The initial evaluation focused on language, developmental, and behavioral concerns. In addition to formal evaluation instruments, input from the parent and the student’s current and previous prekindergarten teachers was obtained through interviews and written questionnaires.


The student was 3 years, 5 months old at the time of the evaluation. Results revealed delays in all developmental areas, with overall functioning “similar to a child who has just turned two years of age.” Significant delays in both expressive and receptive language were noted, and results suggested that the student was at-risk for attentional difficulties. Although the student’s teachers and mother reported a series of challenging behaviors, none were rated as significant on standardized measures, and it was stated that some of the behaviors “may be directly related to his overall functioning levels as well as his difficulty understanding language and expressing himself.”


Suggested goals for the student were related to vocabulary; the ability to answer simple questions; concept knowledge; use of prepositions, syntax, and sentence length; following verbal directions and complying with adult requests; attention to task; interactions with peers, individually and in small and large groups; independent toileting; and perceptual motor skills.


In April 2002 the eligibility committee convened with the parent in attendance and determined that the student was eligible for ESE services due to a developmental delay (DD). In Florida, the DD category is applicable only for children ages thre e though five. Students with this label must be reevaluated by their sixth birthday to determine continued eligibility.


At this same meeting the student’s initial IEP was developed. The IEP included a statement of the student’s present levels of performance that reflected the information provided in the evaluation report. The stated priority educational need was for the student to increase the “ability to understand and express himself and develop age appropriate independent functioning skills.” Annual goals and short - term objectives were developed to address the areas suggested in the evaluation report.


The IEP provided for placement in a full - time language - based ESE prekindergarten program at Country Hills E lementary School. In addition to the specialized educational program provided in the classroom, “close supervision during transitions about the school” and a harness on the bus were included on the IEP . The student started school on April 15, 2002.


In September 2002 the district requested parental consent to conduct additional assessment in the area of speech to address problems with articulation. The evaluation was completed in December and at a meeting in February 2003 the team determined that the student also met eligibility criteria for speech impairment (SI).


An annual review was held and a new IEP was developed. All but one short - term objective from the previous IEP had been met. Information provided in the present level statement revealed that the student continued to struggle in most areas. Academically, the IEP stated that his limited attention span made it difficult to participate in class and comprehend basic concepts. Social interaction was most challenging. He had begun to interact with classmates but required “maximum teacher assistance” an d engaged in parallel play most of the time , meaning he would play near other children, but did not interact with them. Aggression such as biting, pinching, scratching, and hair pulling were reported. In the area of communication, the student was able to repeat words in poems, stories, and songs; follow one - step instructions; and answer simple questions, but required maximum teacher prompts to do so.


The priority educational needs stated in the IEP were to increase participation in learning activities and the ability to express wants and needs and to improve peer interactions and comprehension of basic concepts. Annual goals and short - term objectives were developed to address each of these areas. The special education services and supports remained the same as the previous year – placement in a full - time language - based ESE prekindergarten program, close supervision during transitions about the school, and a harness on the school bus .


In August 2003 t he student changed schools, enrolling in the prekindergarten ESE program at Riverglades E.S. By this time his behavioral difficulties had become more pronounced. An email from a district Preschool ESE Program Specialist and antecedent - behavior - consequence observation forms from September 2003 indicate that technical assistance was provided to school staff to assist with positive behavior interventions. Recommendations included:

• Set aside an area in the classroom that includes the student’s favorite things and, after 8 to 10 minutes of classwork, praise him and al low him to go to “his place” for a specified amount of time (use a timer).
  
• Give “warnings” when the time limit is approached and reward him for leaving the area appropriately when the time is up.
  
• Use animal - themed stickers or other rewards, as this is a strong interest of his.
  
• Consider using the timer for work time to establish when he can go to his place, if needed.
  
• Consider use of a “transition object” when leaving his special area; teacher to use discretion .
  

The following month a parent conference was held to discuss the student’s aggression and animal fantasies. A plan was developed for the classroom teacher to send home activities to help with academic skills, and the parents were offered the services of a family counselor who would go into the home, which they accepted. As noted, the DD category under which the student was served only applies for children up to five years old. The student was turning six the following September, so a full evaluation was needed within the year. It was decided that a psychological evaluation, including social/ emotional assessment, would be conducted in the Spring . The goal was to wait as long as possible to allow the student more time to develop, and still have the evaluation completed and a new IEP in place for the start of kindergarten.


Consent for evaluation was obtained in January 20 0 4 and the evaluation was completed in May . In the interim, an IEP team meeting was held March 2004, as the student’s IEP annual review was due and an updated plan was needed. In June 20 04, once the evaluation was completed , the IEP team reconvened to review the results . They then develop ed an IEP that incorporated the new data and transitioned the student to kindergarten.


The student was five years, eight months old when the evaluation w as completed. The results indicated that his grasp of basic concepts was similar to other preschool students below four years of age . T he parents reported that problem behaviors in the home included “being a fussy eater, overly active, nail biting, and not interacting well with friends in the neighborhood.” Regarding his classroom behavior, the evaluator stated:


It must be noted that in particular, [the student] seems to identify as an animal. He often crawls on the floor or ground, pounces on another student, makes seemingly animal - like growling sounds and grimaces while holding his hands in a paw - like manner .... With high levels of reinforcement, the behaviors reduced , but his aggressive behaviors appeared to be unpredictable; thus, [positive behaviors] could not be constantly reinforced.


While slow but steady progress was reported in the student’s concept knowledge and kindergarten readiness skills, significant behavioral and social developmental problems continued. The following is an excerpt of summary information provided in the report to assist in planning for the student’s educational program:


[The student’s] behavioral observations, anecdotal records, and projective testing are reflective of a youngster who feels overly stressed and anxious. [He] can not organize himself to adapt to his misperceptions and expectations; thus he engages in fantasy as his means of coping with these feelings of stress. [The student] is also impulsive with no sense of boundary; thus, he acts out his fantasies, often explosively, in expressing his feelings of stress and anxiety. Transition times appear to be particularly threatening to him, thus [he] appears to react more aggressively. He presents as in need of predictability. He appears to be in need of much support and effort to keep him engaged and calm enough to shift from one activity to another without becoming stressed and physically aggressive.


At this meeting the student was dismissed from the DD program and determined to be eligible for services as a student with an emotional/behavioral disability (E/BD) . The psychologist also recommended that the team consider a referral for psychiatric evaluation to further investigate the need for additional medical intervention. Parent notes from a later date located within the student’s file indicate that the student saw a psychiatrist in July 2004 per the district’s recommendation.


The new IEP included a statement of the student’s present levels of performance that reflected the information provided in the evaluation report and input from the parents . Annual goals and short - term objectives were developed in the domains of curriculum and instruction, social/emotional behavior, independent functioning, and communication. They appropriately addressed the areas of concern identified in the evaluation.


The IEP transitioned the student to kindergarten and provided for separate class placement (i.e., fulltime ESE classroom) at Coral Springs Elementary School. Services included direct specialized instructional techniques in all academic areas daily; social skills instruction and behavior support daily; family counseling at the school two to three times per week; and speech therapy 60 minutes per week. In addition to the school year services, the IEP included extended school year (ESY) services to be provided during the intervening summer break to prevent regression.

EDIT: I had originally posted the elementary school years here but I decided to make a thread to post the rest of it instead and you can read all of it there.
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ShadowedGoddess wrote:

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Are these new photos? Seems like his hair is growing back.

sscc wrote:

ShadowedGoddess wrote:

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Here is the link to the Redacted PDF records that were released today. It has been basically "redacted" to Hell and back. Nothing really worth the time spent reading it.

Thanks for posting.

I don't know if they intended it to be but it's not really redacted. Highlight the black spots and if you click open something else that still allows you to see the page (open a different program/browser window and pull it out of the way so you can see what's behind it on the screen, but don't click back to the page with the .pdf), you can read it there. You can also copy and paste to a separate document for easier reading but the formatting is messed up so it's not much easier to read.

The person who compiled it probably used the redact tool that's available in Adobe Acrobat, but I could be wrong. If police keep using this, we could learn much more about future attacks too. If the Sandy Hook reports used this, we would have a lot of redacted info. It's a good thing this mistake allows for us to read the redacted text.

I also appreciate you telling others about this.

Halcyon666 wrote:

sscc wrote:

ShadowedGoddess wrote:

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Here is the link to the Redacted PDF records that were released today. It has been basically "redacted" to Hell and back. Nothing really worth the time spent reading it.

Thanks for posting.

I don't know if they intended it to be but it's not really redacted. Highlight the black spots and if you click open something else that still allows you to see the page (open a different program/browser window and pull it out of the way so you can see what's behind it on the screen, but don't click back to the page with the .pdf), you can read it there. You can also copy and paste to a separate document for easier reading but the formatting is messed up so it's not much easier to read.

The person who compiled it probably used the redact tool that's available in Adobe Acrobat, but I could be wrong. If police keep using this, we could learn much more about future attacks too. If the Sandy Hook reports used this, we would have a lot of redacted info. It's a good thing this mistake allows for us to read the redacted text.

I also appreciate you telling others about this.

Gotta love the through police work on display here. 

QuestionMark wrote:

Gotta love the through police work on display here. 

It's funny that they made such a big deal about how it was okay to release the report because of the redactions and then they ended up releasing it in a way that allowed us to read all of the confidential educational and medical information. I wonder what impact that is going to have on everything from a legal standpoint. Is it possible that Nikolas could sue the county? That would make things more interesting.

I've been looking at articles and I see that they've picked up on it.
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The funny thing is that without the redaction, it's a lot less one-sided than the defense lawyers felt that it was. It humanizes Nikolas and we get a lot more of the story. It explains exactly how the school system failed, despite the unredacted conclusions that these were only minor failures. I think that these mistakes by the school system in his last years may have been very significant. They managed to let him fall through the cracks completely when he was most at-risk and it was mainly because of unnecessarily complicated procedures that were not properly followed when it actually mattered.

Halcyon666 wrote:

The person who compiled it probably used the redact tool that's available in Adobe Acrobat, but I could be wrong. If police keep using this, we could learn much more about future attacks too. If the Sandy Hook reports used this, we would have a lot of redacted info. It's a good thing this mistake allows for us to read the redacted text.

I also appreciate you telling others about this.

No problem.

I wish the Sandy Hook files had been subject to a mistake like that but apparently, no such luck.

QuestionMark wrote:

Are these new photos? Seems like his hair is growing back.

Yes. These were taken from yesterdays court hearing. Apparently Nik's hair grows fast.

sscc wrote:

The funny thing is that without the redaction, it's a lot less one-sided than the defense lawyers felt that it was. It humanizes Nikolas and we get a lot more of the story. It explains exactly how the school system failed, despite the unredacted conclusions that these were only minor failures. I think that these mistakes by the school system in his last years may have been very significant. They managed to let him fall through the cracks completely when he was most at-risk and it was mainly because of unnecessarily complicated procedures that were not properly followed when it actually mattered.

This is EXACTLY what I was talking about!

As I said before his records would show just how many times he was clearly is need of help, clearly struggling and was still overlooked, pushed aside, etc. Basically what little they did for Cruz would kinda be like a Doctor putting a band-aid over a gunshot wound and sending you on your way.

There are people who would be able to see these things and feel some kind of sympathy for Cruz. Because there is no doubt that this kid NEEDED help, there is also no doubt that for some reason he didn't get it.

QuestionMark wrote:

Halcyon666 wrote:

sscc wrote:

ShadowedGoddess wrote:

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Here is the link to the Redacted PDF records that were released today. It has been basically "redacted" to Hell and back. Nothing really worth the time spent reading it.

Thanks for posting.

I don't know if they intended it to be but it's not really redacted. Highlight the black spots and if you click open something else that still allows you to see the page (open a different program/browser window and pull it out of the way so you can see what's behind it on the screen, but don't click back to the page with the .pdf), you can read it there. You can also copy and paste to a separate document for easier reading but the formatting is messed up so it's not much easier to read.

The person who compiled it probably used the redact tool that's available in Adobe Acrobat, but I could be wrong. If police keep using this, we could learn much more about future attacks too. If the Sandy Hook reports used this, we would have a lot of redacted info. It's a good thing this mistake allows for us to read the redacted text.

I also appreciate you telling others about this.

Gotta love the through police work on display here. 

True! But it works in our favor this time. Also [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] You are a saint!

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The Broward County School Board on Monday asked a judge to hold the South Florida Sun Sentinel and two of its reporters in contempt of court over the publication of a report about the Parkland shooter’s years within the school system.

The School Board alleges the newspaper intentionally published information it knew a judge had ordered to be redacted.

After a judge’s order, the school district publicly released the report Friday with nearly two-thirds of its content blacked out to protect 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz’s privacy rights. But the district used a method that failed: Anyone could copy and paste the blacked-out report into a Word document to make all the text visible.

Sun Sentinel reporters Brittany Wallman and Paula McMahon, acting on a Facebook tip from a reader at 7:30 p.m., discovered on deadline the concealed text could be viewed. The reporters quickly rewrote the story reflecting the entire report, providing the first detailed account about the school shooter’s years in the school system, what the district knew about him and what mistakes were made.

The court filing alleges the Sun Sentinel knew what information was supposed to remain confidential because it had attended court hearings about the release of the report and agreed that certain material could not legally be disclosed.

“They opted to report, publicly, information that this court had ordered to be redacted despite agreeing, on the record, that this information was protected by both Florida and federal law,” said the pleading, filed at 4:46 p.m. in Broward Circuit Court.

Sun Sentinel Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson said the events surrounding the mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas High, which left 17 dead on Feb. 14, are of “the utmost importance to our community” and it is the paper’s duty to provide that information to its readers.

The redactions removed specifics of the killer’s history in the school system — and in the process removed details of mistakes the district made in handling him.

“After consulting attorneys about the situation, and realizing the school district had made the full report public, we published a second story that gave more context to the report’s findings,” Anderson said.

The school board, in its filing, alleges that “regardless of how they obtained the unredacted version of the report” the Sun Sentinel and its reporters knew there were court orders in place to ensure that certain information was not publicly disclosed.

Lawyer Tom Julin, who is not involved in the case but has represented the Miami Herald and others in his four decades practicing media law, said the School Board’s claim had no merit.

“The problem is the School Board’s problem and not the Sun Sentinel’s,” Julin said. “The Sun Sentinel is entitled to publish the information that it lawfully obtained even if that information should have been redacted from the document that was released.

“It looks like the School Board just made a mistake and is trying to deal with its own mistake by asking that the Sun Sentinel be held in contempt,” he said. “But the School Board has absolutely no basis to make that request.”

School district officials couldn’t be reached for comment Monday evening despite emailed requests.

Contempt of court is punishable by a fine or imprisonment.

No hearing has yet been scheduled in the matter.





I knew this one was coming!  

ShadowedGoddess wrote:

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The Broward County School Board on Monday asked a judge to hold the South Florida Sun Sentinel and two of its reporters in contempt of court over the publication of a report about the Parkland shooter’s years within the school system.

Maybe instead the school board should be held in contempt of court for wasting the court's time and money with this filing.

QuestionMark wrote:

ShadowedGoddess wrote:

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The Broward County School Board on Monday asked a judge to hold the South Florida Sun Sentinel and two of its reporters in contempt of court over the publication of a report about the Parkland shooter’s years within the school system.

Maybe instead the school board should be held in contempt of court for wasting the court's time and money with this filing.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]  OR held accountable for their part in knowing Cruz was struggling and doing nothing to help.