FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida judge has ruled that a local school district had no responsibility to warn students and faculty at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School of the danger posed by a former student who would later be accused of a mass shooting that killed 17 people.
Broward Circuit Judge Patti Englander Henning said Monday that the Broward County school district cannot be held liable for failing to predict actions that were beyond its control, the South Florida SunSentinel reported.
Nikolas Cruz awaits trial on multiple murder charges and faces the death penalty if convicted. He’s also accused of wounding 17 people with an AR-15 assault-style rifle in the attack at the Parkland school on Feb. 14, 2018.
Families of the victims have sued Cruz, who was 19 at the time, as well as the school district, the Broward Sheriff’s Office and on-duty deputies who failed to stop the massacre.
“The District had no control over Cruz,” the judge ruled. “They did not have custody over him. He was not a student in the system and had not been for over a year. In fact, he was refused access to the campus once he left school. Nor did the district have pre-knowledge of a definitive threat by Cruz.”
It is another loss for the families trying to hold officials accountable for failing to prevent the mass shooting.
The Florida Supreme Court ruled in September that for insurance purposes, the district can treat the shooting as a single incident, capping liability at a total of $300,000 to be split among all the victims who have filed suit.
And in October, Englander Henning ruled that the victims of the shooting and their families will have to turn over some records of their mental health treatment since the tragedy.
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