Montini: Don’t execute Florida school shooter

EJ Montini: Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz admitted his guilt. But other reasons suggest he doesn't deserve the death penalty

EJ Montini
The Republic | azcentral.com
Admitted Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz

It is perfectly normal to want Nikolas Cruz dead.

But it would be wrong to kill him.

The 19-year-old admits he walked into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., armed with an AR-15 assault rifle and opened fire, killing 17 and injuring a number of others.

He has been charged with premeditated murder.

It’s an open and shut case in a state with the death penalty.

He planned it. He did it. He should be executed for it.

Reasons for not killing the killer

Except … a number of troubling facts have come to light.

Cruz was not unknown to authorities.

His troubles and violent rants and threats and tendencies didn’t go unnoticed.

As Howard Finkelstein, chief public defender in Broward County, put it, “When we let one of our children fall off the grid, when they are screaming for help in every way, do we have the right to kill them when we could have stopped it?”

Actually, yes. The citizens of Florida have that right.

They can execute Cruz if they choose to do so.

But should they?

Cruz displayed disturbing tendencies for some time before the shooting. People noticed and pointed it out to authorities. The Florida Department of Children and Families conducted an investigation and decided that the “final level of risk is low.” Classmates noted his social media rants.  The FBI was contacted at least once.

He exhibited 'every red flag'

As the public defender Howard Finkelstein said, “This kid exhibited every single known red flag, from cutting animals to having a cache of weapons to disruptive behavior to saying he wanted to be a school shooter. If this isn’t a person who should have gotten someone’s attention, I don’t know who is. This was a multi-system failure.”

There are always going to be such failures.

And with the easy access to firearms in our country those failures can be catastrophic, as in this case,leading to the loss of precious young people and brave educators.

Then again, those pushing for Cruz to be executed could say that the system fails a lot of young people who then don’t go out and get an AR-15 and shoot up a school.

Not every troubled kid kills

And it’s true.

But that may have to do more with our good luck than anything else.

We can do better when it comes to dealing with mental health concerns.

We can do better when it comes to dealing with firearms.

And while no one is responsible for the murder of those 17 innocent victims other than Nikolas Cruz, we could have done better with him, too.

Do the citizens of Florida have the right to seek the death penalty and, if Cruz is found guilty, to execute him?

Yes.

Should they?

No.

MORE BY MONTINI:

Trump gave mentally ill gun access

Florida school shooting can't match NRA money

Voucher vultures are circling your money