Florida suspect's mom called 'enabler' of son's gun cache, bad behavior

Sheriff and chairperson, Bob Gualtieri, of Pinellas county, Fla., speaks during a state commission meeting as they investigate the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre and how Broward school district and others access threats, on Tuesday, July 10, 2018, in Sunrise, Fla. The commission heard Tuesday the suspect's late mother allowed him to buy a gun even though his mental health counselors opposed the idea and agreed that a diversion program for students who commit minor on-campus crimes played no part in the shooting. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Sheriff and chairperson, Bob Gualtieri, of Pinellas county, Fla., speaks during a state commission meeting as they investigate the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre and how Broward school district and others access threats, on Tuesday, July 10, 2018, in Sunrise, Fla. The commission heard Tuesday the suspect's late mother allowed him to buy a gun even though his mental health counselors opposed the idea and agreed that a diversion program for students who commit minor on-campus crimes played no part in the shooting. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

SUNRISE, Fla. -- Mental-health counselors told the mother of Florida school shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz she shouldn't let him buy guns, but she ignored their concerns and he began assembling an arsenal before her death last year, officials said Tuesday.

Lynda Cruz was "an enabler" who interfered with efforts to get her son treatment, Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, chairman of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission, told members.

About a year before the attack, Nikolas Cruz was 18 and living with his mother when he legally bought the AR-15 authorities say was used in the Feb. 14 shooting that killed 17 people. He bought other guns before and after her November death from pneumonia.

"If he wants to have a gun, he could have a gun," Gualtieri said Lynda Cruz told his counselors. Cruz's father died when he was young.

Gualtieri told members that school and mental-health counselors had at least 140 contacts with Nikolas Cruz over the years trying to get him help, but his mother frequently interfered. He did not go into specifics. Similar complaints were made about the mother of Adam Lanza, who killed 26 at a Connecticut elementary school in 2012 after killing her. Nancy Lanza bought guns for her 20-year-old son despite his severe emotional problems.

The commission is to discuss Cruz's mental treatment in a closed session Thursday because those records are protected by federal and state law.

Zachary Cruz, the suspect's younger brother, told The Miami Herald in May that Nikolas Cruz pointed a rifle at him and their mother in separate incidents, but they didn't call police either time.

School and government records obtained by The Associated Press and other media outlets shortly after the shooting show Nikolas Cruz was diagnosed as developmentally delayed at age 3 and had disciplinary problems dating to middle school. In February 2014, while in the eighth grade, Cruz was transferred to a school for children with emotional and behavioral problems. He stayed until the 10th grade, when he was transferred to Marjory Stoneman Douglas.

About a year before the attack, Cruz was kicked out of the school after he harassed other students, had outbursts, fought and had numerous other run-ins.

On Sept. 28, 2016, an investigator from the Florida Department of Children and Families visited Cruz and his mother after he posted video on Snapchat showing him cutting himself. The report showed he had written a racial epithet against blacks and a Nazi symbol on his book bag, which his mother had forced him to erase. The investigator said Cruz was suffering from depression and on medication and had told Lynda Cruz he planned to buy a gun, but she couldn't determine why.

Also, the commission agreed Tuesday that Cruz's 2013 participation in the Broward County school district's Promise Program played no part in the massacre. The program has been criticized for leniency and over questions of whether Cruz completed the program, particularly by conservatives.

But Gualtieri, a Republican, called the issue "a red herring."

"The Promise Program is irrelevant to Nikolas Cruz," he said. "It never in any way, shape, form would have affected his ability to buy that AR-15 and to buy the shotguns, to buy anything else, to possess."

A Section on 07/11/2018

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