Donations from a Killer

Jackie Phillips, Junior Writer

17 high school students killed, 14 others wounded, 5 of the 14 facing life threatening injuries. These were the result of ruthless mass murderer Nikolas Cruz, the shooter of Stoneman Douglas High School.

Cruz has been charged with the murder of 17 people from his Valentines Day massacre and recently it has been reported that the 19 year old is said to potentially inherit a total of $800,000 from his late mother’s estate. However, it has been reported that Cruz told his legal team that he doesn’t want to see a penny of the money.

Melissa McNeill, his lawyer, has told the courts that Cruz wants any money he is set to receive to be donated to the victims of the masacre and their families so that they can pick an organization to help heal the community and help with education.

Money donated to the families isn’t going to help them heal, nobody wants money from their child’s killer, they want that person prosecuted.

Not to mention the fact that this could just be an attempt to avoid the death penalty. His attorneys have already stated that Cruz would plead guilty to the crime if he received consecutive life sentences instead of the death penalty.

His sudden “sympathy” is fake. The sadistic 19 year old received word that a fanbase has been made for him and he smiled, learning that there are people out there who support his actions. It’s almost ironic that a group of teenagers worship a boy who brutally murdered teenagers.

The idea that he wants to donate the money to the victims seems vile, it’s as if he’s trying to throw his actions back into their faces. The fact that he had to say the money was to go to the victims makes no sense, he shouldn’t be able to see a cent of that money, it should’ve gone to the community regardless of what he wanted.

What had to go through his head in order for him to think that offering his money to the victims was okay, how is that supposed to help? Your money isn’t going to make up for the loss of a child, and it isn’t going to help with the trauma that those students are going to face for the rest of their lives.

Money will never help somebody mourn, it won’t help them deal with the loss of a child. Nikolas Cruz took away these peoples’ children, and he thinks that he can just fill that hole with dollar bills. That’s not how dealing with the loss of a loved one works, ever.