A Florida judge ordered the brother of suspected high school shooter Nikolas Cruz to be held on $500,000 bail for a trespassing charge after prosecutors on Tuesday said he had visited the campus three times since the Feb. 14 massacre.
Zachary Cruz, 18, told deputies he went to the campus of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, to “reflect on the school shooting and to soak it in,” according to the arrest report.
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Also on Tuesday, the local sheriff’s department asked that a judge invoke part of a new Florida gun law passed earlier this month in reaction to the mass shootings to keep Zachary Cruz from having a firearm.
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The Broward Sheriff’s Office said it is using the “red flag” or “risk assessment” portion of the measure signed into law March 9.
If granted, it would place a protection order on Zachary Cruz that would prohibit him from possessing or buying a firearm for a term determined by the court.
During Cruz’s court appearance on Tuesday for trespassing, a Broward County prosecutor said school officials had told him to stay away from the campus, where his brother killed 17 people last month.
“Weeks after his brother murdered, injured and terrorized the school, he is there with no legitimate purpose,” Assistant State Attorney Sarahnell Murphy said of Zachary Cruz.
Murphy said Cruz currently lived with a guardian in a nearby county but gave a false address to police.
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The brothers lived with a Florida neighbor, Rocxanne Deschamps, after their mother’s death in November.
At a news conference in New York City on Tuesday, Deschamps told of her attempts to warn police that Nikolas Cruz had a history of violence and had purchased a gun. She said she called 911 three times to tell police he had punched holes in her wall and may have been planning to bury a gun in the backyard.
“I was very concerned that the gun which he had purchased might be brought into my house or that he might get the gun and use is to harm himself and others,” Deschamps read from a prepared statement.
“Law enforcement said nothing could be done,” she said, wiping away tears.
She said she begged Nikolas to see a doctor because “he was very depressed” after his mother’s death, but he refused to take medication.
In the Florida courtroom, Murphy said Zachary Cruz had visited his brother in jail, “where he has been heard and observed discussing how popular his brother is now.”
A defense lawyer for Zachary Cruz said he was not dangerous.
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“He is being held because of who he is related to, not because of what he did,” attorney Joseph Kimok said.
Judge Kim Theresa Mollica ordered Cruz to be fitted with an ankle monitor should he post bail and told him to stay at least a mile away from the high school in Parkland.
She instructed him not to have any contact with his brother or anyone at the school.
The Broward Sheriff’s Office, which was criticized for its performance in the school shooting, on Tuesday detailed recent incidents at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, including the arrest of a 10th-grader on a misdemeanor charge of posting threatening images on social media. The unnamed student posted on Snapchat a photo of a gun in his waistband and another image of bullets, officials said.
Two other students were arrested for bringing knives in separate incidents to the school, the sheriff’s office said.
The sheriff’s office also said it was suspending with pay a deputy found asleep in a patrol car shortly after Zachary Cruz was arrested on Monday.