Parkland School Massacre Survivor Now Owns Shooter's Name
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — The most severely wounded survivor of the 2018 massacre at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School now owns shooter Nikolas Cruz’s name, and Cruz cannot give any interviews without his permission, under a settlement reached in a lawsuit.
Under his recent settlement with Anthony Borges, Cruz must also turn over any money he might receive as a beneficiary of a relative’s life insurance policy, participate in any scientific studies of mass shooters and donate his body to science after his death.
The agreement means that Cruz, 25, cannot benefit from or cooperate with any movies, TV shows, books or other media productions without Borges’ permission. Cruz is serving consecutive life sentences at an undisclosed prison for each of the 17 murders and 17 attempted murders he committed inside a three-story classroom building on Feb. 14, 2018.
“We just wanted to shut him down so we never have to hear about him again,” Borges’ attorney, Alex Arreaza, said Thursday.
Borges, now 21, was shot five times in the back and legs and collapsed in the middle of the third-floor hallway. Video shows that Cruz pointed his rifle at Borges as he lay on the floor, but unlike most of the other victims he walked past, did not shoot him a second time. Arreaza said he asked Cruz why he didn’t shoot Borges again, but he didn’t remember.
A promising soccer player before the shooting, Borges has undergone more than a dozen surgeries and still lives in pain. He received donations, a $1.25 million settlement from the Broward County school district and an undisclosed settlement from the FBI for their failures in preventing the shooting. Arreaza said it is difficult to say whether Borges has received enough money to cover