The Latest: Florida shooting suspect given threat assessment

SUNRISE, Fla. – The Latest on a commission investigating the February massacre at a Florida high school (all times local):

2:10 p.m.

Officials did one threat assessment of the suspect in February’s massacre at a Florida high school before the shootings.

The chairman of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission told members Tuesday that Broward County school officials did a high-level assessment of Nikolas Cruz in September 2016. Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said Cruz’s behaviour and a note he wrote saying “kill” led to the assessment. He did not give its conclusion.

Mary Claire Mucenic, who oversees the program, told the commission the district’s 16-year-old program has been successful. Commissioner Max Schachter told Mucenic he would not consider the program a success given that his son and 16 others were killed by the 19-year-old Cruz.

The commission brings together law enforcement, education and mental health officials along with legislators and the parents of student victims. It will prepare a report by Jan. 1.

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11 a.m.

The commission investigating the Florida high school massacre agreed that a diversion program for students who commit minor on-campus crimes played no part in the February shooting.

The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission learned that the 19-year-old suspect Nikolas Cruz was referred to the Promise Program in 2013 as an eighth grader after he broke a handle on a bathroom faucet. There are questions over whether Cruz completed the three days he was assigned to the program, but the commission’s chairman called the issue “a red herring.”

Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said even if Cruz had been charged criminally, he would have, at worst, been given a short sentence of community service. Cruz is charged with killing 17 at the school on Feb. 14.

The commission brings together law enforcement, education and mental health officials along with legislators and the parents of student victims. It will prepare a report by Jan. 1.

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10 a.m.

A commission investigating the Florida high school massacre learned that the suspect’s late mother allowed him to buy a gun even though his mental health counsellors opposed the idea.

The chairman of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission told members Tuesday that Lynda Cruz was “an enabler” who interfered with efforts to get her son Nikolas treatment.

Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said Lynda Cruz told counsellors, “If he wants to have a gun, he could have a gun.” Lynda Cruz died in November. Investigators say her 19-year-old son killed 17 at Stoneman Douglas three months later.

The commission brings together law enforcement, education and mental health officials along with legislators and the parents of student victims. It will prepare a report by Jan. 1.