Bowman County police have released today a copy of the transcript between Parkland, Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz and Detective John Curcio. The interview was recorded at the Boward County sheriff’s office.
The heavily redacted transcript offers a chilling account of Cruz’s mental state following the shooting, which left 17 students and faculty members dead, and injured 16 others.
He later spoke about voices he began hearing after losing his parents. Cruz’s father passed around 2004 and his mother died after losing a battle with pneumonia last November.
After Detective Curzio had left the room to fetch the water, Cruz began to scream, “Kill me. Just f**king kill me. F**k.”
Cruz then told authorities that the voices continuously told him to do things like cutting and killing himself, or buying weapons, including the AR-15 used to carry out the shooting. He expressed that the voices talked to him more at nighttime, Local 10 News reported.
When asked to explain what the evil voices told him to do, Cruz replied "Burn. Kill. Destroy."
There is no excuse for the atrocities that Nikolas Cruz committed on February 14th. But the fact that he and his family reached out multiple times to get him help & the school district did nothing is extremely troubling. This could’ve been prevented. 17 lives lost.
— brit 🌹 (@britmascucchini) August 6, 2018
"I have someone in my head who I can talk to about it… to have somebody… because I have no one," he explained.
The suspect confessed to using Xanax and marijuana to make the voices go away. He also tried to kill himself by overdosing on Ibuprofin two months before and alcohol several years back.
Cruz also insinuated that his mother and brother Zack Cruz constantly abused him and called him crazy, worthless, and stupid. "I don't know if he cares about me or not… I feel like the voice cares more about me than my brother," he revealed.
However, his brother offered his own account while attempting to reach out to him on social media, just before the massacre took place.
"I know you probably felt like you had nobody but I care about you. [I] literally would pull my heart out for you. I know I make it seem like I didn't care about you at all. I know I made it seem like when we were growing up that I hated you… but truth is… I didn't want to look weak. I love you with all my heart," his brother commented.
Cruz had also reportedly been spotted doing target practice with a red Trump Make America Great Again (MAGA) cap on his head, CNN notes.
Hey idiot. It’s absolutely real. And here’s a video of his doing target practice with his MAGA hat on. https://t.co/a8s9kv4Rzx
— Nick Peterson (@CaptPeteRider) August 3, 2018
Xanax is a Schedule IV controlled substance in the United States and is widely known to cause paradoxical reactions such as aggression, mania, hyperactivity, rage, and hostile behavior. The revelation has been linked to circumstances surrounding similar attacks.
The Link Between Violent Behavior and Psychotropic Drugs
Nikolas Cruz’s testimony offers another bleak window into the dark history of prescription drugs, many which have caused relatively benign people to commit serious offenses. While the gun debate remains hot, others are raising the issue of psychotropic drugs to the forefront.
The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) extensively researches abuses in the medical field and had documented 36 cases where Xanax and other psychotropic drugs have been made public.
31 year-old Florida State University student Myron May wounded three students in the school library before officers returned fire, killing him. Police found a half-empty bottle of Hydroxyzine in his apartment and had been prescribed Vyvanse and Seroquel before the shooting took place.
CCHR also issued a report detailing the connection between psychotropic prescriptions and violent activity. The report, titled, “The Link Between Psychiatric Drugs and Violence”, offers an extensive list of case studies on pharmacological-induced violent behavior, including school shootings.
“Despite 22 international drug regulatory warnings on psychiatric drugs citing effects of mania, hostility, violence and even homicidal ideation, and dozens of high profile shootings/killings tied to psychiatric drug use, there has yet to be a federal investigation on the link between psychiatric drugs and acts of senseless violence,” the report asserts.
The report also mentions that, “[between] 2004 and 2012, there have been 14,773 reports to the U.S. FDA’s MedWatch system on psychiatric drugs causing violent side effects including: 1,531 cases of homicidal ideation/homicide, 3,287 cases of mania & 8,219 cases of aggression.”
Following the Parkland massacre, the organization issued a public statement urging federal authorities to investigate which prescriptions Cruz had been taking and to highlight that many like him had “undergone ‘behavioral health’ treatment which did nothing to prevent the murderous outcome,” it stated.
New York-based psychologist Dr. David Kirschner argued that, throughout his career, “[most] of the young murderers I have personally examined had…been in ‘treatment’ and were using prescribed stimulant/amphetamine type drugs before and during the killing events. These medications did not prevent but instead contributed to the violence […]”
19 year-old Cruz has been charged with 34 counts of murder and attempted murder. Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer was forced to give him a not guilty plea after Cruz refused to speak during his court case.
