WATCH LIVE: Parkland school shooting’s grieving families to continue reading victim statements
The prosecution team that is seeking the death penalty for the Parkland school shooter called two grieving parents to read their victim statement in Broward County court on Tuesday in Fort Lauderdale.
Lori Alhadeff and Dr. Ilan Marc Alhadeff said they will always miss their 14-year-old daughter, Alyssa Alhadeff, one of the 17 victims of the massacre on Feb. 14, 2018, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
“This is not normal for young boys growing up. They should not know of such sorrow, such loss, and tragedy,” Dr. Alhadeff said about Alyssa’s brother’s grief.
He later added from the stand: “A piece of my heart was not just cut out, it was ripped off my chest … I burn like a darn inferno … Unfortunately, I have to live my life with anger.”
Alyssa’s grandmother Teresa Robinovitz also read a statement. She said her murder shattered hearts and her absence during family celebrations.
Before the victim statements, Broward Sheriff’s Office crime laboratory manager Jorge “George” Bello held up the AR-15 the shooter used.
Bello, the 64th witness during the penalty phase, said he tested Nikolas Cruz’s Smith & Wesson rifle in the lab and the mix of .223 and 5.56 ammunition that Cruz used at the school’s 1200 building.
“The 5.56 has more powder and so the velocity of the projectile itself leaving the barrel is higher … If a .223 is coming out of the weapon, typically is around 3,000 feet per second. If a 5.56 is coming out of it, it can range but is somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,200 feet per second to 4,000 feet per second … Something like a 9mm handgun is going to have a velocity somewhere around 1,000 to 1,500 feet per second.”
Bello said Cruz used ammunition by four different manufacturers: Lake City, Eldorado, Federal Cartridge, and Remmington.
Jorge “George” Bello testifies on Tuesday in Broward County court in Fort Lauderdale about the evidence of the Parkland school shooting that he examined.
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