AndrewBlakeParkland, FL – The brother of the Florida school shooter was arrested while riding his skateboard at Marjory Douglas High School on Monday afternoon.
A Broward County sheriff’s report said Zachary Cruz, 18, told the arresting deputy that he was there to “reflect on the school shooting and to soak it in,” CBS News reported.
However, school officials and the Broward County Sheriff’s Office said Zachary Cruz had been notified that he was banned from the Parkland high school campus where his brother murdered 17 students and faculty, and wounded another 16, on Valentine’s Day.
The report said that the younger Cruz brother had “surpassed all locked doors and gates and proceeded to ride his skateboard through school grounds.”
He was caught on security cameras riding his skateboard on school grounds at about 4:30 p.m. on March 19, The Washington Post reported.
Two days after his older brother went on a rampage at his former high school, Zachary Cruz told Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputies that he and his friends had bullied his older brother, and he regretted it, The New York Times reported.
The deputies’ report said “Zachary stated that he does feel somewhat responsible and guilty about the incident and that he could have possibly prevented this,” according to the New York Times.
He also told deputies he was upset about media coverage of the shootings and that he felt that “someone was trying to get me.”
Zachary Cruz was charged with trespassing at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. He paid a bond of $25, but remained in custody at the same jail where his brother was being held.
Nikolas Cruz has been charged with 17 counts of first-degree murder after his Feb. 14 shooting rampage. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Nikolas Cruz, according to CNN.
Zachary and Nikolas Cruz were both adopted, and their adoptive mother died in November of 2017. They are not biologically related.
Zachary Cruz has lived with a guardian since their mother died, The New York Times reported.
He was committed to a mental hospital in Palm Beach for a psychiatric evaluation a couple days after his brother’s shooting spree in February, but later released, according to the Daily Mail.