AndrewBlakeFort Lauderdale, FL – The brother of the Parkland school shooter is suing several Broward County officials claiming they tortured him during a recent stay in jail.
The lawsuit was announced shortly before Zachary Cruz, the brother of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter Nikolas Cruz, was scheduled to appear in court Thursday for allegedly violating his probation, according to CNN.
The lawsuit targets prosecutors, the judge and sheriff, CNN reported.
The lawsuit stated that the judge set a very high bail of $500,000 for Cruz based on his older brother’s crimes. The lawsuit stated that jail officials intimidated and harassed Cruz and deprived him of sleep and made him wear a restraint vest at all times.
The lawsuit contended, “The sleep deprivation tactics, including the use of intimidating and harassing behavior by guards, the use of a restraint vest 24 hours per day, and the use of 24-hour intense lighting, are procedures that amount to torture under the Geneva Convention, and are behaviors we do not permit soldiers to use in the battlefield.”
In March, Cruz was arrested on misdemeanor trespassing charge after he was warned to stay away from the high school shooting scene, but he showed up at the school anyway.
At the time, Zachary Cruz, 18, told the police it was his third visit to the school since his brother killed 17 people. Cruz told police he was on the school’s grounds to “reflect” and “soak it in,” according to CNN.
The younger Cruz was sentenced to six months’ probation and was ordered to wear a GPS monitor.
He was arrested again on Tuesday. The arrest warrant stated that Cruz violated his probation on Saturday by operating a SUV without a driver’s license and for showing up at another school that he was not enrolled in, CNN reported.
Cruz was seen 25 feet from a parking lot for Park Vista Community High School in Lake Worth, Florida.
Joseph Kimok, Cruz’s attorney on the trespassing charge, said his client was ordered not to go on any school grounds and said that going near a school should not be a violation of probation.