On the fourth day of Cruz’s sentencing trial, Wilford testified that he had gone to a nearby McDonald’s after the chaotic scene at the school to wait for his mother to pick him up. Cruz sat down with him at his desk and asked if he could get a ride – which Wilford declined.
Soon after the shooting, Cruise went to a Walmart and bought a drink at a subway there before heading to McDonald’s where Wilford was sitting inside.
“He just sat next to me,” Wilford, a freshman, said in his testimony. “I didn’t think much about it. I was nervous. I was just trying to get back home.”
As Wilford was on his way to visit his mother, Cruise asked for a ride.
“He was pushing it a lot, and I said no,” Wilford said. “I was just trying to go home, my sister wasn’t answering her phone, I was nervous, I was nervous. I was feeling bad about it too.”
Prosecutors on Thursday presented more witnesses on Cruz’s actions after the shooting, including managers of both Subway and McDonald’s. The police officer who arrested Cruz also testified.
Officers describe what they saw that day
Ending the first week of the sentencing trial for Cruz, prosecutor Mike Saitz called three law enforcement officers to the stand Friday to testify about what they did inside the school when he responded to the mass shooting. And who saw
Broward County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Richard van der Aems testified that when he arrived at the scene, he saw smoke and dust and a child dead on the ground.
He described checking and clearing classes, and said that he saw student Anthony Borges at the end of the hallway trying to say something and that “he kept trying to raise his hand so we could see he was alive. ”
The jurors were also shown pictures from van der Ames’ body camera, which shows the bodies they identified as Kara Loughran and Meadow Pollack, two of the students killed that day.
Detective David Alfins of the Coral Springs Police Department testified to how he saw a vest and a rifle land on the third floor near the body of Jaime Gutenberg.
“I checked his vital signs for breath and pulse, I couldn’t find any,” he said.
Gutenberg was 14 when he died. Jaime’s father Fred Gutenberg sits in the court gallery during Alphine’s testimony about his daughter.
The Elfins also recounted how the body of student Joaquin Oliver was closing the bathroom door and how he had to move his body to make sure no one was inside the bathroom. He also said that he saw student Peter Wang, another victim, who died, “falling to the ground.”
More photos of these victims were shown to the jury before the court retired for lunch.
Prosecutors have asked a panel of 12 jurors to sentence Cruz to death, while his defense lawyers have asked for life in prison without the possibility of parole.
CNN’s Sarah Weisfeld contributed to this report.