Therapists supported the use of violent video games by the teen who later killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
They also agreed that he should get a punching bag, and they did not oppose his having an airsoft gun.
Those are among the details that emerged in court Tuesday about strategies that therapists supposedly used to redirect Nikolas Cruz’s aggressive tendencies — outlets that lawyers argued actually inflamed, rather than reduced, his penchant for violence.
Counselors at Henderson Behavioral Health worked closely with the Parkland school shooter and his mother from many years but offered suggestions that, in hindsight, appear questionable given Cruz’s abusiveness and his obsession with weapons.
Mental health records are private. But David Brill, an attorney representing the father of one of the victims in the massacre, has hundreds of pages as part of the legal process in a wrongful death suit filed last year.
Brill briefly outlined some of Henderson’s approaches in court Tuesday and later, in an interview with the South Florida Sun Sentinel, elaborated on them for clarity.
— Teachers were concerned that Cruz routinely played inappropriate, violent video games, but Henderson mental health workers endorsed his playing the games as an outlet for his aggression and as an anger management tool when he was feeling upset or overwhelmed, Brill said.
— Henderson staff also had no qualms about his getting or using an airsoft gun, Brill said. “It was a big focus of his frustrations because he wanted one so badly,” the attorney said, noting that a Henderson counselor in 2014 spent at least 20 minutes watching Cruz target shoot with an airsoft gun.
— Henderson also did not object to Cruz’s enrolling in the high school’s JROTC program, which teaches marksmanship, Brill said.
— And a Henderson worker provided Cruz with a punching bag to release his anger when at home so he didn’t punch holes in the walls. He was known to batter his mother, once knocking out many of her teeth, a cousin told investigators after the massacre.
Brill called Cruz a “ticking time bomb” and argued that Henderson’s actions shortened the fuse.
“They’re not effectively treating the conditions. They’re in fact exacerbating, fueling them, contributing to them.”
Broward Circuit Court Judge Patti Englander Henning must decide whether Henderson — Broward’s largest community mental health provider — should remain a defendant in the suit filed by Andrew Pollack, the father of one of the dead children in the mass murder Feb. 14, 2018, at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. The judge’s ruling, which is expected in upcoming days, will have wider implications. Other families of the wounded and dead are also suing Henderson.
Fathers of four other dead children sat in the courtroom to hear the arguments, which largely centered on whether a mental health provider has a legal duty to warn others of a client’s potential for violence.
Henderson’s attorney, Joshua Walker of Orlando, cited extensive case law finding no such duty to warn others, particularly in mental health cases because it is not an exact science and psychiatrists do not have a crystal ball.
But it was the mention by Brill of the specifics of Henderson’s therapeutic approaches that shocked those in the courtroom, including the grieving fathers.
“I was absolutely outraged today,” said Ryan Petty, who lost his 14-year-old daughter, Alaina,, a freshman at the school. “Under what treatment regimen is encouraging somebody who clearly had violent tendencies to play violent video games nonstop? To get a punching bag? To join JROTC? … Under what treatment regimen is that the prescribed therapy? It seems to me they did the opposite of what they should have been doing.”
Petty is a member of a statewide commission set up after the massacre to investigate systemic failures, including mental health provisions. Over nine years, Cruz regularly received hundreds of hours of therapy sessions from Henderson Behavioral Health, the commission found.
The commission heard extensive testimony behind closed doors about Henderson’s interactions with Cruz, but Petty said the commission never learned of the measures cited in the court Tuesday.
“I was shocked to learn today about the treatments that were prescribed to Cruz, and I’m concerned that they didn’t come up in the closed-door sessions at the MSD Commission. I don’t know why, but I intend to find out,” he said.
Max Schachter, whose son, Alex, 14, died at Stoneman Douglas, said in an interview that the School Board should distance itself from Henderson, rather than continue to consult with the organization for children’s mental health needs.
“Henderson did nothing to stop the murderer’s thirst for guns and escalating violent behavior,” he said. “I have zero confidence that they are administering effective mental health treatment to all the thousands of other Broward County students in their care.”
In an interview after the court session, Walker said that records show a number of Brill’s allegations “were not accurate” but that he could not say more.
Henderson is not allowed, under judicial order, to discuss Cruz’s health services because of privacy laws.
“We disagree with a number of the allegations, including both the allegations themselves and the characterization of them, but we’re still not allowed to mention them, unfortunately,” Walker said.
Henderson CEO Steven Ronik also declined to comment.