What Created This Monster’: Parkland School Shooter Gives Brain to Science

a Florida Mass school shooter who is spending the rest of his life in prison made a stunning agreement in a civil settlement with one of his victims on Valentine's Day of 2018 the gunman used an assault rifle to violently gun down 17 students and staff members and injured another 17 people at marjor Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida the shooting marked one of the deadliest Mass school shootings in US history and seeing the children just streaming out of the school in tears frightened terrified parents just running up and down the street trying to figure out if their child is okay I mean it was gut-wrenching to watch now six years after the tragic and horrific shooting the killer had reached what some refer to as a unique civil settlement with one of the surviving victims Anthony Borges was just 15 years old and a rising Soccer Star when he barricaded a door with his body to keep the shooter from entering the classroom where he was with other students he suffered multiple gunshot wounds after being shot in his legs and torso bores was one of the most severely wounded survivor of the 2018 Massacre and had to endure more than a dozen surgeries on his road to recovery last month bores reached a stunning civil settlement with the mass killer and in the unique settlement the shooter agreed to donate his brain to science this is definitely a unique settlement and I think it's a good idea when we think about for instance Aaron Hernandez who was uh played for the New England Patriot and uh ended up being convicted of murder and when they studied his brain afterwards because he ended up sadly committing suicide in in prison they studied his brain and found that he had CTE the concussion the repeated concussions that he sustained from playing football from when he was in the Peewee leagues or whatever in in in high school in college and then of course in the NFL the horrors that he perpetrated on that day if we could research his brain and understand what may have led to these behaviors was it maybe substance abuse by his mother while she was pregnant with him was it a matter of nature versus nurture is it something that was a cognitive defect in some ways right or was this something that was a result of childhood trauma neglect the only way we can answer that question conclusively is to look at his brain and understand if there are any diseases or anything else that may have impacted it and with that information we can then move forward and try to ensure that this doesn't happen again at least as a result of some biological reason to the extent it's possible and that wasn't the only part of the agreement as bores also now owns the shooter's name and the shooter can't give any television or print interviews without his permission as attorney Melba Pearson explains the move isn't out of the ordinary and prevents the killer from making making any type of profits off his own victims it's not out of the ordinary because we don't want to have a situation where the defendant is profiting off of his crime I think one of the ways that people will easily think about it is OJ Simpson when he wrote the book If I had done it so basically now you know the the Goldman family and the Brown family had to you know either hear or see interviews of him on the Press circuit advertising this new book and why everybody should read it and talking about the most painful day of these two families lives in a very Cavalier Manner and making money off of it right so that's not justice so it is not unusual especially in recent years to see more of these types of settlements that include giving up the the the rights to uh to your name and your ability to make money and then the flip side of it I'm not surprised that the defendant agreed to this because again it's about civil liability and the Judgment that might be levied against him right if he knows that it's going to be some exorbitant amount that neither he or his family can pay he may be thinking that rather than have a situation where if there's an inheritance or some other source of lotto winning some other source of winfall of money if there is that settlement out there and he didn't agree to give giving up the rights to his name then the victims the survivors the plaintiffs in this case can go ahead and take all of that money so rather than bind himself in his family long term it was just probably much easier and more logical to give up the rights to his name and that way he can't publish anything he's not going to get any more Fame as a result of this horrible incident and the family can be assured that he won't be able to do so because he has to get permission from the family in order to be able to publish or do anything that would result in him getting money for it the agreement was discussed over a zoom meeting with borges's Father attorney and the shooter however Anthony bores reportedly didn't feel comfortable joining the zoom discussion as he still suffers from PTSD borges's attorney reportedly said the killer looked at borges's father when the settlement was done and asked if he could apologize as the attorney also noted the convicted killer appeared cold and weird acting as if they had been in a car accident together I can see why the victim decided not to be present in the hearing because it can be very traumatizing to encounter the person that hurt you in that way that terrified you and terrorized you in that way and so the apology didn't surprise me because of the fact that he had apologized in court proceedings before and it always kind of came off weird but again you have to look at the psychological profile of who he is I mean somebody who is in their somebody who is a warm caring and feeling person is not going to co out and shoot 34 people end of story so any apology that's going to come from him is not going to come from a place of warmth and and true repentance or remorse it's like well I was told I'm supposed to do this because it's going to uh benefit my case because obviously you want to show some remorse that's something that judges look favorably upon Etc so he's going through the motions but he doesn't truly feel sorry because he likely doesn't have that emotion he's not capable of feeling that so borges's settlement also assigns him $430,000 that the Killer is expected to receive from a relative's life insurance policy Pearson explains it's not surprising the shooter came to the terms of the settlement because if the civil case would have went to trial he could have been paying way more to his victims I think that he probably saw the writing on the wall because the reality is if he went to trial with this the jury was going to come back with a ridiculous settlement I mean easily you know hundred billion dollars more what you know it's going to be an astronomical amount that he knows he and his family can't pay so he knows the reality and a settlement would be the best outcome for him as well as for the victim so that he does not have to relive everything that he went through day after day for a series of of weeks so I I think it was a practical decision I don't think it was one again made from some place of you know warmth or anything like that but I think there was the cold calculus of we can't afford to roll the dice and get a judgment that's exorbitant so let's take the Bird in Hand and agree to what's being presented here and I'm sure there was some negotiation back and forth in terms of the numbers and and you know the different aspects but you know I I think that was the practical decision for him and despite the seemingly agreeable gesture the settlement doesn't necessarily Equal justice as several survivors still reel from the pain and tragic aftermath of the deadly shooting and the Killer's actions since I mean what is Justice in this case right I mean the the legal system can only provide so much closure at the end of the day you're never going to get your loved one back you're never going to be able to get back that innocence you had for Valentine's Day of 2018 your neb are going to be able to uh play sports maybe the way you used to or even move through life the way you used to I you know have been in communication with other uh Parkland survivors and you know some of them still can't sleep at night by themselves they they have night terrors and and all sorts of horrible aftermath from the PTSD of what they went through so yeah Justice in terms of he's serving life in prison he can't make money off of the horrors that he committed yes that's justice but is that complete closure no no it's not I think that this is going to be one of the Hallmark cases in terms of how to settle in a mass school shooting or a mass shooting event and I think that it's going to provide more clarity for other current victims and future victims of the these types of horrible instances as to how they could move forward within the legal system to not only get the closure maybe on the criminal side but also get closure CI civy for the damages and the pain that they had to endure and a previous settlement the Broward County Public School District paid 26 million to the victims of the Parkland school shooting 1.25 million of that settlement also went to Anthony bores as well as an undisclosed settlement from the FBI bores and the other school shooting survivors also have pending lawsuits against the former school resource officer Scott Peterson and the Broward County Sheriff's Office but at this time no trial date has been set reporting for Law and crime I'm Elizabeth Milner