Parkland Survivor Now Owns the Name of the Shooter

Anthony Borges was the most seriously wounded survivor of the Parkland school shooting, a high school freshman shot five times in the abdomen, lungs, and legs in the 2018 massacre. Now, the 21-year-old has reached a civil settlement with shooter Nikolas Cruz, in which Cruz must obtain permission from Borges to do any type of interviews, reports the AP. Also as part of the lawsuit deal, Cruz, now 25, also had to agree to take part in studies of mass shooters, hand over any payment he might get his hands on as the beneficiary of a family member's insurance policy, and donate his body to science after he dies.

"What turns a person into Nikolas Cruz? Was it something that we can learn by studying his brain?" Borges' attorney, Alex Arreaza, said on Wednesday, per the Sun Sentinel. As for the lawsuit overall, Borges said on Thursday, per the AP: "We just wanted to shut him down so we never have to hear about him again." Although Florida already has laws on the books that keep prisoners from profiting from any materials related to their crimes, including writings and art, Arreaza says the concern is that Cruz, who's serving 34 consecutive life sentences for the mass shooting, would find a loophole or simply shelter the money he receives by funneling it to a relative or another person he knows.

The settlement was reached during a Zoom call earlier this month with Cruz and Arreaza. Borges' dad, Royer Borges, also took part. "I have mixed feelings when I see his face," Royer Borges says. "I don't feel rage. ... But I also thought, after what he took from my son, whatever he owns in this world, we should take it from him." Since the shooting, Anthony Borges has had a dozen-plus surgeries and suffers from regular pain. He spent two months in the hospital afterward, "narrowly avoiding becoming the 18th victim of the massacre," per the Daily Beast. But he tells the Sun Sentinel he's not out for revenge, or for using Cruz's name for his own gain. "I'm not with that mentality," he says. (More Nikolas Cruz stories.)