Parkland high school shooting

On February 14, 2018, 19-year-old Nikolas Jacob Cruz walked into his former school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida, and fatally shot seventeen people including fourteen students and three teachers, while wounding another 17. Cruz fled the scene on foot by blending in with the students and was arrested without incident approximately one hour and twenty minutes later in nearby Coral Springs. Police and prosecutors investigated "a pattern of disciplinary issues and unnerving behavior". The incident is the deadliest mass shooting at a high school in US history, surpassing the 1999 Columbine High School massacre.

Students at Parkland founded Never Again MSD, an advocacy group that lobbies for gun control. On March 9, Governor Rick Scott signed a bill that implemented new restrictions to Florida's gun laws and also allowed for the arming of teachers who were properly trained and the hiring of more school resource officers.

The Broward County Sheriff's Office received widespread criticism for its handling of the police response, both for not following up on multiple warnings about Cruz despite a lengthy record of threatening behavior and for staying outside the school instead of immediately confronting him. This led to the resignations of several police officers who responded to the scene, and the removal of Sheriff Scott Israel. A commission appointed by then-governor Scott to investigate the shooting condemned the police inaction and urged school districts across the state to adopt greater measures of security.

On October 20, 2021, Cruz pleaded guilty to all charges and apologized for his crimes. The prosecution sought the death penalty, and a four-month death penalty trial was expected to commence in January 2022. After suffering numerous delays, in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the trial commenced on July 18, 2022. On October 13, 2022, a jury unanimously agreed that Cruz was eligible for the death penalty, but deadlocked on whether it should be imposed, resulting in a recommendation to sentence him to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. On November 2, 2022, Cruz was sentenced to life without parole, in accordance with a Florida law requiring the court not to depart from the jury's recommendation. The unanimity required to impose the death penalty has since been overturned by a bill signed by Governor Ron DeSantis, partly as a result of Cruz's sentencing.