Parkland sentencing: Judge formally sentences shooter to life in prison

The father of 35-year-old Scott Beigel, a geography teacher and cross-country coach at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, said the "system failed."

"The fact that I have to share my world with you is disgusting," he said, addressing Cruz during his statement. "The fact that I have to breathe the same air you breathe is reprehensible."

He called Cruz a coward, among several expletives, and said he hopes for "prison justice."

"I have to learn to live with the pain that you caused to my entire family," he said. "You are the lowest form of pond scum, and I apologize to pond scum for equating you with them."

He said his son was kind, had character and cared for his fellow human beings -- "something you never did," he said to Cruz.

His wife, Linda Schulman, recalled how her son managed to save 31 students during the shooting.

She read the names of the 17 victims killed in the shooting, including her "irreplaceable son."

"These are the innocent lives that we will remember and celebrate forever," she said.

Jennifer Guttenberg said she wasn't planning to speak in court, but she changed her mind after comments made by Broward County Public Defender Gordon Weekes in court on Tuesday.

"Yesterday, the elected public defender said that nobody had to endure what this defense has endured," said Guttenberg, the mother of 14-year-old Jaime Guttenberg, who was killed in the shooting.

She went on to list some of the rules and restrictions the victims' families had to endure during the trial, including not wearing clothing related to their loved ones or have "major reactions or facial expressions" in response to what was said during the trial.

"And as a reminder, Mr. Weekes, and the rest of the defense attorneys, your client murdered our loved ones in cold blood. Hunted them down, shot them over and over until he knew he accomplished his goal," she said.

Jaime's father, Fred Guttenberg, who also had not planned to give another statement in court, said he and his wife have had to endure Father's Day and Mother's Day without their daughter.

"We've had to endure spending our time for birthdays at a cemetery," he said.

At the end of his statement, he said he wants to see Weekes resign "before the end of the day today."

Parkland shooting survivor Victoria Gonzalez gave a statement regarding her boyfriend, 17-year-old Joaquin Oliver, who was killed in the massacre.

She was wearing a yellow shirt with the words "Tu con balas, yo con bolas." It was the same shirt, she told Cruz, that Oliver was wearing "the night before you killed him."

The saying means, "You with bullets, I with balls," in Spanish.

"Crazy enough, he knew what was coming," she said of Oliver.

As a classmate of Cruz, she said that she was rooting for him.

"I felt like you needed someone or you needed something, and I could feel that," she said. "I felt how alone you might have felt, maybe."

Now, she said, she feels alone.

"I'm very isolated and I can't make friends and I can't build relationships because I'm looking over my shoulder, even emotionally," she said.

"I wish you had more love in your heart," she said.

April Schentrup wrote that she hoped the trial and verdict would provide "some level of accountability" for the murder of her daughter, 16-year-old Carmen Schentrup. But that was not the case, she wrote, in a statement read by Tamika Collins in court.

"Although one death sentence does not even come close to the 17 homicides and 17 attempted homicides he committed, I am still shocked at how members of this jury could decide a life sentence for someone whose life goal was to harm and kill others," she wrote.

She stated that the verdict sends the message to "potential mass shooters" that their lives might be spared.

"It is clear a few members of this jury value Carmen's life and the lives of 16 others less than the shooter's," she wrote. "It is also clear that they do not value the lives of future victims that will come about because of their decision."

Carmen's father, Philip Schentrup, remembered his "amazing," "funny" and "selfless" daughter in a statement read by Juan Vicente in court.

"Carmen was bursting forth from her cocoon," he wrote. "The only thing that could stop Carmen were bullets fired from the rifle of a pathetic and vile coward."

His daughter was failed by "every institution in our country," including the legal system, he wrote.

"There is no justice for Carmen, and the 16 other murdered victims," he wrote.