Four and a half years after the Parkland, Florida, school massacre that left 17 dead, the perpetrator has been sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.
Judge Elizabeth Scherer read the verdict on Wednesday (local time) for 17 murders.
In mid-October, a jury ruled against the death penalty and in favor of life imprisonment for 24-year-old Nikolas Cruz.
Cruz was additionally sentenced to life imprisonment for each of the 17 wounded in the massacre he instigated.
The waiver of the death penalty against Cruz had already sparked outrage among the families of the victims in October.
Stricter gun laws demanded
During the two-day pre-sentence hearing, parents and other relatives of several of the victims expressed their pain and anger directly to Cruz.
"I hope that the pain for what you did to my family burns and traumatizes you every day," said Lori Alhadeff, whose 14-year-old daughter died in the massacre, according to National Public Radio (NPR). was killed.
The then 19-year-old Cruz opened fire on Valentine's Day 2018 with a semi-automatic rifle at students and teachers at his former school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
He killed 14 students and three school staff and injured 17 other people.
The Parkland attack was one of the deadliest school shootings in US history.
Arrested shortly after the crime, Cruz pleaded guilty to 17 counts of murder.
The Parkland school massacre had caused horror beyond the United States.
Shortly after the bloodbath, survivors of the attack launched a nationwide student movement calling for stricter gun ownership regulations.
A month after the massacre, hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated in the US capital Washington at the "March for Our Lives".
However, tightening of the gun law remained largely absent.