Who is Ivy Schamis? Former Parkland school teacher recalls moment Nikolas Cruz murdered two of her students

FORT LAUDERDALE, FLORIDA: Nikolas Cruz's trial has entered its third day. A jury is set to determine if the confessed Parkland school shooter will be sentenced to death. Opening arguments in the penalty phase of Cruz's trial began on Monday, July 18. The trial is expected to take several months, at the end of which the jury's decision has to be unanimous to sentence him to death.

Describing the massacre as a "planned, systematic ... mass murder", prosecutor Mike Satz said in his opening statement, "Three days before the massacre, Cruz made a video saying, 'My name is Nik. I'm going to be the next school shooter of 2018. My goal is at least 20 people with an AR-15 and some tracer rounds. It's gonna be a big event and when you see me on the news you'll know who I am. You're all gonna die. ... I can't wait.'" 

On Tuesday, July 20, day 3 of the trial, a former teacher Ivy Schamis broke down as she recalled the moment Cruz opened fire into her classroom, killing two of her students as they studied the Holocaust. Star swimmer Nick Dworet, one of her students, had just answered a question correctly when the massacre unfolded. 

Who is Ivy Schamis?

Ivy Schamis taught a Holocaust history class at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, according to The 74. She liked to make connections between Nazi Germany and current events, and February 2018, was a stark reminder that such evil continues to exist. “The lessons of the Holocaust came into our classroom,” said Schamis had earlier said of the day. "There we were talking about how we’re going to combat hate, and a complete hater busted into our class and killed two of our classmates.”

The class heard gunshots in the first-floor hallway of the three-story building before the gunman started firing his semi-automatic rifle through the glass on her classroom door. "It was really seconds later that the barrel of that AR-15 just ambushed our classroom," an emotional Schamis, who taught at the school for 17 years, said at the trial. "It came right through that glass panel and was just shooting everywhere. It was very loud. Very frightening. I kept thinking about these kids who should not be experiencing this at all."

Schamis recalled how the students bravely handled the situation, hiding behind furniture without panicking. Dworet and Helena Ramsay, both 17, were eventually killed. Schamis began to cry upon being shown their portraits. "That´s my girl, Helena Ramsay," she wept. "Nicholas Dworet, handsome boy."

Nicholas Dworet's brother, Alex Dworet, was wounded in the attack. “I remember feeling a sensation on the back of my head, a hot sensation,” he testified on July 20. “I remember feeling trickling down the back of my head and onto my chest." “I still didn’t want to believe it was a shooting,” Alex added. “I wanted to stay calm."

Cruz, then 19, shot dead 14 students and three staff members at his former school Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in South Florida on February 14, 2018. He pleaded guilty to 17 counts of first-degree murder last fall in connection with the shooting.