| METRO | WHO WOULD’VE GUESSED? T he inside of Robert Mondragon’s 2015 Nissan Altima was strewn with bird feathers and blood when police pulled him over July 31 on suspicion that he had been leaving fetid animal carcasses around a Mar- jory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting memorial. Upon being confronted by a Broward County Sheriff’s deputy on a road near the Parkland school, Mondragon purportedly ex- plained that he had a dead bird in his car and liked the “metal and blood smell” from it. After obtaining an arrest warrant, the Bro- ward Sheriff’s Office (BSO) scoured Mon- dragon’s phone and internet records. Investigators found he was infatuated with school shootings and had searched the inter- net for topics related to pipe bombs, BSO claims. They also dug up a photo he had al- legedly taken of a dead raccoon in his car. Following his August 4 arrest, Mondragon was charged with violating his probation on a 2021 indecent exposure case, and three counts of disfiguring a tomb in connection with the animal carcass incidents. BSO says that its investigation turned up a social media account in which Mondragon is posing with a large SKS rifle, in violation of a risk-protection order prohibiting him from having guns. The caption on the picture reads: “You don’t kno just where ya bein ta- kin. All the holes in ya body, ima rape them.” “We cannot afford to have this individual come back into society in hope that he doesn’t introduce violence, in hope that he doesn’t shoot up a school, in hope that somehow he gets the necessary mental health treatments,” Broward County Sheriff Gregory Tony told reporters Friday. Andrew Coffey, Mondragon’s attorney, said Mondragon “had a troubled and trau- matic childhood.” “We know that he needs help and we’re doing everything we can to get him that help,” Coffey said, according to a Sun Sentinel report. Mondragon has a well-documented his- tory of mental health episodes and run-ins with South Florida police dating back to 2013. According to court records, he has threat- ened to shoot up schools and a local mall and has been subject to repeated involuntary psy- chiatric hospitalizations. The court records state that he engaged in recurrent self mutila- tion, including an instance in which he claimed to have tried to sew his mouth shut. The 29-year-old South Florida native has held various jobs in the Broward County area, including at food distribution facilities and a local Wal-Mart, according to the court re- cords. The sheriff’s office claims that he was fired from the supermarket after he talked of gunning down the place within an AK-47. In February 2013, he posted on Facebook that he wanted to carry out a school shooting similar to the 1999 Columbine massacre, ac- cording to BSO. Within weeks of the signing of Florida’s “WE KNOW THAT HE NEEDS HELP AND WE’RE DOING EVERYTHING WE CAN TO GET HIM THAT HELP.” red flag law, the Coral Springs Police Depart- ment invoked it against Mondragon. The law involves a special process through which courts can restrict firearms possession by those who have made violent threats or have severe mental illness. It was passed by the Florida legislature in March 2018 amid public outcry that Nikolas Cruz, the Parkland shooter, had been al- lowed to possess guns despite repeatedly threatening to com- mit a massacre in the time leading up to his attack on Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. After Coral Springs police re- counted Mondragon’s troubled past to the court, a Broward judge granted a risk-protec- tion order against him, prohibiting him from possessing firearms. BSO claims Mondragon’s unsettling be- havior continued on August 10, 2021, when he masturbated in his car in front of a woman after asking her directions. He allegedly called out to her from his Altima in the park- ing lot of a Davie-area gym, asking, “How do I get to 595?” As the woman came up to his car, she saw that his genitals were exposed. When police took Mondragon into cus- tody and interrogated him about the incident, he became combative and bit an officer’s fin- ger, according to the police report. In June, he was sentenced to 12 years probation for bat- Man who left animal carcasses at Parkland memorial has history of violent threats. BY NAOMI FEINSTEIN Photo courtesy of Broward Sheriff’s Office Robert Mondragon’s booking photos from his August 2022 arrest (left) on a probation violation charge and his September 2021 arrest on an indecent exposure charge. tery on the officer and one year of probation for the indecent exposure. Not long after, the dead animals started popping up around Marjory Stoneman Doug- las High School’s memorial garden. First, there was a duck. It was found at the memorial site on July 20 with all of its organs removed and its head “flattened by an unknown object,” BSO says. A dead raccoon was found there a day later, followed by a dead opossum 10 days af- ter that. On the day the opossum turned up, a dep- uty patrolling around the school spotted Mondragon driving in his Altima, and matched it to a description of a suspect vehi- cle caught on camera around the time of the earlier animal carcass incidents. The deputy approached to find the bloody, feathered in- terior of the car, and the case was as good as closed, BSO says. After Mondragon was formally charged, the rifle that he was allegedly donning on his social media page was recovered. According to BSO, the case is being presented to the U.S. Attorney’s Office “with the anticipation of a federal arrest warrant.” BSO says Mondragon had developed a fix- ation on the Majory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting that left 17 victims fatally wounded on Valentine’s Day 2018. The sher- iff’s office claims it has evidence that towards the end of the 2021-2022 school year, Mon- dragon walked the path that the shooter, Nikolas Cruz, took the day of the massacre. The sheriff’s office says that during a June 2019 mental health crisis in Coral Springs, Mondragon stated, “I hope I don’t turn out like Cruz.” [email protected] 55 miaminewtimes.com | browardpalmbeach.com | CONTENTS | LETTERS | NEWS | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | CAFE | MUSIC | miaminewtimes.com | CONTENTS | LETTERS | RIPTIDE | METRO | NIGHT+DAY | STAGE | ART | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | MIAMI NEW TIMES NEW TIMES MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2008 SEPTEMBER 15-21, 2022
