After denying for months that Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz had any connection to a program created to soften school punishment and reduce student arrests — and characterizing assertions to the contrary as "fake news" — the Broward County school district is now acknowledging that Cruz was in fact referred to its PROMISE program.

On Sunday, district spokeswoman Tracy Clark told Miami Herald news partner WLRN that Cruz was referred to the program in 2013 after he vandalized a bathroom at Westglades Middle School, located just down the road from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Cruz killed 17 students and wounded 17 more at the high school on Feb. 14.

Clark admitted the referral after two sources with knowledge of Cruz’s discipline records told WLRN that he was referred to the so-called PROMISE Program for a three-day stint for committing vandalism at his school. According to WLRN, Clark said Sunday that it was unclear whether Cruz actually attended the PROMISE program. She said he appeared at Pine Ridge Education Center in Fort Lauderdale — an alternative school facility where PROMISE is housed — for an intake interview the day after the vandalism incident, but it didn't appear that Cruz completed the recommended three-day assignment.

Clark, in her statement to WLRN, wouldn't speculate as to why. She said Superintendent Robert Runcie has correctly stated Cruz wasn’t in PROMISE when he was in high school at Stoneman Douglas. In a March 23 editorial, for instance, Runcie pushed back on "fake news" that Cruz was "assigned to PROMISE while in high school."