(AP) — The massacre at a Florida high school is again raising concerns about whether the FBI missed signs that might have stopped a mass shooting.
Last fall, a Mississippi bail bondsman and video blogger noticed a comment on one of his YouTube videos that said, “I’m going to be a professional school shooter.” He immediately reported it to YouTube and the FBI and the next day two agents came to his office to take a printout of the comment and ask him whether he knew anything about the person who posted it.
Although the commenter’s username was “Nikolas Cruz,” — the same name as the 19-year-old man who authorities say killed 17 people at his former high school on Wednesday — the FBI couldn’t identify the poster, Robert Lasky, the special agent in charge of the FBI office in Miami, said Thursday.
Federal agents interviewed the man who reported the comment and searched public records databases, actions in line with those done during an FBI assessment — the lowest level, least intrusive and most elementary stage of an FBI inquiry — but came up short. The FBI says they still haven’t conclusively linked the account to the shooter.
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