FBI was warned on massacre gunman
THE FBI was warned last year that Florida gunman Nikolas Cruz had threatened to conduct a school shooting but the agency couldn’t find him.
YouTube vlogger Ben Bennight said he alerted the FBI to the comment “I’m going to be a professional school shooter”, shared by a “Nikolas Cruz” in September.
But FBI Special Agent Rob Laskey yesterday said the agency was unable to learn anything about the person who posted the comment.
“No other information was included,” said Mr Laskey.
Cruz will almost certainly face the death penalty if found guilty of murdering 14 students and three teachers at his former high school.
As the US again grappled with a mass killing, those targeted by the latest madman with a legal weapon reacted with grief and fury.
“Multiple of my fellow classmates are dead,” one student said in a reply to a condolence message on Twitter from President Donald Trump. “Prayers won’t fix this. But gun control will prevent it happening again.”
Cruz was on suicide watch after being charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder. The state was “certain” to seek the death penalty for the 19-year-old, who will be tried as an adult.
Police said he had confessed as they laid out his methodical attack on Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, near Fort Lauderdale, on Wednesday.
Cruz took an Uber to his alma mater, leaving home at 2.06pm and arriving 13 minutes later. At 2.21pm, he took the east stairwell to building 12 on the campus with his rifle “inside a black, soft rifle case”, removing it as he walked towards room 1215, where he started firing.
For the next three minutes, he shot into rooms 1216 and 1214 before returning and spraying bullets into rooms 1216, 1215 and 1213. Cruz then ran to the second floor and gunned down a victim in room 1234.
At 2.27pm, he dropped his rifle and backpack and sprinted west, joining packs of fleeing students. He headed into Walmart at 2.50pm, buying a drink at Subway and walking outside shortly afterwards.
Eleven minutes later, he was sitting down inside McDonald’s before wandering out. Cruz was arrested on a nearby street at 3.41pm after being recognised.
His lawyer, public defender Melisa McNeil, said after court that he was on suicide watch and that he understood the actions.
“He’s sad. He’s mournful. He’s remorseful. He is fully aware of what is going on, and he’s just a broken human being,” Ms McNeil said. PROSECUTORS have opened an investigation after a 10m-wide sinkhole swallowed up to six cars on a residential street in Rome.
No one was injured in the collapse in the Balduina neighbourhood, but families in nearby buildings were evacuated as a precaution.
Prosecutors are investigating a property owner and the construction company responsible for work along the road.
Rome Mayor Virginia Raggi visited the site and said the sinkhole, which appeared to shave off the entire side of the road, occurred at an active construction site.