FBI official: ‘We clearly should have done more’

WASHINGTON — The FBI could have and should have done more to investigate information it received prior to last month’s massacre at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the agency’s deputy director told a Senate panel on Wednesday.

David Bowdich told the Senate Judiciary Committee that authorities will never know if any investigative work would have prevented the shooting, “but we clearly should have done more.”

The panel is examining legislative proposals to improve school safety, but much of the early focus was on law enforcement failures. Sen. Charles Grassley, the Republican chairman of the committee, expanded the blame to include local and state officials.

The FBI has acknowledged that it received separate tips related to the accused shooter, Nikolas Cruz. Bowdich said the tips occurred on Sept. 25, 2017, and on Jan. 5.

The first tip came via email from someone in Mississippi who warned that someone had posted on a YouTube page under the username Nikolas Cruz: “I’m going to be a professional school shooter.”

Bowdich said it was decided that the true identity of the poster could not be determined and work on the tip was closed about two weeks later.

In January, the FBI received a call from a woman who identified herself as a close friend of the Cruz family and shared information from Cruz’s social media accounts that concerned her. She also warned that Cruz wanted to kill people, was mutilating small animals and was going to explode.

Bowdich said that upon finishing the call, the FBI operator conducted a search of databases and found the closed lead out of Mississippi. The operator then consulted with her supervisor and the matter was closed. He said he didn’t know why the information was not forwarded to local law enforcement.

“When we make mistakes, we will not hide them, and we are committed, with your help, to doing whatever is necessary to correct our mistakes and prevent tragedies like this one from being repeated,” Bowdich said.