Trump slams FBI after shooter’s Florida rampage

A TEENAGER accused of shooting and killing 17 people at a Florida high school in the United States last week was investigated by police and state officials as far back as 2016, but the case was not followed up.

Now President Donald Trump has weighed in on the situation, saying in a weekend tweet: “Very sad that the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter. This is not acceptable.”

The investigation two years ago came after the teenager slashed his arm in a social media video, saying he wanted to buy a gun, but authorities determined he was receiving sufficient support, newspapers said at the weekend.

Nikolas Cruz, 19, is charged with committing multiple murders on Wednesday at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.

More than a dozen people were also wounded in the deadliest shooting at a US high school.

Days after the killings, a sombre series of vigils and funerals were being held in and around Parkland, a Fort Lauderdale suburb.

The South Florida Sun Sentinel first reported that a video of Cruz cutting his arm posted to social media network Snapchat in September 2016 had raised concerns among law enforcement and at the Florida Department of Children and Families.

“Mr Cruz stated he plans to go out and buy a gun.

“It is unknown what he is buying the gun for,” according to a report written by department officials after investigators interviewed the teenager, the Sun Sentinel said.

The newspaper reported investigators ultimately decided that Cruz, then 18, was receiving enough support from mental health professionals and from his school, and any risk in his case was low.

The Department of Children and Families has asked a court to release the records for transparency, adding it has reviewed the circumstances surrounding the case.

The long-simmering US debate about gun rights played out on Saturday at events in the area.

Hundreds of people attended a rally in Fort Lauderdale, where students from the school demanded new gun control measures to tighten what they saw as easy access to firearms in the state.

“Because of these [current] gun laws, people that I know, people that I love, have died,” Delaney Tarr, a senior at the school, told the rally.

Trump in his tweet accused the FBI of spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the 2016 Trump campaign. – Reuters