FBI got a pass on Parkland shooting after fumbling tips

In the early 1980’s, as a Miami police homicide supervisor, I assisted in the investigation of one of the few Miami mass murders. At a local welding shop, eight innocent victims were gunned down by a criminal with a shotgun over a money dispute. For most of my career, mass murders were isolated incidents. Unfortunately, mass murders are now too frequent and I have closely followed information on the many mass murders we have had in America.

The tragedy on Feb. 14, 2018, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland should have all of us concerned about what did and what didn’t occur.

The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission has found numerous incidents in which officials and agencies failed to protect the students before and during the mass murder. However, this week’s removal of former Broward Sheriff Scott Israel seems to discount the failures of the FBI.

The whole incident makes me very sad. I know how parents feel because my wife’s son was murdered in Coral Springs seven years ago in a vicious knife attack. It took over five years for the murder to be solved by a dedicated detective and great back-up from the Coral Springs Police Department. Decades of being involved in violent crime police work did not help me prepare for my own stepson’s murder.

I know there are lots of folks, especially young, who are upset over gun control issues after mass murders with assault firearms. The use of handguns, knives, blunt objects, cars, bombs, etc. seems to be of almost no concern. Right now, it’s all about assault firearms and their ability to do great harm.

I’m no big fan of assault firearm possession. However, I am a big fan of the facts and truth. The failures of the FBI in doing nothing to intervene well before the murderer’s rampage at Stoneman Douglas does not seem to resonate with most people. Most of the concern seems to center around all the problems that occurred after the criminal shooter entered the school and opened fire on teachers and students. Most lawsuits by parents seem to be missing the first and main reason the Parkland MSD school murders occurred. The mighty FBI so seriously dropped the ball that there must be a reason why the federal agency’s failures are not on the front burner?

Again, I believe the FBI’s failure to follow up on the specific “tips” they received is the main reason the Parkland mass murders occurred.

The FBI fumbled two tips that the future shooter was planning acts of violence. The tips about accused shooter Nikolas Cruz, came from separate sources in the months prior to the Feb. 14 shooting that left 17 dead and 17 wounded.

The agency learned Sept. 25, 2017, that someone with the username “nikolas cruz” had posted a comment on a YouTube video that said, “I am going to be a professional school shooter.” The agency closed the investigation after 16 days, after doing little to track down the poster, including failing to request the information from Google, which owns YouTube.

Another detailed tip emerged only weeks before the massacre, but it was discarded. FBI deputy director David Bowdich, who met with families of the victims last month, told them that he “was appalled” the first time he listened to the tape of the Jan. 5 tip made to the FBI’s national call center in West Virginia. The anonymous, 14-minute call warned that Cruz was “about to explode” and could go into a school and “start shooting it up.” The information was not forwarded to the FBI’s South Florida field office for further investigation, not even after Cruz’s name was linked to the earlier tip in Sept. 2017.

To be clear, the shooter was 100 percent responsible for everything that happened once he got into the school. Even if the Broward Sheriff ’s Office school deputy and others’ poor response had been better, the shooter was already killing and shooting innocent victims before help could be summoned.

But if the FBI had responded by a routine follow-up on the information they had before the murders, the criminal involved could have been interviewed and/or arrested, his guns confiscated and — through the court process — intervention could have been mandated. With FBI action, I believe there would have been no mass murder at Stoneman Douglas.