Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Scott bill seeks to work on FBI tips
Agency failed to follow up before Parkland massacre
U.S. Sen. Rick Scott unveiled legislation Thursday that would require the FBI to submit reports about potential school shooters and other threats to local police.
The bill would require the FBI to convey info about tips it is receiving through its national hotline on at least a monthly basis. It also would require the Government Accountability Office to review the tip line’s operating procedures and make recommendations for improving it.
The bill’s supporters include Tom and Gena Hoyer, whose son Luke was among the 17 students and staff killed in the Feb. 14, 2018, Parkland school shooting. Tony Montalto, whose
daughter Gina was killed in the massacre, is also backing the bill.
The FBI issued a public apology for failing to properly investigate the Parkland shooter and mishandling two separate tips it received about shooter Nikolas Cruz’s plans.
The agency learned in September 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 did little to track down the person behind the comment and closed the investigation after 16 days.
In the second tip, received just 40 days before the shooting, a Cruz family friend reported his disturbing web posts, his firearm purchases, his mutilation of small animals and her fears that he would be “getting into a school and just shooting the place up.”
That tip was never forwarded for further investigation to the FBI’s South Florida office, and the file was closed with the comment “no lead value.”
The FBI’s call center in Clarksburg, West Virginia, was handling an average of 3,540 calls and tips each day, inundated as social media made it easy for anyone to spread a threat online.
But exactly how the FBI made decisions in the Cruz case was impossible to determine. No one was required to document precisely what information was considered. The calltaker and her supervisor give conflicting accounts of why the second tip was mishandled — each pointing the finger at the other.
After the Cruz debacle, the FBI decided to assign more call-takers and supervisors at the call center; step up training for staff and agents; hire contractors to process online tips; create a management team to review all calls about terrorism or threats to life; and reexamine tips received in the past couple of years and send any potentially useful info to field offices for follow-up.