The FBI on Wednesday admitted to senators it made a series of errors that made it much harder to try to prevent last month’s school shooting in Florida, and vowed to do better.
“We made mistakes here,” acting FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “Even if we had done everything right, I’m not sure we could have stopped this act. But we could have tried.”
Following the Feb. 14 attack, it was revealed that the FBI received two tips about Nikolas Cruz, the 19-year-old confessed shooter in the shooting, but nothing was done.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., blamed the shooting on multiple “systemic failures” at the federal, state and local level and “vulnerabilities in our existing laws that need to be addressed.” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, called what happened “a catastrophic failure that occurred on ever single level.”
Bowdich said the FBI would do “whatever is necessary to correct our mistakes and prevent tragedies like this one from being repeated.”
He told senators that the FBI first received an email tip from someone in Mississippi in Sept. 25, 2017, about a YouTube page from the username “Nikolas Cruz” and a comment he posted that said, “I’m going to be a professional school shooter.”
The FBI’s public tip line office opened a lead and assigned it to the FBI’s field office in Jackson, Miss., and a FBI special agent and local task force officer went as so far as to visit the tipster. The agent then searched FBI databases and open sources searches, but determined the “true identity of the poster could not be determined,” and the lead was closed on Oct. 11, 2017, Bowdich said in his prepared remarks.
Another female tipster called the FBI’s public tip line on Jan. 5, 2018, and identified herself as a close friend of the Cruz family. She shared information about him and his social media accounts.
“The very explicit information the caller provided included the following: statements about Cruz harming himself and others; references to [the Islamic State]; that Cruz had threatened his mother with a rifle; that he had purchased several weapons; that he wanted to kill people; that he was mutilating small animals; that he was going to explode; that the caller tried to call the person with whom Cruz was living, but she could not reach him; and that the caller was concerned that Cruz might shoot up a school,” Bowdich described.
The tipster said that though Cruz was 18 years old at the time, he “had the mental capacity of a 12 to 14-year old,” Bowdich said. She explained she “had contacted the Parkland Police Department, and just wanted someone to look into this matter.”
The FBI public tip line operator conducted a search and found the Mississippi case, consulted with her supervisor, but “the matter was closed,” Bowdich said.
“The information received was not forwarded to a field office for further review or action,” he explained. “I do not know why the call taker did not [call local authorities]. She [the FBI operator] made some sort of a presentation about what was contained in that call. However, they made a decision to close it and no call was made to the jurisdiction.”
Bowdich said that since these missteps came to light, the FBI’s internal investigation is still ongoing.
“We have taken certain immediate remedial measures, including doubling the number of special agent supervisors assigned to review tips received by non-agent personnel. Other steps will likely be taken upon completion of our ongoing review,” he said.
The hearing was held amid a countrywide walkout at 10 a.m. by students for 17 minutes to show solidarity for the 17 killed in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School attack in Parkland, Fla.
Prosecutors announced Tuesday they will seek the death penalty against Cruz, who has already admitted to carrying out the attack. A Broward County grand jury last week indicted him on 17 counts of premeditated murder in the first degree and 17 counts of attempted murder in the first degree.
Cruz’s attorneys have said he is willing to plead guilty to avoid the death penalty.
