The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
– FBI chief under pressure –
The FBI made a stunning admission earlier in the day, saying a “person close to Nikolas Cruz” made a call to the agency’s public tipline on January 5 to “report concerns about him.”
“The caller provided information about Cruz’s gun ownership, desire to kill people, erratic behavior, and disturbing social media posts, as well as the potential of him conducting a school shooting,” the FBI said in a statement.
The information from the caller “should have been assessed as a potential threat to life” and forwarded to the agency’s Miami field office, it said.
FBI Statement on the Shooting in Parkland, Florida: https://t.co/m1sOtrEbOG
— FBI (@FBI) February 16, 2018
Instead, “no further investigation was conducted.”
“We have spoken with victims and families, and deeply regret the additional pain this causes all those affected by this horrific tragedy,” said Federal Bureau of Investigation director Christopher Wray, who took up his post in August.
Wray said he was “committed to getting to the bottom of what happened,” and Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered an immediate review to ensure “effective response to indications of potential violence.”
But Scott, the state governor, nevertheless called for the FBI chief to step down, saying the failure to act was “unacceptable.”
“Seventeen innocent people are dead and acknowledging a mistake isn’t going to cut it,” Scott said.
The January warning to the FBI was not the first it had received about Cruz, who used an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle that he legally purchased a year ago to spray classrooms with bullets.
In September, the FBI was alerted to a message posted on YouTube, in which a user named Nikolas Cruz vowed: “I’m going to be a professional school shooter.”
The FBI said it had looked into it at the time but was unable to identify the person who made the post.
Cruz was also known to local police after his mother “repeatedly called police to the home to help deal with his violent outbursts, threats and self-destructive behavior,” over the course of several years, according to CNN.
– ‘Illogical’ –
Trump’s visit to the Parkland area — not far from his Mar-a-Lago resort, where he will spend the long President’s Day weekend — was not announced in advance, perhaps because he risked being greeted with angry demands for action on gun laws.
“It’s illogical that the law says a minor can’t have a drink, but can buy a gun,” said 47-year-old Mavy Rubiano, whose child survived the shooting.
In Washington, the political response so far makes it clear that the powerful pro-gun National Rifle Association — which spent $30 million to support Trump’s election in 2016 — remains formidable.
As with previous mass shootings, the focus of gun control advocates was the easy availability of the AR-15, a civilian version of the US military’s M16.
Millions have been sold around the United States, and AR-15-style rifles were used in the mass shootings in Las Vegas, Sutherland Springs, Texas and Newtown, Connecticut.
