Did the FBI miss warning signs before Florida school shooting?

UPDATE: U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered a review Friday of the U.S. Justice Department processes after the FBI admitted it missed a chance last month to stop the teen who killed 17 people in a South Florida school shooting on Wednesday. The nation’s top law enforcement agency admitted Friday that it didn’t follow up on a tip about Nikolas Cruz’s erratic behavior and “desire to kill.” Sessions called Cruz’s murderous attack a “tragic consequence” of the FBI’s failures. The review will explore what went wrong and try to determine why the agency failed to take seriously the tip reportedly made by someone close to Cruz. Shortly after Sessions announced the investigation, Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, urged FBI Director Christopher Wray to resign, calling the agency’s “failure to take action” unacceptable. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., also criticized the FBI and said Congress should open its own investigation.

UPDATE (12:56 p.m.): The FBI admitted Friday it did not follow up on a report that flagged Nikolas Cruz as a potential threat before he killed 17 of his former classmates at a South Florida high school Wednesday. An unidentified tipster called the FBI on Jan. 5 with information about the teen’s stash of guns, desire to kill people, erratic behavior, and disturbing social media posts. The person, reportedly close to Cruz, voiced specific concern he might attack a school, the agency revealed. This was at least the second report to the FBI about Cruz. Late last year, someone using the name “Nikolas Cruz” posted a comment on social media about becoming a school shooter. Agents closed the investigation into that comment after they could not identify the person who made the post.

OUR EARLIER REPORT (10:45 a.m.): Federal investigators are working to link a months-old social media post by someone calling himself “Nikolas Cruz” to the teen who killed 17 people Wednesday at a South Florida high school. If the FBI can prove 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz made the comment, it will only raise more questions about whether the agency could have prevented the massacre long before it happened. A Mississippi bail bondsman alerted the FBI last fall to a comment posted to his YouTube channel: “I’ m going to be a professional school shooter.” Agents investigated but couldn’t figure out who posted the comment. Searches of public records databases revealed nothing, so they closed the case. If agents had linked the comment to the Florida teen, investigators probably would have found other social media posts featuring threatening comments and photos of guns. Former FBI agents say that probably would have led investigators to interview Cruz but might not have led to any action that could have prevented Wednesday’s attack. “It’s a tricky situation because sometimes you get information regarding individuals and they may be just showing off, blustering,” said Herbert Cousins Jr., a retired FBI special agent in charge. The FBI opens more than 10,000 threat assessment cases every year.