Posted on 02/15/2018 8:13:56 AM PST by xzins
Nikolas Cruz, the suspect in Wednesday’s horrific massacre at a Florida high school, was allegedly reported to the FBI in September after he left a comment on a bail bondsman’s YouTube channel saying that he was going to be a “professional school shooter.”
The former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School had previously been expelled for disciplinary problems prior to the mass shooting that left 17 people dead.
In a YouTube video published on the evening of the attack, Ben Bennight, a Mississippi bondsman, explained that he was contacted by the FBI at approximately 3 p.m. about a comment on one of his videos that he had reported last fall.
“The FBI just left my house in regards to this situation,” Bennight stated. “September 24th 2017, I sent a screenshot of a comment on one of my videos — now people keep asking me which video was it, but I don’t know, I don’t remember what video it was — when I saw the comment come through on my Studio app on my iPhone I screenshot the comment and hit the report button to report it to YouTube. Of course, they removed the comment.”
The video then scrolled through the screenshot and his report to YouTube.
Bennight proceeded to report the comment to the FBI.
“I looked up the number to my local field office and I called and left them a message. The next day I had two FBI agents standing in my office taking down the information and copies of the screenshot. They were asking me questions that of course I couldn’t answer. All it was on my channel was a comment, people leave pretty heinous comments on a pretty regular basis,” Bennight continued.
“This comment said ‘I am going to be a professional school shooter’ and I knew that I could not just ignore that,” he said. “I screenshotted the comment, I sent it to the appropriate authorities — and I imagine that from there they did a pretty thorough investigation and tried to find out who this person was,” he explained.
The bondsman continued on to explain that the YouTube comment did not come from an anonymous account, but from one with the name Nikolas Cruz.
“It wasn’t a generic screen name, the screen name was Nikolas Cruz — which I’m sure as you know by now, is the name of the guy that did the shooting in Florida today,” Bennight said.
Bennight explained that the first contact from the FBI today came in a phone call from his local field office shortly after the shooting. He stated that an agent called him, asked where he was and asserted that he was on his way to his house. Immediately after that, he says that he received a call from an agent from the Miami field office.
“I called him back and he’s like, ‘hey, you know, I’m just following up on a report that you made a couple months back’ — and I was like yeah, I just got off the phone with an agent over here,” Bennight said. “I emailed the Miami agent everything I had — well, everything I had was just that screenshot.”
Within an hour, the agent from his local office was at his home.
When the agent arrived at his home, he was questioned about if he had any previous contact with Cruz, which he says he did not. He was also questioned about how his report was handled at the time.
“I would like to think they were already investigating this guy and they had him at the top of their radar and that’s how they ended up contacting me so quickly,” Bennight said. “I wish I could have given them more information, but it was just a comment on my channel.”
The YouTube channel as well as all other social media belonging to Cruz appeared to have been taken offline by Wednesday evening.
The DEADLIEST weapon and threat to us is the mentally ill person who for the most part swings politically left and many belong in psychiatric wards. The gun is just the convenient tool to kill. He could have used a vehicle and could have murdered more as the Muslim mentally ill use.
Law Enforcment (at any level) acts for the following reasons:
1. Publicity
2. Possibility of $ (fines or forfeitures)
3. Possibility of kicking someone’s ass
4. The victim is famous.
5. The victim is a cop or family member.
6. (Newly added) Politics
anecdotal irrelevancy
Different eye color.
Could be. Looks like they'd give the information about his biological parents.
Name two famous Croatian-Americans. Nick Saban and Bill Belichick.
Also James Coco and Richard Mulligan (”Soap”) graduated from there in 1947 and 1948.
Now now, let’s not pick on the FBI for dropping the ball. After all, they’ve been SO BUSY and stressed out trying to invent evidence to use against President Trump. They must be EXHAUSTED already from working so hard!!
There’s only 24 hours in a day, and they’re so overworked trying to focus on the most important stuff!!! .....Like sticking it to President Trump, that’s the most important thing.
Not the same.
I suspect the barren couple in their fifties were allowed to adopt a relative’s children from that region.
A newborn and toddler placed with older folks is very unusual.
Lynda Cruz’s sister-in-law, Barbara Kumbatovic of Long island may know where they came from.
Sad how kids today will never have experienced our America. We grew up when things were still normal, most went to Christian churches, few divorces, basic morals in place for the most part,,, etc.
Now kids have all the extra harmful junk there is today - violent “games” and movies normalizing violence, hooked up to their phones all the time, cultural rot, many other things.
We were lucky the politicians hadn’t yet ruined our country when we were kids. They were on their way though.
Geraldo was having “a cow” last night on Fox, advocating, predictably, gun control rather than actual protection (armed good guy to kill armed bad guy).
I had to turn the channel.
He and Shep have no business commenting on anything.
Shep has been pouring on the personal commentary today.
Had to turn him off as well.
I also had to turn the channel to Animal Planet when Geraldo went off the rails on that segment. And Shep... what a drama QUEEN. I can’t imagine any circumstance where I’d even begin to watch him.
I cannot believe Shep is still employed.
Perhaps they are afraid to fire a pansy.
(With my apologies to pansies, one of my favorite flowers.)
“In retrospect, he (Wray) looks rather foolish.”
Sad that this is what might’ve had to happen to knock this guy down a peg or two. He and his cohorts have been up on their high horses too long. (Mixed metaphor???)
You are so right, Madam, and you can mix your metaphor any time you like. It’s more colorful that way.
“Is a hispanic allowed to be a white supremacist?”
A Hispanic couple adopted him, but most likely he isn’t Hispanic himself.
No problem loading pages at all.
The Boston bombers were CIA assets,so it professional courtesy!
Sheriff is giving an update to the press now. Looks like Debbie WS is standing behind him — his right, left of screen.
“The FBI guy was just on the news about this and said they got nowhere with it..”
That’s odd the FBI can stage an international coup against a sitting US president, but they can’t stop a psycho on their RADAR.
The fact is the FBI didn’t want to stop it.
They don’t want to stop any of it.
The FBI is politicized.
They gain by pushing their global overthrow of America out of the news cycle and create momentum for gun confiscation all for doing nothing and paying no one.
How’s them apples!?
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