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.
Evidence.
There’s a new report out there, the thread was pulled, but a reporter in Houston spoke with a teacher who was walking with Cruz down the hall as the shooting started.
The teacher said, on TV, that the teacher was speaking with Cruz as the shooting started.
This is a PERFECT example of a story that is going to be shadow banned by Facebook.
And the FBI said, “We have him o our RADAR - as soon as he kills a lot of folks we’ll come in and take over and decide we really hadn’t any idea he was dangerous - see you then.”
You take the cases where the guy really DID shoot and use that to determine which ones to take seriously.
And you start incarcerating people for threats.
Well you can sure as hell flag him on a watch list ineligible to purchase weapons or ammo
If they can put vets and social security recipients on no- gun lists they can start putting sociopathic commenters on a similar watch
Got it. I need to lighten up.
I agree with most of what you said. I had a lot of the same thoughts when reading comments. Law Enforcement should do due diligence when receiving a report, but they aren’t just going to lock someone up who hasn’t commited a crime... yet. And that’s the sad part.
However, I know I’m hedging here, but we aren’t talking about creating a police state where any kid with depression or gun photos gets locked up. This kid really did qualify for a closer look and psychiatric evaluation. He wasn’t just emotionally unstable. He was expelled from school, has a past history of violence, demonstrated a proclivity as well as access to fire-arms, and then actually made threats WHICH WERE REPORTED. The ball got dropped on this one.
Um, how familiar are you with the profiling protocols that are used to separate these really dangerous ones from mere mouther-offs? This murderous kid had several flags in his social media which stand out as markers of his potential murderous mindset. When you become more familiar with the case, get back to us.
Wonder if this kid was adopted from abroad... he has the “ look”
I have a hunch but no gonna say the country
Rhymes with Prussia
FBI “thinking” on incoming report
1) Is the potential terrorist dangerous?
yes - only put in stable in case MS13 insufficient
no -> 2) can they be sold as slaves or used in FF?
yes -> roll on to +++
no -> back to tryst with other agent
3) Should whistleblower be Seth Rich’d or
Arkancided via Clinton?
yes -> [187]
no -> back to tryst with other agent
Lots of sociopaths in the country...
If every ‘out of control morally bankrupt’ kid was reported to the FBI - they would have to create a whole new organization to deal with those reports... and then - before a crime was committed - what would we expect them to do?
A little thought needs to go into this issue before we start pointing fingers.
It was subtle. In today’s world, it actually sounds like something someone would say and be serious. ;)
First, who could oppose making security at our schools extremely modern, manned, and hardened? If we can make a military encampment in Afghan safe, we can make a school safe. WHY has this not already been done???
Next, we need to reverse legislation that makes committal to an insane asylum a near impossible thing. It was common in my youth, but then the libs decided that wackos on the streetcorners was a good thing.
Finally, there needs to be an actual vetting system for threats. Call it threat "triage". If a call like this one comes in, then it MUST go through vetting. Period. And that person must be in danger of being committed.
Did the FBI even try to figure out who he was and contact him did they talk to him
BUT THEY WERE BUSY
They were searching all over for Russia Collusion.
unless... those at the top WANT TO have controversial gun control issues happen...
But no, ...The FBI top brass would never act in a political manner to promote an agenda, would they?
The Alphabet Agencies are beyond repair. Welcome to Russia.
Maybe the FBI was preoccupied with reversing the results of the 2016 Presidential Election.
Same with the Tzanerov terrorist brothers that even ( dare I say it) Russia warned our government about them. Leftist PC is killing innocents indirectly from incompetence or hacks in high places.
I should have responded with, “Are you serious, Clark?”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.