End the 9/11 Syndrome at the FBI: Terrible Things Happen, and There’s Little Accountability

[EasyAce]

In the wake of the Florida school shooting, can we now have a real conversation about what is wrong with the FBI?
By John Fund
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/02/911-syndrome-fbi-little-accountability/

Howard Finkelstein, the Broward County public defender whose office is representing Nikolas Cruz, the suspect in the mass shooting in Parkland, Fla., puts it bluntly:

This kid exhibited every single known red flag, from killing animals to having a cache of weapons to disruptive behavior to saying he wanted to be a
school shooter. If this isn’t a person who should have gotten someone’s attention, I don’t know who is. This was a multi-system failure.

Specifically, the FBI admits that it received two separate tips about Cruz. Last fall, a frequent YouTube vlogger noticed an alarming comment left on one of his videos. “I’m going to be a professional school shooter,” said a user named Nikolas Cruz. The vlogger alerted the FBI and was interviewed. But the agency subsequently claimed its investigators couldn’t locate Cruz, despite the highly unusual spelling of his first name . . .

Then, just six weeks ago, a person close to Cruz warned a call taker on the FBI’s tip line that the expelled student had a desire to kill and might attack a school. The bureau said that the information was not passed to agents in the Miami office . . .

. . . Nor is the Parkland shooting the first time the FBI has fallen down on its most basic job: assessing threats and acting on them. Look at what has happened just in Florida in the last two years. FBI agents investigated as a suspect the man who gunned down 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in 2016, but concluded the agency couldn’t act against him. The FBI also had an unexpected visit from the mentally ill man charged with killing five people at Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport last year. He had walked into an FBI field office and made bizarre, though not threatening, statements.

Of course there should be a housecleaning at the FBI. But there is a larger issue. I call it America’s 9/11 Syndrome . . . But what also sticks in my mind is a simple fact: Not one person in the federal government was fired on account of 9/11 . . .

. . . Even though he has been on the job only six months, FBI director Christopher Wray has already shown a reflexive desire to evade congressional oversight by ignoring House subpoenas to the FBI in the Steele-dossier matter. The FBI turned over the documents, after months, only when the House said it would to hold Wray in contempt of Congress. That attitude shows that Wray has little desire to cut to the heart of the FBI’s problems and may even be an accessory to them . . .

[LauraTXNM]

I think we need to look equally hard or harder at the local law enforcement who had dozens of reports about the shooter.

[EasyAce]

I think we need to look equally hard or harder at the local law enforcement who had dozens of reports about the shooter.

Go both ways. But the FBI really is a disaster area.

[GrouchoTex]

I think we need to look equally hard or harder at the local law enforcement who had dozens of reports about the shooter.

It sure seems like a lot of people passed the buck on this one.

[truth_seeker]

Here is a novel saying: "Hear something, DO something."

Twenty calls or 39 calls, should have resulted in SOMETHING.

Already the system is protecting local law enforcement. At Cruz  hearing this morning, we learn the filings are "sealed."

What purpose is served, by not revealing all of the facts, to a concerned public?

Law enforcement needs changes. Judiciary needs changes.

[LauraTXNM]

Here is a novel saying: "Hear something, DO something."

Twenty calls or 39 calls, should have resulted in SOMETHING.

Already the system is protecting local law enforcement. At Cruz  hearing this morning, we learn the filings are "sealed."

What purpose is served, by not revealing all of the facts, to a concerned public?

Law enforcement needs changes. Judiciary needs changes.

Yes.  And in the case of this shooter, his mother declined to file charges of "elder abuse", which would have put him in the system.  People in general need to learn more about this kind of violence and where it leads -- they have to be willing to stop it when they can.  I feel very sorry for this poor woman, who was trying to help these boys, but she must have known she wasn't succeeding ;(.