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Amid all the news reports of red flags raised before the Parkland, Fla., school shooting — of the dozens of police calls to the shooter’s home, his expulsion from school, the widespread belief among students that he was exactly the kind of person who’d go on a killing spree — few things are more haunting than the key passage of the FBI’s admission that it failed. It failed to follow up on a detailed, credible report that the Florida shooter was armed and dangerous:On January 5, 2018, a person close to Nikolas Cruz contacted the FBI’s Public Access Line (PAL) tipline 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.There it is. A perfect representation of see something, say something. It was a tip served up on a silver platter. It was from a credible source. It was specific. It was supported by evidence.And the FBI did nothing . . .. . . This wasn’t the first time that the government failed to properly heed warning signs. It won’t be the last. Some of the most traumatic events in recent American history could have been avoided through simple competence . . . The permanent class of civil servants —the career officials who work for multiple presidents, governors, mayors, or town officials — work within bureaucracies that are designed from the ground up to be insulated from effective accountability and discipline. They enjoy a job security that private-sector workers can’t begin to imagine . . .. . . Unaccountable institutions always put too much trust in the inherent goodness of their employees. And, make no mistake, there are outstanding public servants who do work that matches and exceeds the best in the private sector. But people are people, and as a group people need to be held accountable to perform at their best. As it is, time and again — as in Parkland, Fla. — Americans feed their fears and concerns into the bureaucratic maw, not understanding that the system is in some ways built to fail.
How do you structure a government for competence? Keeping it small is about all you can do.
