FBI was warned about alleged shooter nearly 5 months ago, tipster says

Authored by cnn.com and submitted by BeadyEyed123
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Story highlights The FBI couldn't "identify the person who actually made the comment" on YouTube, an FBI official said

The FBI got a second alleged threat report about the suspect, a law enforcement official said

(CNN) The FBI was warned in September about a possible school shooting threat from a YouTube user with the same name as the suspect in Wednesday's campus massacre in Parkland, Florida, according to a video blogger.

Ben Bennight, the 36-year-old YouTube video blogger from Mississippi, noticed in September an alarming comment on a video he'd posted. He told CNN he immediately contacted the FBI.

"Im going to be a professional school shooter," read the comment, left by a user with the name Nikolas Cruz, the same name of the suspected shooter who opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Wednesday, killing at least 17 people

It was one of at least two alleged threat reports about the suspected shooter that the FBI received, according to a law enforcement official. In both cases, the FBI did not share the information with local law enforcement, the official said.

Bennight emailed a screenshot of the comment, which he shared with CNN, to what he thought was an FBI tip line, but the email address was invalid, he said. Bennight said he followed up with a phone call to the FBI. The comment on YouTube has since been pulled down.

MuppetManiac on February 15th, 2018 at 18:11 UTC »

So I was once stalked on reddit by someone who was convinced I was dating her boyfriend. I told this person repeatedly that they had the wrong person, that I lived in a different state, that I had never met anyone involved. I began reporting and blocking them.

This person created no less than 20 accounts to stalk and harass me for over a week. They gave me names and addresses of everyone in this love triangle. Then they started making hints that they were going to murder the woman they thought I was. I confirmed that there was at least someone by that name at two of the three addresses - the third was a rental and I couldn’t get confirmation. The accuser was in a town in California, the other two were in Boston. Calls to both police stations ended in utter frustration. Neither police station would even take the names of the people involved, because I said the threats were issued online.

I have never been so appalled in my life. So this doesn’t really surprise me.

amoebas4breakfast on February 15th, 2018 at 17:39 UTC »

Not a whole lot the FBI could have done. The part that I can't wrap my head around was the fact this killer had been thinking about it for 5+ months. He was set on committing this horrible act for god knows how long. That's before his mom passed away, too. Makes me sick.

TooShiftyForYou on February 15th, 2018 at 16:54 UTC »

"Im going to be a professional school shooter," read the comment, left by a user with the the same username of the suspected shooter who opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Wednesday.

Pretty creepy that he put it out there like that but you can't really expect the FBI to fully investigate every comment on the internet.