Speaking at a press conference this afternoon, FBI Agent Rob Lasky explained the agency’s failure to find and interview Parkland Florida spree killer Nikolas Cruz before his attack, after a Mississippi bail bondsman told the FBI that Cruz had left a chilling comment on the bondsman’s YouTube channel (“Im going to be a professional school shooter”) . . .
“No other information was included with that comment which would indicate a time, location or the true identity of the person who made the comment. The FBI conducted database reviews, checks, but was unable to further identify the person who actually made the comment.”
I don’t know what a “database review” is, exactly, but the entire world was able to locate spree killer Nikolas Cruz on both Facebook and Instagram as soon as his name was announced.
If the FBI had seen Cruz’ Instagram account, pictures of the future killer flashing firearms would have been a clear indication that the poster was that Nikolas Cruz. The one who told the world he aspired to be a professional school shooter.
What’s more, YouTube has the IP address of commentators, all of which must register with the site to post a comment.
Unless Cruz posted the comment from a burner phone, Google could have identified him in seconds. What are the odds Google would have denied the FBI’s request, or that the FBI wouldn’t have been able to get a warrant for the relevant records if they had?
As far as we know, no such request was made to YouTube or Google by the FBI.
I know the FBI can’t chase down every report of nefarious activity, including potential spree killers. But the FBI claims they did take bondsman Ben Bennight’s report seriously enough to investigate. The contention that this investigation was doomed to hit a dead-end is patently ridiculous.
Sh*t happens. A federal agency’s failure to find a future spree killer — whether through work overload or bureaucratic incompetence — is entirely predictable. All the more reason to be ready to eliminate the threat at the sharp end, by force of arms.
The feds was to busy trying to ruin Trump in support of hillary and the russians.
The FBI needs to be on probation. They don’t straighten the hell up in a short, specified, time they’re out of work.
You’ve nailed it in the first comment.
It’s good to know that posting online under your real name on a social platform you have register with and provide account information to keeps one safely anonymous from the FBI.
Geeze, this whole place is sounding like an echo chamber for Limbaugh and Hannity. I hear it there and think that was stupid. Then I come here and see posters tripping over themselves to repeat what they heard on the radio.
Do the numbers. The FBI is packed with agents all over the country. Accusing the US intelligence services of being incompetent and distracted is an insult. You either hate law enforcement or not. You cannot play both sides.
That’s because Limbaugh and Hannity are right.
And Hannity has repeatedly said that the corruption was at the top of the FBI and that the vast majority of FBI agents are patriotic, competent and trustworthy.
We support law enforcement by keeping them honest and competent, not making excuses for them; which is the role of a party member in a police state.
Extractor. I am known around here for being firmly in the camp of pro cop. Cops. Not the feds.
The FBI needs to clean house from the pro hillary batch and get its eyes back on its real job.
Extractor, your ability to pick up on sarcastic/hyperbolic humor is unrivaled.
GWV 1027 out!
I was an LEO officer for 28 years, 5 more for a Detective agency and another 4 as a contract guard for DHS and I can tell you there is no way in hell I would have issued a statement like that. It makes the Bureau look inept and mostly that’s far from the truth. In this case someone not only dropped the ball… it was fumbled.
Another note : this is not the Hatfields and McCoys as noted by one poster’s attitude of ” you’re either fer us or agin us “. One can be pro law enforcement while admitting there are mistakes being made… dare I say in ANY profession, including the esteemed members of Congress. Or do I mean especially Congress ??
You say this as if the FBI didn’t just outright LIE to our FACES just now…some of you goverment ball lickers really need to get a friggin clue. The bureau has colluded and told numerous complete falsehoods over the last two years not to mention that fuckhead Comey with his “..Hillary was a confused well-meaning old lady who just doesn’t get technology” crap. But, you just keep telling us how great the FBI is…..buncha jerkoffs. Also, in case youre wondering, I have no problem posting this comment saying how much they suck, because by their own admission they couldn’t find me if they wanted to….kind of the way most agents cant find their own ass with both hands!
The Feds didn’t fumble the ball on this one. They never even bothered showing up for the game.
FBI ain’t the only incompetent (on purpose) feds, the NSA is electronically climbing up the asses of lawful citizens daily. What do we get for it?, gov’t overreach, bullshit entrapment schemes, wholesale exportation of transferable full auto firearms, illicit cigarette sales, and a “we knew about [him]” “we had [him] under surveillance” every time some bad actor douchebag pops up.
They gotta pop their head up from listening to our phones (while they’re surfing the dark web for kiddie porn) and do their effing job.
@Extractor. Really? Where the f**k have you been your whole life? You obviously have never been where I have. Jeez…
Been there done that, nuff said.
They could have done more work on this case. They chose not to. That’s on them. It’s not much more complicated than that.
They work for us. We get to ask them WTF when something bad happens. It’s our right as citizens.
All of that is true with or without Hannity.
Um, you never read about how they bungled 9/11 or Waco have you? Good reads go look it up. The truth is that an ATF agent gave Koresh his gun days before the siege started, koresh shot it and handed it back. There was a report filed about “why are all these Muslim guys taking flight classes” before 9/11. Then there’s stuff involving the Pulse Shooter. Yeah, there’s a problem there.
I no longer trust the FBI. I use to. But no longer. The entire Hillary investigation was purposefully botched. The Trump Russia investigation is a complete frame up. I’m glad I live in a Free State. The progressives the pot heads like so much will give you legal marijuana intoxication and then take your guns away.
Years ago “uncle Wayne” said president Bill Clinton wanted a certain level of violence so gun control would be easier to pass. He was very correct.
But now the Deep State is also working to keep a certain level of violence.
Better to hear about the truth from Limbaugh and Hannity than get fake news from ABC and CNN.
Hmm, thanks to US intelligence agencies:
Our fleet at Pearl Harbor was ready for the Dec 7 attack
Allowed the Army to have more than a tripwire force in South Korea in 1950.
Kept the World Trade Center from being attacked-twice.
Found the WMDs in Iraq.
Predicted the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union.
Or not. Sounds like incompetence to me.
“Geeze, this whole place is sounding like an echo chamber for Limbaugh and Hannity…”
Because you can only fuck up so many times before people begin to doubt your ability to execute the most basic tasks. Florida night club shooter– Reported to the FBI, not actioned. Florida school shooter– Reported to the FBI, not actioned. But somehow they managed to action a completely unsubstantiated and blatantly partisan report to wiretap an American citizen and presidential candidate.
You’re reading all of this because they’re fucking up by the numbers.
Guys there are 30,000 people in the FBI, at max a few hundred are involved in the whole Trump thing.
We can just boil this down to organizational incompetence. Because, you know, how likely is this guy to actually follow through. Oops.
Is that supposed to make it better, or justify their wages?
Nope. The rest don’t get a free pass. They know about the corruption and do nothing in order to protect their pensions. You can probably excuse the field offices, but at the very least every executive in the DC offices is suspect.
What you said went right over barnbwt’s and Esemwy’s heads.
I agree. The FBI’s excuse is crap. They whine about never being notified in advance and here they are notified and they don’t do jack. I know of the FBI going after people who displayed much less potential threat than Cruz so it’s doubly lame they didn’t do anything.
What jwm said in the very first post, top here!
They were too busy trying to frame Trump!
If they can’t straighten things out in six weeks, they should be disbanded and started over with a new name.
Matter of fact, I think that such should be started right now!
So when they fail again, something is already going~
If I had accused Obama of picking his nose, the FBI would have been on my doorstep in minutes. But they can’t fnd this Guy? Give me a break. They’re either incompetent or hiding something.
Pathetic…how about “work was hard so we quit”. Whiny FIBBIE feds here and last week. Kinda’ like its orchestrated😩😖😧😟😡
Or, “We can’t do our job, so y’all need to give up your gun rights, instead.”
So, instead of allowing the unarmed “security guard” football coach to carry, instead the gun banners want to go the opposite direction and ban even more guns.
The coach might very well be with us today, and the body count lower, if he’d had the capability of capping this little bastard.
Unfortunate truth – Security with pistols have little chance against a long gun firing into the building. They have SOME chance if the shooter is inside a confined area where some of the advantages of a rifle, especially a semi-automatic rifle, are minimized.
And whatever your building security plan, an effective ruse to get the victims to leave the security, such as it is, provided by the building negates all of those efforts.
And if that doesn’t work, wait another 15 minutes until every single one of those students is rushing out the front door to go home, milling about, waiting in clumps to board the school bus.
There are no easy solutions to this problem. Even metal detectors at the doors are not the answer since all you really accomplish is a long line of docile victims waiting their turn to pass the checkpoint – sitting ducks for anyone waiting to cause mayhem with a gun, bomb or rented truck.
You brought this shit up yesterday, cliff, you fake news fucktard. The vast majority of mass shooters flee or kill themselves when they meet a credible threat of armed resistance. TTAG has noted this fact for years. This whole “people with hand guns stand little chance” is made up CNN liberal fake news.
Or better yet just not be there. Home school – It’s the only way to keep your own children safe! Problem solved! It really is that simple. Instead of thinking why you can’t home school, think of how you can!
@CliffH, How about you have a handgun with a 15 +1 capacity and a spare mag? This kid was a coward otherwise he wouldn’t have tried to blend in with fleeing students!! Unload a mag his direction and he would have shit his pants and ran!! Cripes, I’ve seen the Taliban with full auto AKs run when we unloaded on them.
Having someone sling lead your way is going to disrupt you plan regardless if they are using a handgun or a rifle. If some guy is a decent shot and God steadies his hand, your party is over. Hell, if enough people start chucking rocks you have to duck.
The FBI receives 1300 tips from the public per day according to their website. Some of them are likely tinfoil hatters, but someone still has to take it. You can’t prevent everything, and you can’t go too deep down any rabbit hole when you’re drinking from a fire hose.
So that makes it all okay? What’s the point of having big brother and pile of 3 letter agencies if they can’t do anything useful?
The NSA is busy reading all of our e-mails, texts, and everything on the Internet. The postal service photographs every piece of mail. We’ve got the Patriot Act, warrantless surveillance, etc. What do we have to show for it other than a lot less privacy and an erosion of our rights?
The FBI didn’t stop the Tsarnaev brothers either despite having been warned about them by the Russians. To borrow a phrase from Mark Steyn somehow we continue to find that lone wolf is usually a known wolf.
If the fire hose as you call it is overwhelming them I guess we should take it away and scale back their scope and mission to something they can do competently.
Their too busy spying on gun owners and other conservative groups.
The Fibs are too busy chasing down all the TTAG posters who threaten to go all Yeager on the dems if one more thing happens. Trust me, that’s a full time job.
The irony of this is that we, the pro-gun crowd, are likely to want less government interference in our lives. We want our rights and liberties protected, and the feds in our lives as little as possible.
The FBI is a law enforcement and intelligence agency. Law ENFORCEMENT, as in enforcing violations. Go hop on 4Chan, YouTube, or any social media platform and you’ll find plenty of hate speech, talk of violence, and snarky trolls trolling. Crap like what he posted gets posted everyday. Hell, there’s one website that sold a “school shootings tour” t-shirt! It’s all protected under free speech. Until you BREAK the law, there’s nothing to enforce.
We can play armchair investigator all day, but some teenager posting a comment that some would consider dark humor goes on the back burner when you’re tracking people wanting to join or provide material support to terrorists, human trafficking, child porn, counterintelligence threats, foreign governments trying to acquire restricted materials, etc. Everybody praises these guys when they free underage sex slaves, shutdown a darkweb child porn ring, stop a terrorist attack, or arrest a group of corrupt politicians/police. Everyone is quick to judge when a mistake is made.
“The FBI receives 1300 tips from the public per day …”
Yes, and they have nearly 14,000 special agents. They also had Cruz’s name and address in the database, because he passed a background check a year ago.
If the FBI had wanted to contact Cruz and check out the report about his Youtube comment, they could have easily done so. This excuse — “We couldn’t locate him” — is total BS. TOTAL BS.
Remember, they had to burn those kids to death at Waco because the FeeBI agents were getting tired of maintaining a perimeter.
If it had been a threat against fed dot gov, the bureau would have moved heaven and earth to find the guy. They’d have called Youtube and started tracing. But it was just a comment from a “threat vector” that they don’t prioritize, so they went through the motions. Those “internal database searches” probably took less than 30 minutes.
Yes, they could have and should have called Youtube. They didn’t even say that they did.
Basically, the bureau is designed to build cases against prioritized breakers of federal law. Don’t believe me? How long did they sit on the Nassar case? 1 year.
They fail to do their job and us gun owners will pay the price.
Lies, disinformation and blame shifting.
I think we’d need to at least know how many threats like this the FBI gets every day and how many people that have to follow up on them to judge them fairly.
It has been my experience that the “cyber” talents of the alphabet agencies is greatly exaggerated and largely misrepresented by a mostly ignorant media body.
I’d take the power of weaponized autism over the technical prowess of the feds any day of the week.
If you want a good laugh read some of their leaked procedure and training documentation. It’s eye opening.
Yesterday I heard the FBI was leading the investigation, despite having no authority and less experience with murders than the Broward County cops. I now know why, to cover up their incompetence.
Any one that is hooked on prescription antidepressants should not be able too own a gun, every mass shooter so far has been stoned them.
If the crybaby liberals want to be prescription antidepressants they need to have there gun right voided just like any other not legal drug use in the country
Just like getting a DWI or several on MO you lose you gun rights
Intoxicated possession of firearm in any way in MO is a FELONY!
NO GUNS!
Prescription antidepressants use and should bar a person from
possession of firearm in any way
NO GUNS
On NZ National radio today was a guy who has written about prescription antidepressants. He took them when prescribed, but he eventually went onto the maximum dosage, with diminishing effects. They turned him into a non thinking zombie. He conducted a study with leading researchers, and found that other methods work much better. Severe depression often has its roots in early childhood abuse and neglect. Modern society alienates and isolates people, especially the poor and the disabled. He found numerous instances of spontaneous community building in crisis situations, where most depressed people had reduced symptoms and medication needs. Maybe we need to build better communities, and participate in community building activities, to make the alienated feel like they belong. Better access to professional counseling sevices is also important. All of this costs money, which governments are loath to spend on apparently non productive people. And a living wage for the unemployed. Rich people are spending more than this costs on bigger boats. Maybe the cost of a few dozen school kids mown down every now and then is the acceptable cost of business as usual.
“Database check” would be a run against the FBI’s crime reporting databases, such as NCIC, to see if his name came up. Pretty useless, generally speaking, in these kinds of cases, because these guys usually are planning their first and only crime of their lives.
Not every bad thing can be prevented, but this guy wasn’t exactly keeping this plan top secret.
The statement suggests that they didn’t even know his name but were working off his username which means there would be no NCIC check. There is no NCIC check for youtube usernames.
Cruz bought a gun from a licensed dealer and passed a background check. His name and address were in the database from that background check.
There is a database of prohibited persons against which feds check gun buyers during NICS. Background checks are supposed to be erased right after conducting. Feds are prohibited by law to make a database of them.
I have, on occasion, had need to connect a youtube account to a real name. It’s usually not difficult, even without administrative subpoenas, and can often be done with public information. It takes a little time but that’s generally it, because most people do not go their entire online existence in clandestine mode. A connection here, a shared user icon there, a link to a FB account, whatever.
The fact that they didn’t find him means they weren’t trying very hard OR the premier law enforcement agency doesn’t know have google-fu.
Robert,
While I can’t excuse the dereliction of duty evidenced by the FBI’s inability to ID this kid, I’d like to point out an issue in your post that the InfoSec professional in me can’t ignore. Since I’ve worked closely with law enforcement on InfoSec issues, I believe I have an informed opinion on the matter.
Having an IP address is generally worthless for legitimate investigation purposes. Law enforcement will try to get an IP when possible, but it is only circumstancial evidence as it is far too easy to mask your true IP.
You do need to be logged into a Google account to comment on YouTube. The FBI could have easily obtained a warrant for all of his account information which would have likely led them directly to him. It also would have likely shown his links to white supremacy based on search data the warrant would have provided.
Let’s see:
1. A year ago, Cruz bought an AR-15 from a federally licensed dealer. He passed a background check at that time.
2. Three months ago, the FBI received the report of Cruz posting a comment on Youtube, using his real name, about becoming a school shooter.
3. The FBI now claims that they had no way of locating Cruz three months ago.
What about his BACKGROUND CHECK? His name and address were on the record. The FBI had more than enough information to locate the guy. Their excuse makes no sense whatsoever.
1. Nikolas Cruz isn’t the most rare of names.
2. We don’t know that the person using that nickname was indeed the shooter. This actually happened when I was in high school right after Columbine. Someone claiming to be a troubled person emailed a “hit list” with the person’s name attached to it. Not that uncommon today, and IPs are damn near useless these days. I could mask my IP, use public WiFi with an old device, create an YouTube account in RF’s name (or something similar thereto), and post all sorts of agitprop that would incriminate him.
3. See #2.
My question to the liberals is why would a single law make any difference if the government can’t even track a dude down who posts online using his real name that directly puts up pictures of guns and says he’s going to be a school shooter? It’s easily misplaced faith.
The list of failures of the FBI continues to just pile up, and up, and up.
They failed to use the information they had on at least two of the 9/11 hijackers:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/09/AR2005060902000.html
They failed to use the information they were served on a platter by the Russians about the Tsarnev brothers, aka “Boat Boy” and “Speedbump.”
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2013/04/23/russia-contacted-fbi-multiple-times-concerns-about-alleged-boston-marathon-bomber/ND0bhUdq1Tp1mRuC8xlb8N/story.html
The FBI dropped the ball on the Orlando shooter:
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-fbi-investigation-mateen-20160712-snap-story.html
They took years to find a traitor in their midst – where the FBI controlled all the information, had much greater latitude in investigating the suspect, etc – and they still blew it:
http://articles.latimes.com/2002/apr/05/news/mn-36370
Shall I go on? They’re an utterly incompetent organization. They have been for decades.
FBI, White House, Congress…all just giant bureaucracy with too much power and tax payer $., and all get little productive completed…what a mess. More corruption at all these organizations will be exposed in coming days I feel.
“Duh, we’re the FBI and we’re corrupt but mainly just incompetent. So what we need is more budget…”
Sheit, the way the federal budget is going we probably will give it them. I’m very concerned Republican majority in house and senate increasing spending above Obama levels. Seems to me we are heading towards a really bad dollar collapse that will trigger a worldwide depression. I don’t know when and I don’t know how bad, but I’ll be keeping my powder dry.
Yup..,our deficit just increased with this new horrible tax law…this country is kinda screwed
CooterELee (keep your powder dry): You’ve just increased your visibility 10,000x over a progressive, by posting common sense on a gun site TTAG. VERY suspicious, you must be watched for “OUR SAFETY.” [You have my condolences]
Holy Shit….. The FBI new about the guy, they didn’t want to stop the guy. It was perfect
In their defense, not that I excuse them for the failure. An IP address is a shared resource service providers use shared pools of dynamically assigned IPs. Not to mention, the kid could have used a simple proxy service to route his session through a few different locations, making it extremely difficult to trace back, often completely impossible. Despite what conspiracy theorists and the movies would have you believe, it’s not that easy to track and IP of someone who is masking it. Also, VPN services are readily available and based in places that do not comply with US courts (warrants).
Don’t downplay it if you don’t understand it.
I also agree that they probably didn’t take it seriously, when they should have.
You’re asking the wrong questions.
“How does finding Cruz help Hillary?
“How does finding Cruz hurt Trump?
Since the answer to both is “It doesn’t “
There you are.
TweetyRex [here I are]: Darn, I was hopin’ I’d left the left well behind, but you’re correct, it’s like “Groundhog Day – 2016” STILL! Stupid ideas that have never worked may live forever, unless we heed history.
FBI…Federal Bureau of Incompetence?
ISPs don’t assign an IP for each customer for life. IP addresses can also be spoofed. Using a proxy or connecting to a VPN can change it as well which can show the IP in a location far away from where the actual user is posting. It is useless information, I keep hearing people in the media swearing “but they had the IP address! It’s unique!”, when they don’t know what they’re talking about (what else is new?).
[sarcasm]
Glad to see so many highly skilled investigators with inside knowledge of the FBI commenting on this post. If only they were part of the FBI, none of this would have ever happened.
[/sarcasm]
Why do we carry guns? Why do we refuse to give up our gun rights when things happen? Partially because no matter what we do to protect ourselves and avoid danger, there is a chance something will happen. And we will need it. No matter what laws are passed, people will break them. People are flawed, fallible creatures. They make bad choices, and sometimes they lead to negative consequences no one could have foreseen. The FBI, an organization made of people, is not going to be perfect 100% of the time.
S*** happens, people. Cost of a free society. You can only prevent so much crime. Hell, North Korea has crime issuea and it’s an isolated police state under martial law with thought police. Until we harden the inside of our schools by arming teachera, this will continue. It doesn’t matter what steps the FBI or anyone else take.
FBI, dropping the ball since 2001. Isn’t that their actual motto? It should be. I’m not interested in hearing excuses from the agency that lost track of a known group of terrorists they were supposedly trying to watch. They knew about the Boston bombers. They knew about the Orlando shooter. They knew about this wacko. I’m half convinced that they knew more than they are willing to admit about the Las Vegas killer, particularly given that they have seized a large portion of the evidence to “help” with the investigation, and as yet have nothing further to say about it. The only thing the FBI seems to be concerned with right now is undermining our government, and preserving their own power to do so. Everyone at the top of this corrupt and incompetent mess needs to be fired and replaced, if not prosecuted.
I can bet FBI did nothing because they new and wanted it to happen. Most of the mass shootings in the last 10 years have one thing in common: The shooter was “known” to FBI or was warned about. This includes Sandy Hook shooter. How do you explain incident in Garland Texas where FBI new and “observed” attempted mass shooting by Muslim terrorist during Mohamed cartoon drawing contest couple of years ago?
There’s a great old Walter Mattaeu movie HOPSCOTCH in which the great character Actor Ned Beatty portrays a CIA official who appropriately describes the FBI agents as “Fucking Ball-busting Imbeciles”
They seem to “bust the wrong balls” but the imbecile characterization is spot-on. Today’s FBI too corruptvat the top with emphasis on discrediting Prez Trump that real crime thrives. The FBI’s morons are directly responsible for not stopping the horrendous FL school shootings! Be ashamed, you imbicles!
You had st least two warnings re shooter Cruz!!!!
The entire history of the FBI from its inception has been an empire building organization which has never been what it portrays itself to be, i.e. a national Police force. It has spent more time and energy on public relations than actual law enforcement. For the first thirty years, it denied the existence of the Mafia because the Director had a gambling habit.
This latest PR stunt shows they have reached the nadir of their long history of ineptitude.
As long as the USA fails to create an actual National Police force to take over local and federal law enforcement in its entirety, there will be gaps in the system which criminals will exploit. And school children will keep dying in a hail of bullets.
But not allowing armed security in schools is the biggest crime of all.
I hope I’m wrong but these Obama Clinton leftovers in the FBI want more mass shootings to push their gun ban grabbing plans.
Oh I get it… blame the FBI for a local police issue to discredit the FBI BC THEY ARE CURRENTLY investigating the Trump connection to Russian spies trying to disrupt our national elections. The local police were there 39 Times at his house …. and did NOTHING!!!! THIS IS WHAT LOCAL POLICE ARE SUPPOSED TO DO: protect !! Instead they are busy drug hunting and searching every car stop person for drugs trying to roll up a bigger drug case…. don’t stand for this non policing, drug hunting approach anymore… make our police do their job : protect and solve violent crimes and property crimes.
Just another FBI bungle in a long line of them. Remember Richard Jewell (1996 Atlanta Olympics bombing case)? How about Dr. Steven Hatfill (2001 Anthrax mailings case)?
Ahhh…….the good ol’ days of FBI incompetence, back when they would just ruin one innocent man’s life at a time, rather than get 17 high school kids murdered all at once by the high school expellee criminal mastermind working down at the dollar store.
Well, on the positive side, at least the FBI jackholes directly responsible for managing past royal screw-ups, like the Anthrax case, aren’t involved in this investigation. No telling how badly they’d F the crap out of this one. Speaking of said jackholes, where are James Comey and Richard Mueller nowadays? I hope they’re happily retired and haven’t been running any investigations or anything, lately.