PARKLAND, Fla. – The deputy director of the FBI is admitting failures in the way the agency handled two separate tips regarding Nikolas Cruz prior to the Parkland school shooting, and said corrective actions will be taken.
After two days of listening to testimony, a grand jury indicted Cruz on 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder.
James and Kimberly Snead, who Cruz was living with at the time of the Feb. 14 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, were among those who testified.
"They tried to provide a home to this young man who lost his mother and didn’t have a home, and nobody saw this coming," their attorney, Jim Lewis, said.
At least one person did see it coming though, and that friend of the Cruz family called the FBI six weeks before the shooting.
The FBI admits the person who took that call handled it improperly.
A new congressional committee report stated "the call taker did not ask any standard investigative probing questions during the call," and, "Despite multiple opportunities, the FBI did not share information with state and local authorities. Better information sharing between federal and local law enforcement may have prevented the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School."
That wasn't the first time the FBI missed a critical opportunity to investigate Cruz. The first call came in September from a man concerned with a comment someone named Nikolas Cruz left on his YouTube video about becoming a school shooter.
That report from the FBI briefing stated, "The agents tasked with the case could have requested assistance from YouTube to attempt to identify the user who left the comment, but determined that the United States Attorney's Office in that region was unlikely to agree to such a request."
Meanwhile, the investigation into how law enforcement agencies responded to the shooting is ongoing as well.
Two Miramar SWAT team members have been suspended for responding to the Stoneman Douglas shooting without permission.
The department said that by leaving, the SWAT officers created an officer safety issue and left them unaccountable for their actions.
The police union acknowledged the officers violated policy, but called their intentions brave and heroic.
The next step in the legal process for Cruz is his arraignment, which is expected to happen in the next couple of weeks. The state will then announce whether it will seek the death penalty.
