Power & Market

The FBI Caught Asleep at the Switch — Again

The FBI Caught Asleep at the Switch — Again
Power & Market Ryan McMaken

Governor Rick Scott of Florida has called on the FBI director, Christopher Wray, to resign after it was revealed the FBI failed ot follow up on leads related to this week's school shooter. The FBI also failed to even follow its own protocol in terms of forwarding information to the local field office

Robert Lasky, FBI Special Agent in Charge of the Miami field office, said agents in the Miami field office were never notified about the tip.

"The FBI has determined that protocol was not followed. The information was not provided to the Miami field office and no further investigation was conducted at that time," Lasky said Friday at a news conference. "We will conduct an in-depth review of our internal procedures for responding to information that is provided by the public."

The FBI was also notified about a comment on a YouTube video posted by a "Nikolas Cruz" last year. 

"The comment simply said, 'I'm going to be a professional school shooter,'" Lasky said Thursday. "No other information was included with that comment, which would indicate a time, location or true identity of the person who made that comment."

Lasky said the FBI was unable to identify who made the remark.

A statement released Friday by the FBI said that the most recent tip should've been investigated thoroughly and forwarded to the Miami field office because it was a potential threat to life.

"We are still investigating the facts," FBI Director Christopher Wray said. "I am committed to getting to the bottom of what happened in this particular matter, as well as reviewing our processes for responding to information that we receive from the public. It's up to all Americans to be vigilant, and when members of the public contact us with concerns, we must act properly and quickly."

No doubt the FBI will "get to the bottom" of this just as it gotten to the bottom of how it failed to notice anything was amiss in the lead-up to 9/11. Perhaps the FBI will receive another big budget increase, as tends to happen after the FBI botches a major investigation. 

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