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Did FBI miss a warning before Florida high school shooting?

In this Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2018 file photo, teens, who walked out from the direction of the high school, are escorted by police following a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Fla. It was the final period of the day at the school and Jonathan Blank was in history class, learning about the Holocaust. Across campus five of his friends, pals since grade school, sat in different classrooms watching the clock, when a former student opened fire at the school, killing more than a dozen people and injuring others Wednesday afternoon. (Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP, File)
In this Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2018 file photo, teens, who walked out from the direction of the high school, are escorted by police following a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Fla. It was the final period of the day at the school and Jonathan Blank was in history class, learning about the Holocaust. Across campus five of his friends, pals since grade school, sat in different classrooms watching the clock, when a former student opened fire at the school, killing more than a dozen people and injuring others Wednesday afternoon. (Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP, File)

By Associated Press 5 min read

The massacre at a Florida high school is again raising concerns about whether the FBI missed signs that might have stopped a mass shooting.

Last fall, a Mississippi bail bondsman and video blogger noticed a comment on one of his YouTube videos that said, “I’m going to be a professional school shooter.” He immediately reported it to YouTube and the FBI and the next day two agents came to his office to take a printout of the comment and ask him whether he knew anything about the person who posted it.

Although the commenter’s username was “Nikolas Cruz,” – the same name as the 19-year-old man who authorities say killed 17 people at his former high school on Wednesday – the FBI couldn’t identify the poster, Robert Lasky, the special agent in charge of the FBI office in Miami, said Thursday.

Federal agents interviewed the man who reported the comment and searched public records databases, actions in line with those done during an FBI assessment – the lowest level, least intrusive and most elementary stage of an FBI inquiry – but came up short. The FBI says they still haven’t conclusively linked the account to the shooter.

A day earlier Cruz walked into his former high school in Florida with an AR-15 rifle and opened fire, shooting at students and teachers in hallways and on school grounds.