More Thoughts On Parkland
On Friday (2/16/18) I posted an essay on the Parkland massacre. At the end of that essay I listed a number of things that I felt needed to be done in order to counter our country’s epidemic of mass shootings. FIRST on my list was the need to review and revamp the methods by which the FBI evaluates and investigates complaints and reports of dangerous youths and adults. This recommendation was in response to the fact that a Florida citizen by the name of Ben Bennight notified the FBI in SEPTEMBER of 2017 of a frightening internet post from the Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz. In that post Cruz said he wanted to be a “professional school shooter.” While FBI agents did interview Bennight the following day, they obviously failed to intervene. This fact, taken together with a number of other opportunities shockingly missed by the FBI with deadly consequences (Omar Mateen and Rizwan Farook among others), led me to conclude that the FBI needed extensive overhaul. Unfortunately, the FBI situation seems to be WORSE, even, than it appeared on Friday.
It turns out the Bennight’s call to the FBI on Cruz wan’t the ONLY “tip off” the agency ignored. On January 5, 2017 the FBI received a call from a different individual who KNEW Nikolas Cruz personally. This caller informed the Bureau that Nikolas Cruz owned assault rifles and ammunition and was making threatening statements that he “had a desire to kill”. Again, this very worrisome communication was, apparently, ignored. No one appears to have investigated this alarming report. No one appears to have interviewed Cruz. No one appears to have warned the school. And, certainly, no one intervened in any significant way. And, as a result, 17 innocent people are now dead. Isn’t it CLEAR that we HAVE to do SOMETHING about this dysfunctional agency? The FBI as it currently exists appears to be the culmination of 8 years of wrong headed direction by former director James Comey and his “bosses”, Eric Holder, Janet Lynch and Barack Obama. Comey, Holder, Lynch and Obama were, apparently, more concerned with prosecuting the likes of Martha Stewart and carrying out surveillance of the Trump Campaign than investigating potential threats to our nation and our citizens. Reacting to the the FBI’s obvious deficiencies, Florida Governor Rick Scott has called for current Director Christopher Wray to resign. Although I think Governor Scott is right to recognize and call attention to the need for major change at the FBI, I do think that’s it’s premature to call for Wray’s resignation. Recall that Wray has been director for just a few months, and shouldn’t, therefore, be held accountable for the deficiencies of his predecessors. What is clear, however, is that there needs to be major changes at the FBI in both personel and protocols. And soon.
There’s another aspect of the FBI story that bears mention. After it came to light that Ben Bennight had contacted the FBI about Cruz and was, in essence, ignored, a FBI spokesperson, Brett Car, from the Jackson Mississippi FBI field office on Thursday Feb 15 reported that the Nikolas Cruz lead was a “dead end” because they weren’t able to determine which Nikolas Cruz they were looking for. This statement, as I remarked in my essay on Friday, was preposterous. Any hacker of mediocre talent would have been able to get a positive ID on the correct Nikolas Cruz in a matter of minutes and the NSA (the world’s most advanced cybersleuths) should have been able to do that as well. And, what is even more remarkable than the FBI making such a specious claim, is the fact that the press “bought” the story, hook, line and sinker. News source after news source (radio, TV and in print) on Friday mindlessly regurgitated what they were told. Like good little automatons they parroted what was obviously a deceptive contrivance. If Director Wray hadn’t “fessed up” on Saturday that the FBI DID in fact drop the ball, they’d STILL be spouting that nonesense. Which begs the following questions: Aren’t the media professionals supposed to excercise critical thinking? Aren’t they supposed to posses a certain degree of healthy skepticism? Aren’t they supposed to use some judgement regarding what and how they report? Aren’t they supposed to be, at the very least, SMART?