The Authorities’ Parkland Failures Get Worse and Worse

I’m normally slow to criticize law enforcement, but this is ridiculous. In addition to the FBI’s already well-publicized failure to follow up when a YouTube video producer alerted the bureau to a comment by Nikolas Cruz about wanting to be a school shooter, we have this, courtesy of Ed Driscoll of InstaPundit:

“I don’t know how he got the debit card, but he did,” she said. “And he took it, and he bought all these rifles and ammunition and he posted pictures of them on the Instagram.”

Another of the woman’s stunning revelations: Cruz was obsessed with ISIS.

“He’s so into ISIS and, um, I’m afraid this is so something’s gonna happen,” she said, describing how Cruz would post pictures of himself dressed up as an Islamic terrorist. She also recounted how Cruz would frequently post pictures of himself donning a “Make America Great Again” cap.

The caller provided the agent with usernames for two of Cruz’s social media accounts, encouraging the FBI to comb through the pages.

“It’s alarming to see these pictures and to know what he’s capable of doing and what could happen,” she said. “He’s [been] thrown out of all these schools because he would pick up a chair and just throw it at somebody, a teacher or a student, because he didn’t like the way they were talking to him.”

The woman said she phoned in because she “wanted a clear conscience if he takes off and, and just starts shooting places up.”

At Hot Air, John Sexton links to a Wall Street Journal article that notes, “The caller described disturbing behavior by Mr. Cruz, including a propensity for cutting up frogs and, at least on one occasion, a bird.” Sexton adds, “He actually brought the bird into the kitchen and cut it up with a knife, reportedly saying, ‘I want to see what’s inside.’ The caller, who is only identified as a woman close to Cruz, also provided the FBI with Cruz’s various social media accounts so they could see for themselves what he was saying online. Obviously, this should have led the FBI to connect his YouTube account (username Nikolas Cruz) and the previous threat about becoming a school shooter.”

Also this, from the same source:

In addition to the armed school resource officer, three other Broward County sheriff’s deputies were outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School during the shooting crisis and didn’t enter.

Good grief. There are plenty of lessons to be learned from the Nikolas Cruz disaster, but none of them have to do with gun control.

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