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FBI Was Warned About School Shooting Threat from YouTube User Named Nikolas Cruz

29 points by dsr12 9y ago

IntronExon 9y ago
Is there any information on how many such warnings the FBI receives? If this is somewhat rare then hard questions need to be asked, but I wouldn’t be shocked if there are more angry, disturbed, and worrying people online than the FBI had the resources to comprehensively investigate.
Cw67NTN8F 9y ago
Any lawyer in the house? Is it illegal to say "I'm going to be a professional school shooter" ? I doubt it...unless you mention the school, have pipe bombs made and other things that suggest a plan to carry it out. So FBI opened a file and could do nothing. If someone wants to do something, they'll do it, unless the intended target has Papal or POTUS style security.
- IntronExon 9y ago
  I spent about 8 seconds trying to figure out what Papel was an acronym for, and then fscepalmed. sigh
  - rdruxn 9y ago
    You misspelled “facepsalmed”
    - IntronExon 9y ago
      I done goofed...
  - banhfun 9y ago
    Isn’t Papel a JavaScript library?
  - Cw67NTN8F 9y ago
    You wasted 7 of them. The word was "Papal," having to do with the Pope. As in "The modern Papal Swiss Guard serves as both a ceremonial unit and a bodyguard"
gargravarr 9y ago
Figures. President Trump of course mentions 'reporting suspected potential shooters to the relevant authorities', and the first thing that came to mind was, 'they probably were reported, and nobody listened'. Because as others noted, the FBI probably gets tonnes of these and one itsy comment probably isn't enough to start a probe.
gt_ 9y ago
>In the wake of the deadly shooting, questions have emerged over whether officials and acquaintances had missed warning signs about the alleged shooter. In this case, it actually looks like the authorities acted on every measure they could within the confines of convention, investing significant resources as it is. How much harassment, judgement and alienation would it have taken to get this teenager locked up before he had a chance to take a gun to school? It’s an enormously difficult problem, sure, but I wonder whether more effort to demonize and demoralize individual teenagers on a basis of superficial loosely correlated rumors would help. I assume the returns are swiftly diminishing. Although selling less assault rifles on the open market would be a good start, even strict gun laws fail to offer hope in the foreseeable future. It’s not acceptable to discuss school shooters ‘as human beings’ post-massacre and that’s definitely understandable. But, as these events become more commonplace in America, I think the whole things is due some humility. Even if we can accept and afford multiplied law enforcement efforts, we can’t keep treating these cases as self-contained bouts of evil. Statistics have made it clear this is overwhelmingly an element of contemporary American society. But our response consistently predicates the cause was one of 2 things: - not sniffing out enough clues - not incriminating the suspect soon enough This seems irresponsible to me. Of course we want to take every preventative measure possible but that might necessitate more than beefed up law enforcement and social stigma.
- mrguyorama 9y ago
  With how many kids are getting to experience a school shooting first hand, the NRA and other gun lobbying organizations are doing a wonderful job of raising a significant group of probably pro-gun ban kids. Not curbing this problem might be a short sighted thing
  - EpicBlackCrayon 9y ago
    >With how many kids are getting to experience a school shooting first hand, the NRA and other gun lobbying organizations are doing a wonderful job of raising a significant group of probably pro-gun ban kids. That notion is devious, and I'm sad to say that it's probably a reality.

29 points by dsr12 9y ago

Is there any information on how many such warnings the FBI receives? If this is somewhat rare then hard questions need to be asked, but I wouldn’t be shocked if there are more angry, disturbed, and worrying people online than the FBI had the resources to comprehensively investigate.

Cw67NTN8F 9y ago

Any lawyer in the house? Is it illegal to say "I'm going to be a professional school shooter" ? I doubt it...unless you mention the school, have pipe bombs made and other things that suggest a plan to carry it out. So FBI opened a file and could do nothing. If someone wants to do something, they'll do it, unless the intended target has Papal or POTUS style security.

IntronExon 9y ago
I spent about 8 seconds trying to figure out what Papel was an acronym for, and then fscepalmed. sigh
- rdruxn 9y ago
  You misspelled “facepsalmed”
  - IntronExon 9y ago
    I done goofed...
- banhfun 9y ago
  Isn’t Papel a JavaScript library?
- Cw67NTN8F 9y ago
  You wasted 7 of them. The word was "Papal," having to do with the Pope. As in "The modern Papal Swiss Guard serves as both a ceremonial unit and a bodyguard"

gargravarr 9y ago

Figures. President Trump of course mentions 'reporting suspected potential shooters to the relevant authorities', and the first thing that came to mind was, 'they probably were reported, and nobody listened'. Because as others noted, the FBI probably gets tonnes of these and one itsy comment probably isn't enough to start a probe.

gt_ 9y ago

>In the wake of the deadly shooting, questions have emerged over whether officials and acquaintances had missed warning signs about the alleged shooter. In this case, it actually looks like the authorities acted on every measure they could within the confines of convention, investing significant resources as it is. How much harassment, judgement and alienation would it have taken to get this teenager locked up before he had a chance to take a gun to school? It’s an enormously difficult problem, sure, but I wonder whether more effort to demonize and demoralize individual teenagers on a basis of superficial loosely correlated rumors would help. I assume the returns are swiftly diminishing. Although selling less assault rifles on the open market would be a good start, even strict gun laws fail to offer hope in the foreseeable future. It’s not acceptable to discuss school shooters ‘as human beings’ post-massacre and that’s definitely understandable. But, as these events become more commonplace in America, I think the whole things is due some humility. Even if we can accept and afford multiplied law enforcement efforts, we can’t keep treating these cases as self-contained bouts of evil. Statistics have made it clear this is overwhelmingly an element of contemporary American society. But our response consistently predicates the cause was one of 2 things: - not sniffing out enough clues - not incriminating the suspect soon enough This seems irresponsible to me. Of course we want to take every preventative measure possible but that might necessitate more than beefed up law enforcement and social stigma.

mrguyorama 9y ago
With how many kids are getting to experience a school shooting first hand, the NRA and other gun lobbying organizations are doing a wonderful job of raising a significant group of probably pro-gun ban kids. Not curbing this problem might be a short sighted thing
- EpicBlackCrayon 9y ago
  >With how many kids are getting to experience a school shooting first hand, the NRA and other gun lobbying organizations are doing a wonderful job of raising a significant group of probably pro-gun ban kids. That notion is devious, and I'm sad to say that it's probably a reality.