The FBI said it failed to act on a tip about the suspected Florida school shooter's potential for violence

he FBI ignored a warning that 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz might attack a school, failing to act on a call just weeks before Cruz allegedly carried out a shooting rampage at a high school in South Florida on Valentine’s Day, the bureau said Friday.

The disclosure came two days after police say Cruz gunned down 17 people, most of them teenagers, at a high school in Parkland, Fla. The FBI — already facing intense scrutiny for its handling of political matters — described a Jan. 5 tip from “a person close to Nikolas Cruz,” a tip officials acknowledge should have initiated a response. The caller reported concerns about Cruz’s “gun ownership, desire to kill people, erratic behavior, and disturbing social media posts, as well as the potential of him conducting a school shooting,” the FBI said in a statement.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) called the FBI’s failure to investigate the tip “unacceptable” and urged FBI Director Christopher A. Wray to resign.

[ The lives lost in the Parkland school shooting ]

“Seventeen innocent people are dead and acknowledging a mistake isn’t going to cut it,” Scott said in a statement. “An apology will never bring these 17 Floridians back to life or comfort the families who are in pain.”

The country’s premier law enforcement agency has come under criticism for its handling of an ominous message posted on YouTube last fall that indicated a user going by the name of “nikolas cruz” wanted to be a school shooter. Though they investigated that tip, they didn’t connect it to Cruz until after this week’s massacre. Authorities in South Florida have been sharply questioned about why they did not act sooner on Cruz’s history of unnerving, sometimes violent behavior, including a long line of incidents at local schools he attended.

As funerals began in a community mourning those killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, and as President Trump visited an area hospital and the Broward County Sheriff’s Office on Friday night, officials pledged to investigate what went wrong with the tip that the FBI received six weeks earlier.

Even Cruz’s attorney, who said he does not doubt his client’s guilt, said the rampage could have been prevented had officials acted upon the many red flags in Cruz’s life.

Source: Washingtonpost News