The FBI were warned more than a month before the Florida school shooting that suspected gunman Nikolas Cruz had firearms and was “going to explode”.
“I just think about it, you know, getting into a school and shooting the place up,” a caller told an FBI information line, according to a newly released transcript.
Accused of killing 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Mr Cruz repeatedly appeared on authorities’ radar in the months before the massacre.
The FBI has already admitted that it failed to investigate a warning that Mr Cruz had the capacity and will to cause bloodshed, a lapse that has led the Florida Governor, Rick Scott, to call for the FBI Director, Christopher Wray, to resign.
The transcript of the 5 January call illuminates the extent to which the FBI had received explicit information about Mr Cruz’s alleged violent tendencies and threats, evidence of which the caller said was freely available online.
“Something’s gonna happen,” the caller said, explaining the intervention was to safeguard against the possibility that Mr Cruz “takes off, and just starts shooting places up”.
Pictures Mr Cruz posted to Instagram bristled with guns, the caller claimed, telling the FBI that Mr Cruz had recently acquired “all these rifles and ammunition”. The caller described posts in which Mr Cruz allegedly stated “I want to kill people” and told the bureau where to find them, in addition to sharing a physical address where he could be located.
“It’s alarming to see these pictures and to know what he’s capable of doing and what could happen,” the caller said.
Top Florida Republicans, including Mr Scott, have backed legislation allowing courts to bar mentally unstable people from owning or purchasing guns if law enforcement or family members prove they pose a threat to themselves or others.
