This marks the fourth mass shooting from a man who was “known by authorities.”
The Fort Hood attacker, Army Maj. Nidal Hassan, was known to the FBI before he shot and killed 13 people and injured 30 others in 2009. The Pulse nightclub killer, Omar Mateen, who shot and killed 49 people and wounded 58 others in 2016, had been investigated by the FBI months before.
And now this: last September, the FBI received a tip about someone called “Nikolas Cruz” who was boasting online about his plans to become a “professional school shooter.” In January, there was an even more specific warning….
Of course, we should at this point add our ritual acknowledgment that the agents of the FBI are brave men and women who work hard and put themselves in danger to keep us safe. Yes, that’s true. But it’s also getting a bit tired, isn’t it?
We have to acknowledge the truth: the FBI, like so many other parts of the federal bureaucracy, is a bloated mess that seems impervious to any kind of public accountability. The leadership of the FBI seems too busy pursuing political vendettas to do its own job properly or put its own house in order.
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