“How do such atrocities happen?” most of America asked after the school shooting in Parkland, Florida.  Well, here are a few reasons.

A woman close to the Florida school shooter says that she warned the FBI in that he had a growing collection of guns and a temper so uncontrollable that she worried about him “getting into a school and just shooting the place up.”  The FBI acknowledged it failed to investigate the tip about 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, but the transcript of her call reveals the seriousness of her fears.  “I know he’s going to explode,” she told the call-taker.

The tip was among a series of what authorities now describe as the clearest missed warning signs that Cruz, who had a history of disturbing behavior, posed a serious threat. The FBI declined to comment on the transcript, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. On Friday, the FBI briefed a congressional committee about its failure to act on the alarming tip, as well as why it did not delve into a September 2017 YouTube comment posted by a “Nikolas Cruz” that said, “I’m going to be a professional school shooter.” The FBI linked the January call to the report of the YouTube comment, but an FBI intake specialist and a supervisor at the call center took no further action, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley’s office said Friday.

Google, which owns YouTube, also briefed congressional staffers. “During the phone call, which spanned more than 13 minutes, the woman described a teenager prone to anger with the “mental capacity of a 12 to 14 year old” that deteriorated after his mother died last year. She pointed the FBI to several Instagram accounts where Cruz had posted photos of sliced-up animals and rifles and ammunition he apparently purchased with money from his mother’s life insurance policy. “It’s alarming to see these pictures and know what he is capable of doing and what could happen,” the caller said. “He’s 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 called the local police in Parkland, Florida, after Cruz began posting online that he wanted to kill himself. Then, she said, the threat changed to “I want to kill people.” She said he had killed animals and once held his mother at rifle-point.

“I just want to, you know, get it off my chest in case something does happen,” the woman said. “And I do believe something’s going to happen.”

Acting Deputy Director David Bowdich told reporters Thursday the bureau is still trying to determine exactly how the tip got botched. The revelation of the FBI’s failure to refer the tip to agents in the field who could have investigated comes as the agency is already facing intense political pressure. Lawmakers immediately sought more information from FBI Director Chris Wray on what went wrong.  As for the YouTube post, Grassley’s office said the FBI opened a counterterrorism lead but closed it less than a month later because agents were unable to identify the person behind it. Google told congressional staff it could have helped, if the FBI had asked last year.

It has also been revealed that Broward County deputies received at least 18 calls warning them about Nikolas Cruz from 2008 to 2017, including concerns that he “planned to shoot up the school” and other threats and acts of violence before he was accused of killing 17 people at a high school. The warnings, made by concerned people close to Cruz, came in phone calls to the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, records show. At least five callers mentioned concern over his access to weapons, according to the documents. None of those warnings led to direct intervention. In February 2016, neighbors told police that they were worried he “planned to shoot up the school” after seeing alarming pictures on Instagram showing Cruz brandishing guns. About two months later, an unidentified caller told police that Cruz had been collecting guns and knives. The caller was “concerned (Cruz) will kill himself one day and believes he could be a school shooter in the making,” according to call details released by the Sheriff’s Office.

A second cousin asked police to take away Cruz’s guns after his mom died Nov. 1. “Nikolas is reported to have rifles and it is requested that (deputies) recover these weapons,” the dispatcher noted from the call.  This information adds to the growing list of red flags missed by law enforcement officials, including the FBI, in the months leading up to last week’s mass shooting.

In 2008, Broward deputies received their first call involving Cruz, 10 at the time, after a boy threw a rock at him and Cruz retaliated, records show. The violent incidents became more frequent in Cruz’s adolescence. In 2012, his mother called police after Cruz hit her with a “plastic hose from the vacuum cleaner,” according to a summary of the call. The summary noted the “matter resolved. No report initiated.” The next year Cruz’s mother called again after he threw her against the wall because she took away his Xbox game system.  A counselor at Henderson Behavioral Health responded and advised that involuntary commitment wasn’t warranted. Cruz “punched the wall because she took away his Xbox” another time, according to a summary of a call to deputies. “Deputy responded. No crime identified by deputy,” the dispatcher noted.

After the November call from a relative to the sheriff’s office, deputies referred the caller to the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office. Cruz, 19, had moved in with a family in Lake Worth after his mother died. But deputies there never investigated a potential threat at the new address, according to reports.

In late November, Palm Beach County deputies responded to a battery call after Cruz punched Rock Deschamps, the 22-year-old son of Roxcanne Deschamps, who took him in after his mother died. Rock Deschamps told deputies he didn’t want to press charges.  Roxcanne Deschamps told the police dispatcher that Cruz had “bought tons of ammo,” “has used a gun against people before” and “has put the gun to others heads in the past,” according to the notes. When police arrived at the Deschamps home, Rock Deschamps told them “Nikolas was upset and began punching walls and breaking items,” according to the dispatcher’s notes. Rock Deschamps told deputies Cruz hit him in the jaw, and the man hit Cruz back. He then tried to restrain Cruz, but the younger man got away. Deputies approached Cruz, who they found sitting alone in a park near the trailer. He was nervous yet calm, according to the notes. “He said he was sorry for losing his temper.”

Deschamps apparently patched up the dispute, telling deputies that Cruz was going through a lot with the death of his mother and that he did not want him to go to jail. Roxcanne Deschamps declined to comment through the door of her trailer earlier this week. She filed a petition to administer Cruz’s mother’s estate the day after the shooting at the Broward County high school, according to court records. Property records show the Deschamps family and Lynda Cruz were neighbors at one time in Parkland, living on the same street. Deschamps took in Nikolas and his younger brother after Lynda Cruz’s death from pneumonia Nov. 1. On Nov. 27, a school social worker called police and was “concerned that legal guardianship was never filed,” according to the notes.

The bottom line here is that no one wants to believe such a horrible tragedy can happen – even after we’ve seen it happen over and over again. No ones to arrest a troubled kid who just lost his mother.  Everyone wants to give that kid the benefit of the doubt.  I’m sorry to say that can no longer be done.  In a society that is already so overly litigious and fearful that people are afraid to help an old man who has fallen down on the street, lest he sue them for damages.  Remember the bible adcount of the Good Samaritan.  Not likely to happen today unless we get a couple of lawyers on the scene and paperwork signed.

Another contributing factor to the horror at Stoneman Douglas High School was that the armed resource deputy stationed there did not go into the building as the shooting was underway, Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said after reviewing security camera footage. “The armed security guard on duty during the Florida school shooting hid outside and “never went in”.  Deputy Scott Petersen has now resigned after being suspended without pay following the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school that left 17 people dead. Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said Peterson was the school’s resource officer on the day Nikolas Cruz opened fire on students and staff at the school. “Speaking on Thursday, he said: “Scott Peterson was absolutely on campus for this entire event. He was armed, he was in uniform. After seeing video, witness statements, and Scott Peterson’s very own statement, I decided this morning to suspend Scott Peterson without pay pending an internal investigation. As is his right, Scott Peterson chose to resign.”

He said Peterson had served the necessary time and met the requirements for retirement so had “resigned slash retired”.  “What I saw was a deputy arrive at the west side of building 12, take up a position and he never went in,” he added.  Mr Israel said video evidence suggested that Peterson stayed outside for four minutes and clearly knew there was a shooting. Asked what the deputy should have done, he said he should have “went in, addressed the killer, killed the killer.”

Sad as that is, it is more understandable than the clerical errors or lazy follow ups that allowed Cruz to slip through the cracks. Imagine you are a 54 year old security guard hearing automatic weapon fire inside the school.  You know that as soon as the shooter sees you, he will probably kill you instantly.  Your only chance against an automatic weapon is to sneak around and hope you get a clear shot at him before he knows you are there.  You can’t yell, “Freeze” or “Drop it, buddy,” because he can kill you much easier than you can kill him.  Still if you take the job of a school security guard you know such a thing is possible and you’d better be willing to die for those kids or don’t take the job.

Knowing these things doesn’t really help much in solving the school shooter problem facing us today. Arming teachers could get way out of hand very quickly.  Having a metal detector at every entrance to a school is just not feasible.  Administrators balk at the idea of even having metal detector at the main entrance because of the huge expense involve. And there’s a hundred ways to get inside a school.  I think we better quit looking for the easy solution and embrace the hard ones which we still have time.

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