Nikolas Cruz, who allegedly shot 17 students and teachers at a Florida high school on Feb. 14, apparently threatened a mass shooting almost a year ago.
Cruz was charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder on Thursday, Feb. 15 after the massacre at Marjory Stoneman High School in Parkland, north of Miami.
A YouTube user with the same name commented on a video about Charles Whitman, the first mass shooter in history, on the website saying, “I am going to what he did.”
Cruz added 3 months later in another comment: “I’m going watch them sheep fall [expletive] antifa i wish to kill as many as i can.”
He then added a third comment, saying: “Iam [sic] going to kill them in the future.”
Ben Bennight, a 36-year-old, said he alerted the FBI of the comments but the law enforcement agency apparently didn’t act on the tip.
At a press conference after the shooting, the FBI confirmed it had received the tip but that it couldn’t uncover any details from Cruz’s account.
“No other information was included in the comment, which would indicate a time, location, or true identity of the person who made the comment,” special agent Robert Lasky told reporters. “The FBI conducted database reviews, checks, but was unable to further identify the person who made the comment.”
“All he would talk about is guns, knives, and hunting,” said Charo. “I can’t say I was shocked. From past experiences, he seemed like the kind of kid who would do something like this.”
“He used to tell me he would shoot rats with his BB gun and he wanted this kind of gun, and how he liked to always shoot for practice,” Charo said.
It was only after the shooting, though, that authorities searched through various accounts linked to Cruz.
On his Instagram, there was a number of pictures of Cruz with guns as well as knives.
“Our investigators began dissecting social media,” Broward Sheriff Scott Israel told reporters. “Some of the things that come to mind are very, very disturbing.”
