“I am committed to getting to the bottom of what happened in this particular matter," FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement Friday. | Andrew Harnik/AP Photo FBI failed to follow up on Florida shooting suspect tip in January

The Federal Bureau of Investigation acknowledged on Friday that some “protocols were not followed” after it obtained a tip in January that Nikolas Cruz, the suspect in the Florida school attack, had the potential of “conducting a school shooting.”

“We are still investigating the facts,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement. “I am committed to getting to the bottom of what happened in this particular matter, as well as reviewing our processes for responding to information that we receive from the public.”


The FBI said a caller had provided the bureau with “information about Cruz’s gun ownership, desire to kill people, erratic behavior, and disturbing social media posts” on Jan. 5.

But because of a lapse in procedure, the bureau said, the information was “not provided” to its regional field office in Miami and “no further investigation was conducted at that time.”

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The announcement prompted a wave of backlash by public officials, with Gov. Rick Scott of Florida issuing a call for Wray to step down.

“The FBI’s failure to take action against this killer is unacceptable,” Scott said in a statement, adding: “The FBI Director needs to resign.”

The bureau did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Scott’s statement. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, however, lamented the “tragic consequences of those failures” on Friday, saying that intelligence officials “must do better” to prevent further shootings from taking place.

“It is now clear that the warning signs were there and tips to the FBI were missed,” Sessions said in a statement.

Sessions announced that he had instructed Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to carry out an “immediate review” of protocols at the Justice Department and FBI to “ensure that we reach the highest level of prompt and effective response to indications of potential violence that come to us.”

“The FBI in conjunction with our state and local partners must act flawlessly to prevent all attacks,” Sessions added. “This is imperative, and we must do better.”

Cruz is accused of killing 17 people and wounding several others when he allegedly opened fire on students and staffers at Marjory Douglas Stoneman High School in Parkland on Wednesday. Cruz, a 19-year-old former student of the school, allegedly used an AR-15-style assault rifle to unleash the deadly onslaught at the school.

Another tipster is reported to have separately flagged to the FBI a disturbing comment left by a user, “nikolas cruz,” on YouTube in September. “Im going to be a professional school shooter,” the comment read. Two FBI agents investigated the matter, The Washington Post reported, but were unable to identify the person behind the post.

The FBI did not specifically address the post on Friday.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said in a statement on Friday that the FBI’s failure to follow-up on the tip was “inexcusable,” calling on lawmakers to “immediately” look into the bureau’s procedures for screening information.

“The fact that the FBI is investigating this failure is not enough,” Rubio. “Both the House and Senate need to immediately initiate their own investigations into the FBI’s protocols for ensuring tips from the public about potential killers are followed through.”

The Broward County sheriff, Scott Israel, who is overseeing the regional investigation into the shooting, acknowledged on Friday that his office had received numerous calls requesting service for Cruz in recent years, though he did not detail the nature of the calls.

“We have uncovered at the Broward Sheriff’s Office that we have had approximately 20 calls for service over the last few years regarding the killer,” Israel said during a news conference. He added that some did not entail a police response while others involved out-of-state residents.

Israel vowed that all of the calls would be “looked at and scrutinized” to determine whether his office failed to respond properly.

But the sheriff appeared to push back against claims that authorities had been negligent in their response, maintaining that the fault lay squarely with the suspect.

“At the end of day, make no mistake about it, America: The only one to blame for this killing is the killer himself,” Israel said.

Since the fatal shooting on Wednesday, local and federal authorities have painted Cruz as a troubled individual. During a bond hearing in Florida on Thursday where Cruz was charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder, his attorneys described him as a “broken child.”

President Donald Trump on Thursday lamented on Twitter that “many signs that the Florida shooter was mentally disturbed” had not been followed up on, pointing to “neighbors and classmates” who he said “knew he was a big problem.”