CNN anchor Jake Tapper took Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel to task Sunday morning after his department received more than 20 warnings about the former Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student who killed 17 people earlier this month.

Tapper interviewed Israel on CNN’s “State of the Union” for about 30 minutes Sunday, grilling him for his office’s failure to stop Nikolas Cruz before he took a rifle to the Parkland, Fla, high school. When Israel refused to take responsibility for something not being done about Cruz in the months before the shooting, Tapper was incredulous.

“Are you really not taking any responsibility for the multiple red flags that were brought to the attention of the Broward sheriff's office about this shooter before this incident, whether it was people near him, close to him calling the police?” Tapper asked.

Israel responded, “Jake, I can only take responsibility for what I knew about. I exercised my due diligence. I've given amazing leadership to this agency.”

Tapper said the public can quite fairly question how well Israel is leading his department.

“Maybe you measure somebody's leadership by whether or not they protect the community. You've listed 23 incidents before the shooting involving the shooter and still nothing was done to keep guns out of his hands, to make sure that the school was protected, to make sure you were keeping an eye on him — I don't understand how you can sit there and claim amazing leadership,” Tapper said.

He added, “I think there are a lot of people who think a lot of mistakes other than that one, deputy.”

Watch the exchange here:



