'Nikolas Cruz' YouTube comment brings FBI to bail bondsman's door

Therese Apel | The (Jackson, Miss.) Clarion Ledger

Show Caption Hide Caption The FBI may have known about Florida school shooter New reports reveal alleged south Florida shooter Nikolas Cruz was actually on the FBI’s radar, students joked he would quote “shoot up the school” one day, and his step-mom died of the flu.

JACKSON, Miss. — A Mississippi bail bondsman got an eerie message in September that took on a whole new feel in the wake of the mass shooting in at a Florida high school Wednesday.

"Im going to be a professional school shooter," the post read, and the poster's name didn't mean much at the time.

It was "Nikolas Cruz."

That's the name of the 19-year-old accused of entering Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School wearing a gas mask, pulling a fire alarm, and opening fire on the students as they tried to evacuate. Seventeen people, including a football coach lost their lives in the attack.

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Ben Bennight has a YouTube channel called "BenTheBondsman" where he posts videos about things that happen in his line of work. That leads to a lot of crazy comments, he said.

Being familiar with criminal matters and law enforcement, Bennight, who works for AFAB Bail Bonds in D'Iberville, Miss., took a screenshot and reported the post. According to the video he posted Wednesday night, he then contacted the FBI.

"I wish I could have given them more information but it was just a comment on my channel," he said.

YouTube removed the offensive comment. Bennight tried to send it to "tips@fbi.gov," an email address he found online. It bounced back.

So he called his local field office.

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"I called and left a message. The next day I had two FBI agents standing in my office taking down my information, taking copies of the screenshot, asking questions of course I couldn't answer," he said.

People leave horrible comments on his YouTube videos all the time, Bennight said.

"I really didn't think anything of it, but this comment said, 'I'm going to be a professional school shooter,' and I couldn't just ignore that," he said.

Many of those comments come from generic accounts, but this one came from someone whose name was Nikolas Cruz.

Five months later, after the shooting Wednesday afternoon, the FBI was back in touch.

"Today the FBI contacts me and first I talk to a guy from the Mississippi field office," he said. Then he got a call from the Miami field office.

Bennight admits that there's not much help he can give beyond the screenshot since to his knowledge he had never interacted with Cruz before. Compounding the difficulty is that the comment had been deleted by YouTube so Bennight doesn't remember which video it was on.

"Basically they're going to have to get with YouTube on where the comment originally came from, but I think they already know," he said. "They were at my house by 5 o'clock and it took them an hour to get there."

"In September 2017, the FBI received information about a comment made on a YouTube channel. The comment said, 'I’m going to be a professional school shooter.' No other information was included in the comment which would indicate a particular time, location, or the true identity of the person who posted the comment," said a statement released by Jackson, Miss., FBI field office spokesman Brett Car. "The FBI conducted database reviews and other checks, but was unable to further identify the person who posted the comment."

Carr said the FBI has no further comment on the matter.

Bennight said in his video that the whole situation was so strange.

"From time to time, when you're in the business that we're in, and I put stuff out on YouTube so I'm kind of public, it's not a big secret who I am and what I do," he said. "I do get some unwanted attention. Being in the bonding business you sometimes get unwanted attention and information you'd rather not have... This is one of those situations."

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That communication, though, may help authorities as they pursue a case against the accused Broward County, Fla., school shooter. Bennight said he just wished he could have done more.

"I didn't ignore it. I forwarded it to the proper authorities," he said. "I guess it's not something I'd rather not know, but I wish this information could have prevented this from happening. ... I'm not sure there's anything the FBI could have done with that information besides keep an eye on somebody."

On Thursday, Cruz was booked into jail on charges of premeditated murder.

Follow Therese Apel on Twitter:@TRex21

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