David Bowdich told the Senate Judiciary Committee that authorities will never know if any investigative work would have prevented the shooting, “but we clearly should have done more.”
This is a recurring theme I hear from our NSA, FBI and CIA, in regards to this, the 9/11 attack and the ongoing attack on our election systems. There are structural and cultural issues with these agencies that need to change pronto.
Missing one tip or even two I can understand, but when there is a consistent pattern from multiple sources there shouldn’t be this much of a problem.
If law enforcement can prevent some school shootings, that would be great, but I think that it is a mistake to rely much on law enforcement agencies for prevention.
The deterrent effect of law enforcement will be negligible on school shooters (who already know that they will end up either dead or facing certain conviction for multiple counts of first-degree murder).
School shootings also don’t appear vulnerable to law enforcement actions that can have a substantial preventative effect. These actions include such items as: increased presence in known target areas; dismantling criminal networks and infrastructure; and detention/prosecution of individuals with specialized knowledge or relationships. School shooters tend to be relatively asocial, they can obtain firearms in the US with relative ease, and they are fairly indistinguishable from a relatively large pool of troubled young people who attribute much of their pain to their experiences with peers and others at their schools.
If there are some promising measures that focus on law enforcement, go for them. Just don’t expect a large improvement, and don’t stop looking for other ways to address the problem.
Guess that whole “arm the teachers” idea might not be a good one…
“How dare you take one or two incidents and try to make policy by it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a Voter ID panel meeting to attend.”
Really?
What could the FBI have done exactly?
The killer in the FL school shooting hadn’t broken any Federal or Florida state laws until he owned fire.
That’s the problem (and point).
It’s too much of a burden to put on law enforcement, security companies and teachers to be perfect, clairvoyant and have a 6th sense for identifying and stopping domestic gun violence incidents every time. It’s a misallocation of our resources when we can dramatically reduce the lethal impact of such incidents by taking the assault weapons off the streets. “He wouldn’t have hurt as many people if he had a knife!” was one of those key, piercing statements by those Parkland kids that cut through the bullshit. Going after the FBI Benghazi style here is like trying to touch one’s nose by going around one’s head instead of taking the shortest, simplest path.
It’s about that damn assault rifles…stupid! Take those off the streets. Make law enforcement’s job easier and safer.
Bowdich said that upon finishing the call, the FBI operator conducted a search of databases and found the closed lead out of Mississippi. The operator then consulted with her supervisor and the matter was closed. He said he didn’t know why the information was not forwarded to local law enforcement.
The FBI investigates leads and tips, so they don’t have to wait until a crime has been committed. They should have alerted local law enforcement.
However, the FBI can hardly be expected to dig equally hard into the 4100 tips they get per day, so it’s insane to continue putting the onus on law enforcement at every level while simultaneously working hard to ensure easy access to lethal weapons. IOW, letting someone get a gun and THEN trying to figure out if they’re potentially dangerous is exactly backward and just flat out stupid.
The NRA will tell us that the teacher packing heat convinced any potential school shooters to cross Seaside High School off the list of mass-homicide targets. The shooters will be looking for a gun-free school – probably the one your child attends.
" did you see the news that a dog died in an overhead bin on an airline? We need to stop this madness, to the Senate!"
(Not to make fun of the loss of a 10 month old puppy. That’s the most horrendous thing I’ve ever heard of the airline’s doing.)
Again, the FL murderer was breaking no Federal or FL laws until he went to the school and pulled the truligher. So tell me what local LE was going to do?
Follow him 24/7 and then arrest him when he gets within 1,000 feet of the school as he heads to his killing rampage?