"We made mistakes here," admitted Acting Deputy Director of the FBI David Bowdich. "No question about that.”
Bowdich appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday to answer questions about the FBI's failure to take proper steps before a 19-year-old mentally disturbed gunman killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last month.
That was only one of Bowdich's admissions. Asked if the FBI had alerted local law enforcement in Parkland about Nikolas Cruz, he noted they had not.
“I don’t know why the call taker did not do so," he said. "She conferred with her supervisor and made some sort of a presentation about what was contained in that call, there was discussion about the fact that the local department had been notified. You’re absolutely correct senator that the call was very explicit, however, they made a decision to close it, no lead value and no call was made to the local jurisdiction.”
Still, he is unsure that they could have prevented the shooting even if they had followed protocol to a T.
"As I wanted to be fully transparent on -- we made mistakes here. No question about that," FBI's David Bowdich says of Parkland, Fla., school shooting. "With that said, even if we had done everything right, I am not sure we could have stopped this act." https://t.co/pzQw8b3Vqo pic.twitter.com/hwdRLu0h6F
— CBS News (@CBSNews) March 14, 2018
“That said even had we done everything right I’m not sure we could have stopped this act, but it would have been nice to try," Bowdich said. "It sure would have been nice for our investigator to sit down in front of Mr. Cruz and actually have that discussion.”
Students across the country are staging "walkouts" today to demand Congress take some action on gun control. A few lawmakers have introduced a bipartisan bill called the STOP School Violence Act, intended to offer more resources to schools to boost security and increase coordination with local law enforcement. But, some of the more activist Marjory Stoneman students are saying it's not enough.
The people of this country don’t settle for less.
— Cameron Kasky (@cameron_kasky) March 12, 2018
We will not let lawmakers hide behind pathetic things like the #StopSchoolViolenceAct.
Read it. It’s a bunch of fancy language that means nothing.
No mention of background checks/assault rifles=NOT ENOUGH.
See u at the march
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