The Jim Bakker Show

New school year, new security at site of Florida massacre

An empty chair is seen in front of flowers and mementoes placed on a fence to commemorate the victims of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida, U.S., February 20, 2018. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

By Zachary Fagenson and Bernie Woodall

PARKLAND, Fla. (Reuters) – Students at the Florida high school where a gunman killed 17 teens and educators last February will start a new school year on Wednesday amid new security measures that some parents and students fear may not be enough to stop future tragedies.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, has doubled its campus security detail to 18, including three uniformed sheriff’s deputies, and the school’s 3,200 students must wear identification badges as they funnel through three entrances when they arrive at the sprawling campus.

Once the first class starts daily, only one heavily monitored entrance will allow visitors on campus.

School administrators considered and then opted against requiring students to use see-through backpacks or installing metal detectors, finding it would be too difficult to screen all students each morning before class.

On Feb. 14, in the third deadliest shooting by a single gunman at an American school, Nikolas Cruz, 19, who had once been expelled from the school, allegedly opened fire with an assault-style weapon. Cruz is awaiting trial on 17 counts of first-degree murder.

Fred Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter Jaime was killed in the massacre, is worried how his son Jesse, who will start his senior year on Wednesday, will cope with spending another year on the campus where his sister died.

“Very anxious is the word right now,” Guttenberg said in an interview on Monday. He was critical of the measures the school has put in place over the summer break.

“They haven’t done that much,” he said. “They’ve got cameras, which is good, but the entry points are essentially the same.”

School district officials did not immediately offer comment on Guttenberg’s remarks.

The outburst of violence in a decades-long series of shootings at U.S. schools and colleges reignited the nation’s long-running debate on gun rights and sparked a national youth-led gun control movement, with many of the leaders coming from Stoneman Douglas. The U.S. House of Representatives did not tighten gun laws after the massacre but approved more spending for school security.

Broward County schools Superintendent Robert Runcie defended the new security measures, including the lack of metal detectors, from criticism by parents and some school board members, but acknowledged that anxieties remain high.

“This first day of school will be profoundly different and extremely challenging,” Runcie told reporters last week. “It will be emotional. It will be difficult.”

The county school board in April rejected funding from a new state program intended to arm teachers.

Changes greeting students on Wednesday include the doubling of school security personnel, raising the number of armed law enforcement officers to three from one, and classroom doors that lock automatically.

There are also new gates and fences, and the building where most of the 17 were killed is fenced-off, replaced by 32 temporary structures housing classrooms, restrooms, and administrative offices.

“I definitely don’t feel secure,” said junior Darian Williams, 16. “The security officers can do all they want but if someone wants to get in, they can get in.”

(Reporting by Zachary Fagenson and Bernie Woodall; Editing by Scott Malone)

After Parkland shooting, U.S. states shift education funds to school safety despite critics

Adin Chistian (16), student of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, embraces his mother Denyse, next to the crosses and Stars of David placed in front of the fence of the school to commemorate the victims of a shooting, in Parkland, Florida, U.S., February 19, 2018. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

By Hilary Russ and Laila Kearney

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Before the ink could dry on Florida Governor Rick Scott’s signature last month, critics cried foul over the bill he signed into law to spend $400 million boosting security at schools across the state following February’s Parkland mass shooting.

School officials, local sheriffs and Democrats opposed different provisions, including one to provide $67 million to arm teachers. Educators, in particular, voiced concerns that the state will strip money from core education funding to pay for the new school resource officers and beefed up buildings.

“We are a very lean state,” said Florida state Senator Jose Javier Rodriguez, a Democrat who voted against the bill. “If we’re spending money somewhere, we’re taking it from somewhere else.”

In the wake of the high school shooting in Parkland, Florida that killed 17 people, at least 10 U.S. states have introduced measures to increase funding for hardening of school buildings and campuses, add resource officers and increase mental health services, according to Reuters’ tally.

Many of the proposals outlined the need for bulletproof windows, panic buttons and armored shelters to be installed in classrooms. Some legislation called for state police or sheriff’s departments to provide officers to patrol public schools.

Altogether, more than 100 legislative bills to address school safety, not all of which have funding components, have been introduced in 27 states since the Feb. 14 shooting at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, according to data provided by the National Conference of State Legislatures.

But states do not usually have extra money on hand or room to raise taxes. So to pay for the measures, states are mostly shifting money away from other projects, dipping into reserves or contemplating borrowing.

“I would characterize these proposals and the bills that were passed, for example Florida and Wisconsin, as primarily shifting funding from other priorities,” said Kathryn White, senior policy analyst at the National Association of State Budget Officers.

Calls for more gun control and more safety measures have come during peak budget season for nearly all states, whose legislatures spend the spring in debates that shape the coming year’s budget starting July 1.

STATE BY STATE

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker called a special legislative session last month, when lawmakers agreed to create a $100 million school safety grant program.

The money will come out of the state’s general fund. But the spending, coupled with tax cuts and other pending legislation, will leave that fund with reserves of roughly $185 million – enough to run state government for less than four days in the event of a fiscal emergency, according to Jon Peacock, director of the think tank Wisconsin Budget Project.

“That is far less of a cushion than a fiscally responsible state should set aside,” Peacock said.

Funding the safety measures also means that some economic development programs for rural counties did not get funded and a one-time sales tax holiday was scaled back, he said.

In Maine, lawmakers are considering borrowing $20 million by issuing 10-year general obligation bonds to fund loans to school districts for security enhancements.

New Jersey lawmakers are also looking to borrow. On March 26, state senators tacked an extra $250 million for school security onto an existing bill for $500 million of bonds to expand county vocational colleges. The legislature has not yet voted on the measure.

Maryland, Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee and Indiana are also increasing – or trying to increase – funding for school security measures since Parkland.

In Florida, the legislature passed safety spending while approving an increase of only $0.47 per pupil in funding used to cover teacher pay raises, school bus fuel and other operational expenses for education.

“We see $400-plus million in school safety, which we absolutely applaud, but you can’t do that at the expense of your core education program,” Broward County schools Superintendent Robert Runcie said shortly before Scott signed the budget.

Stoneman Douglas is among the schools Runcie, who also heads the Florida Association of District School Superintendents, oversees.

To be sure, some state and local governments have been adding money for school safety measures for years, particularly after 20 children and six adults were killed in a shooting in Connecticut’s Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012.

Some critics, particularly Democrats, say measures that only beef up infrastructure or do not create recurring funds fall short of the mark.

Dan Rossmiller, government relations director of the Wisconsin Association of School Boards, said in a memo to lawmakers in March that individual districts also need money for prevention and intervention, including education services for expelled students and anti-bullying programs, and other purposes.

“Funding for only ‘hardening’ school facilities, while welcome, is likely not going to be sufficient to address the full range of locally identified needs,” he said.

(Reporting by Hilary Russ and Laila Kearney; Editing by Daniel Bases and Chizu Nomiyama)

Florida lawmakers pass gun-school safety bill three weeks after massacre

FILE PHOTO: Protestors rally outside the Capitol urging Florida lawmakers to reform gun laws, in the wake of last week's mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Tallahassee, Florida, U.S., February 21, 2018. REUTERS/Colin Hackley/File Photo

By Bernie Woodall and Steve Gorman

(Reuters) – Florida lawmakers, spurred by last month’s deadly high school shooting, gave final passage on Wednesday to a bill to raise the legal age for buying rifles, impose a three-day waiting period on all gun sales and allow the arming of some school employees.

Swift action in the Republican-controlled statehouse, where the National Rifle Association (NRA) has long held sway, was propelled in large part by the extraordinary lobbying efforts of young survivors from the massacre three weeks ago at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.

But the legislation, while containing a number of provisions student activists and their parents from Parkland, Florida, had embraced, left out one of their chief demands – a ban on assault-style weapons like the one used in the Feb. 14 rampage.

The bill overcame strenuous objections to provisions permitting school staff to carry guns on the job. Critics say that will pose a particular risk to minority students, who they say are more likely to be shot in the heat of a disciplinary situation or if mistaken as an intruder.

Still, a group of families of victims and survivors of the shooting applauded the legislation’s passage in a message posted on Twitter by parent Ryan Petty, whose daughter was among those killed, and urged Republican Governor Rick Scott to sign it.

The measure will automatically become law within 15 days unless vetoed by Scott, who said on Wednesday prior to the vote that he had not yet decided whether to support the bill.

The bill’s passage signaled a possible turning point in the national debate between gun control advocates and proponents of firearms rights enshrined in the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The measure narrowly cleared the state Senate on Monday before passing in the House of Representatives on Wednesday in a 67-50 vote. Ten House Democrats joined 57 Republicans in supporting the bill, while 19 Republicans and 31 Democrats voted against it.

As legislators debated in Tallahassee, U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos visited Stoneman Douglas on the first full day of classes since the shooting, while the accused gunman, Nikolas Cruz, was indicted on 17 counts of murder.

SCHOOLHOUSE “GUARDIANS”

The action by Florida’s lawmakers represented both a break with the NRA on gun sale restrictions and a partial acceptance of its proposition that the best defense against armed criminals is the presence of “good guys with guns.”

The bill would create a program allowing local sheriffs to deputize school staff as volunteer armed “guardians,” subject to special training, mental health and drug screening and a license to carry a concealed weapon. Each school district would decide whether to opt in.

Nearly all classroom teachers are expressly excluded from participating in a compromise aimed at winning support from some Democrats and Scott, a staunch NRA ally who nevertheless is opposed to arming teachers. Otherwise, only non-teacher personnel are eligible, such as administrators, guidance counselors, librarians and coaches.

Florida would join at least six other states – Georgia, Kansas, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming – with laws allowing school employees to carry firearms in public schools, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

President Donald Trump has voiced support for arming teachers as a deterrent to school gun violence, though many parents, law enforcement officials and policymakers in both parties reject the idea.

“The thought of even one student being gunned down by the person responsible for educating and caring for them is just too much,” Representative Amy Mercado, a Democrat from Orlando, said during the House floor debate.

She and critics decried the lack of an assault weapons ban in the bill, though supporters noted that most school shootings in the United States are committed with handguns.

The online statement Petty posted on behalf of victims’ loved ones said: “We know that when it comes to preventing future acts of school violence, today’s vote is just the beginning of our journey.”

Scott told reporters he would “review the bill line by line” and consult with victims’ families before deciding his position.

Besides his objections to arming teachers, Scott is on record as opposed to extending Florida’s existing three-day waiting period for handgun sales to purchases of all firearms.

The bill would also raise the legal age for all gun purchases to 21. The minimum age for handguns nationally is 21, but a person as young as 18 can buy a rifle in Florida.

Cruz was 18 years old when he legally purchased the semiautomatic AR-15 assault-style rifle used in the Stoneman Douglas massacre, according to authorities.

The measure also allows police to temporarily seize guns from anyone been taken into custody for an involuntary mental examination and to seek a court order barring a person from possessing firearms if that individual is deemed dangerous because of a mental illness or violent behavior.

Cruz had a history of mental issues, numerous encounters with police and was expelled from Stoneman Douglas last year for disciplinary problems, according to authorities.

(Additional reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Writing by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Tom Brown and Leslie Adler)

White roses, hundreds of police as Florida shooting school reopens

Students and parents arrive for voluntary campus orientation at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, for the coming Wednesday's reopening, following last week's mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, February 25, 2018. REUTERS/Angel Valentin

By Bernie Woodall

PARKLAND, Fla. (Reuters) – Students returned to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Wednesday, bearing white roses and wearing white ribbons to commemorate the 17 people killed there two weeks ago in the second deadliest public school shooting in U.S. history.

The mood was subdued as roughly 3,000 teenagers walked past hundreds of uniformed police officers to resume classes at the school in the Fort Lauderdale suburb of Parkland. The building where most of the victims died will remain closed indefinitely, however.

Parents who had never accompanied their children to high school tagged along with their teens to offer moral support. Jeannine Gittens, 44, and a friend and fellow mother, had gone ahead of their sons to greet them as they came off the bus.

“We just wanted to make sure they know we are there and that they have our support,” said Gittens, who said her son Jevon, 16, and his friend had ridden the bus alone “because they wanted to make today feel as normal as possible.”

Freshman Nicholas Rodrigues, 15, said he decided to walk the mile (1.6 km) from his home in neighboring Coral Springs rather than ride his bicycle as usual because “wanted to think about things.”

Even as students went into the sprawling Douglas campus, supporters remained gathered outside.

“We feel for these kids so much,” said Beverly Turner, a 63-year-old youth pastor, who said she had two children who graduated from the school. “We’ve seen them grow up and us being there for them is the least we can do.”

Investigators have accused 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, who had been kicked out of the school for disciplinary reasons, of carrying out his attack with a legally purchased AR-15 assault-style rifle. The shooting inflamed the nation’s long-running debate on gun rights as defined in the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Debates over how to respond to the school shootings has seen in recent years erupted in Washington and at state capitals since the Feb. 14 massacre. They also pulled in corporate America, with gun retailer Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc on Wednesday saying it would no longer sell assault-style rifles, the type of weapon used in four of the five deadliest mass shootings by a single gunman in U.S. history, as well as Parkland.

Well-wishers place mementos the day students and parents arrive for voluntary campus orientation at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, for the coming Wednesday’s reopening, following last week’s mass shooting in Parkland, Florida. REUTERS/Angel Valentin

EYES ON WASHINGTON

The Republican leaders of the U.S. Congress on Tuesday rejected new limits on guns after the attack, saying they would not raise the minimum age for gun buyers. The powerful National Rifle Association lobbied forcefully against any restrictions on gun sales, saying the infringe on the rights of law-abiding citizens.

President Donald Trump has suggested arming teachers, as well as reopening mental hospitals, as a way of combating school violence. Trump is scheduled to meet with lawmakers from both parties at the White House later on Wednesday to discuss proposals.

Teenage survivors of the carnage have launched an extraordinary student-led campaign to lobby lawmakers on Capitol Hill and the statehouse in Tallahassee for new restrictions on firearms.

Following the shooting, several large American companies said they were ending programs that offered discounts or other benefits to NRA members. Some have faced blowback, particularly in Georgia where a lawmaker said he would try to kill lucrative tax benefits at Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines after it cut ties with the group.

Nonetheless, retailer Dick’s on Wednesday said it was taking action, including banning sales of guns at its stores to anyone under 21 and no longer selling high-capacity ammunition magazines. The company noted that it had sold a firearm to Cruz, although not the one used in the rampage.

“We have to help solve the problem that’s in front of us,” the company’s chief executive, Edward Stack, said in a statement. “Gun violence is an epidemic that’s taking the lives of too many people, including the brightest hope for the future of America – our kids.”

Dick’s had also removed assault-style weapons from its stories after the 2012 massacre of 26 children and educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, but later returned them to the sales floor.

Cruz was 18 when he bought the gun he is accused of using to attack the school. A Florida court on Wednesday scheduled a hearing to determine whether he has the assets to pay for his own defense.

The Broward County Sheriff’s Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have faced criticism that they failed to properly follow through on multiple tips warning that Cruz had the potential and capacity for deadly violence.

Sheriff Scott Israel has come under heavy criticism after disclosing that one of his armed deputies, assigned as the school resource officer, stayed outside of the building while it was under attack rather than enter and confront the gunman. The deputy has said he believed the gunman was outside.

The sheriff has acknowledged his office is examining reports from a neighboring police department that three more deputies who were present took cover outside the building with guns drawn rather than go into the school immediately.

(Additional reporting by Gina Cherelus in New York and Roberta Rampton in Washington; Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Bill Trott)

Sheriff faces mounting criticism over Florida school massacre

Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel speaks before the start of a CNN town hall meeting at the BB&T Center, in Sunrise, Florida, U.S. February 21, 2018. REUTERS/Michael Laughlin/Pool/File Photo

By Steve Gorman and Daniel Trotta

(Reuters) – A Florida sheriff came under mounting criticism on Sunday for his deputies’ response to this month’s deadly high school shooting and potential warning signs as dozens of state lawmakers called for his ouster and the governor ordered an independent inquiry.

Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel insisted that only one of his armed deputies is so far known to have been at fault for staying outside the school while it was under attack rather than entering to confront the gunman who shot 17 people to death.

That deputy, identified as the school’s assigned resource officer, Scot Petersen, has resigned rather than face suspension and possible dismissal after his actions were caught on video during the massacre, the sheriff acknowledged last week.

News outlets including CNN and NBC have since reported that at least three more armed Broward County sheriff’s deputies were present on the scene, taking cover behind their vehicles instead of immediately going into the school.

Israel sought to dismiss those reports, based on unnamed sources from the neighboring Coral Springs Police Department, which also responded to the shooting.

“Our investigation to this point shows that during this horrific attack, while this killer was inside the school, there was only one law enforcement person, period, and that was former deputy Scot Peterson,” Israel said in a CNN interview on Sunday.

Israel did not rule out, however, that the investigation could find other deputies who failed to act properly during or immediately after the Feb. 14 rampage, which authorities said lasted about six or seven minutes.

The sheriff said separately on Twitter that he welcomed an investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, as requested by Governor Rick Scott, to examine the response by local police and the sheriff’s office.

“This independent, outside review will ensure public confidence in the findings,” Israel said.

Fourteen students and three adult educators were slain when a gunman opened fire with a semiautomatic AR-15-style assault rifle inside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, an affluent suburb of Fort Lauderdale.

Nikolas Cruz, a 19-year-old former student who was expelled last year for disciplinary problems, was later arrested and charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder.

Authorities have said Cruz made his getaway moments after the shooting by blending in with students fleeing the school and was later apprehended after strolling through a nearby Walmart store and stopping at two fast-food outlets.

The sheriff rejected calls for his removal as politically motivated and defended his department from criticism that his deputies overlooked a number of telltale signs that Cruz posed a threat of violence.

“I can only take responsibility for what I knew about,” Israel, a Democrat, told CNN, adding that he had “given amazing leadership” since he was first elected sheriff in 2012.

Besides Peterson’s resignation, Israel has previously said two other deputies have been placed on restricted duty pending an internal review of whether they properly handled two telephone tips – from 2016 and 2017 – warning that Cruz was collecting weapons and might be inclined to commit a school shooting.

The sheriff told CNN on Sunday that 16 other “calls for service” his department received about Cruz before the massacre were properly handled. Others disagreed.

A letter on Sunday signed by 74 Republican members of the Florida House of Representatives urged Scott, also a Republican, to suspend Israel under a provision of the state constitution that lets the governor remove a sheriff for “malfeasance, misfeasance, neglect of duty [or] incompetence.”

“In the years leading up to this unspeakable tragedy, Sheriff Israel, his deputies and staff ignored repeated warning signs about the violent, erratic, threatening and antisocial behavior” of the accused gunman, the letter said. It cited additional questions raised about the actions of the first deputies on the scene of the shooting.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation also has drawn public outrage by acknowledging it failed to follow proper protocols after receiving a tip that Cruz possessed a gun, had indicated the desire to kill and could carry out a school shooting.

FBI officials have told families of victims they “deeply regret” their mishandling of the matter.

The carnage in Parkland, marking the second-deadliest U.S. public school shooting on record, has reignited an intense U.S. debate about firearms safety laws, with Stoneman Douglas students emerging as national voices calling for gun control.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles and Daniel Trotta in New York; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Daniel Wallis)

Armed deputy who failed to confront gunman at Florida school resigns

A woman mourns in front of the fence of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

By Bernie Woodall

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (Reuters) – The armed sheriff’s deputy assigned to the Florida high school where 17 people were shot dead has resigned rather than face suspension after an internal investigation showed he failed to enter the school to confront the gunman during the attack, the county sheriff said on Thursday.

Deputy Scot Peterson, who was on duty and in uniform as the resource officer posted at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, was the only law enforcement officer present on Feb. 14 when the rampage started, Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said.

Peterson’s actions were caught on video during the massacre, which ranks as the second-deadliest shooting ever at a U.S. public school, carried out by a lone gunman wielding a semiautomatic AR-15-style assault rifle.

Nikolas Cruz, a 19-year-old former student, was later arrested and charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder in the assault.

“What I saw was a deputy arrive at the west side of Building 12, take up a position and he never went in,” Israel said, referring to the building on campus where authorities said the bulk of the shooting occurred.

Israel told reporters the shooting in the Fort Lauderdale suburb of Parkland lasted six minutes, and that Peterson reached the building under attack about 90 seconds after the first shots were fired, then lingered outside for at least four minutes.

Asked what the deputy should have done, Israel replied, “Went in. Addressed the killer. Killed the killer.”

Peterson has not given a reason for why he did not enter the building, Israel said. Neither the deputy nor any representatives could immediately be reached for comment.

Israel said he had decided on the basis of his review of the video to suspend Peterson, but the deputy resigned first.

The sheriff said two other deputies have been placed on restricted duty pending an internal investigation into whether they properly handled two telephone tips, received in 2016 and 2017, warning that Cruz might be inclined to commit a school shooting.

Authorities have said that Cruz, who was expelled from Stoneman Douglas High last year for unspecified disciplinary problems, made his getaway moments after the shooting by blending in with students fleeing the school for safety.

LAW ENFORCEMENT RESPONSE UNDER SCRUTINY

Police officers arriving on the scene from the adjacent city of Coral Springs thought the gunman was still inside as they searched the building, based on a security camera video feed that they mistakenly believed was showing them real-time images but was actually footage from 20 minutes earlier.

Coral Springs Police Chief Tony Pustizzi told reporters on Thursday that the confusion stemmed from human error and a “communication failure,” not malfunctioning equipment. He insisted that the mishap did not put any lives in danger.

Still, the disclosure may help explain the time lapse between the shooting and the suspect’s arrest.

The Broward sheriff has said Cruz, after slipping away from the school, casually spent more than an hour drifting through a Walmart store and visiting two fast-food outlets before he was spotted and taken into custody without a struggle.

The shooting has renewed a national debate between proponents of gun rights, as enshrined in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and advocates for tougher restrictions on firearms.

High school students from Stoneman Douglas and elsewhere around the country have launched a protest and lobbying campaign demanding new curbs on assault weapons. U.S. President Donald Trump has suggested school gun violence could be abated by arming teachers.

On Thursday, the head of the National Rifle Association, Wayne LaPierre, lashed out at gun control advocates, accusing liberal elites of politicizing the Florida mass shooting to try to attack “our firearms freedoms so they can eradicate all individual freedoms.”

The carnage also has raised questions about whether law enforcement agencies did all they could to detect and follow up on possible warning signs of last week’s gun violence in advance.

The Broward sheriff’s office received at least 18 calls for service or tips about Cruz during the past decade, and internal affairs detectives are still reviewing two of them to determine if they were properly handled, Israel said.

In one instance from February 2016, the sheriff’s office received information from a neighbor’s son that Cruz “planned to shoot up” a school, based on an Instagram post with a picture of a “juvenile with guns,” according to an agency fact sheet released to the media. A deputy subsequently determined Cruz possessed knives and a BB gun and notified a school resource officer, the document said.

In a more recent incident dated Nov. 30, 2017, a caller told the sheriff’s office that Cruz was collecting guns and knives and “could be a school shooter in the making,” according to the fact sheet. The tipster, it said, advised that the weapons were kept at a friend’s house at an unknown location.

A deputy in that case referred the caller to the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office because Cruz was said to have moved to that jurisdiction, the Broward sheriff’s office said.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation prompted widespread outrage last Friday when it said it had failed to act on a tip warning that a man, since identified as Cruz, had possessed a gun, the desire to kill and the potential to commit a school shooting.

(Reporting by Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Tom Brown and Lisa Shumaker)

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