Nikolas Cruz: YouTuber Warned FBI About Alleged School Shooter In September, Reports ‘BuzzFeed’
A new report claims that alleged Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz’s YouTube account might have been known to the FBI, as someone of that name purportedly left a chillingly prophetic comment on a video, one that had prompted the video’s creator to report the remark to the agency’s authorities after he brought up the matter to YouTube.
According to BuzzFeed News, 36-year-old Mississippi bail bondsman and vlogger Ben Bennight, who is known on YouTube by his handle “BenTheBondsman,” claims to have received a comment on September 24 from a user named Nikolas Cruz, where he allegedly bragged that he was “going to be a professional school shooter.” Bennight reacted by flagging the comment to YouTube as offensive, and sending a screenshot to FBI’s email address for tips. He then discussed the matter with the agency’s field office in Mississippi, upon which he was interviewed in person on September 25, just one day after he got in touch with authorities.
Bennight told BuzzFeed News that he was mainly asked if he knew anything about the Nikolas Cruz from YouTube, but added that that was the last he heard from the FBI for several months. He was only contacted again on Wednesday, after a young man, also named Nikolas Cruz, allegedly returned to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which he had previously attended, and opened fire, killing at least 17 individuals.
BuzzFeed News added further details on the conversation Ben Bennight had with the FBI on Wednesday, noting that an agent from the Miami field office named Ryan Furr left a voicemail, asking if he could talk to Bennight about the comment he reported in September as “something [had] come up.” Bennight was visited a few hours later by Mississippi FBI agents, who asked him once again if he had any information on Nikolas Cruz.
“They asked me if I knew who he was. I didn’t. I don’t. Then they left.”
In September, a YouTube user named Nikolas Cruz left a comment on a video stating, "I'm going to be a professional school shooter." The video's creator alerted both the FBI and YouTube.https://t.co/DtQPMJgVVz
— BuzzFeed News (@BuzzFeedNews) February 15, 2018
The FBI Knew About:
?Nikolas Cruz
?Orlando shooter
?Boston bombers#ThursdayThoughts— #ThePersistence (@ScottPresler) February 15, 2018
While multiple social media users have taken the FBI to task for supposedly not doing enough to prevent the Florida school shooting, Bennight said in a new YouTube video that he isn’t passing judgment on the agency, remarking that he simply hopes that the healing process could start for the people affected by the tragedy.
According to the Daily Mail, people who knew Nikolas Cruz in school were among those commenting on Bennight’s new video, with one of them claiming that Cruz had previously attacked one of his friends, and echoing similar observations made about the young man during his time in Stoneman Douglas HS.
“Mental illness needs to be recognized or things like this happen. People i know are f***ing dead,” the student added.
Per BuzzFeed News, the Nikolas Cruz YouTube account which Bennight reported to the FBI was still active as of Wednesday evening, but had since been taken down, due to “multiple or severe violations” of the video sharing site’s policies on violent content. The Daily Mail report added that FBI Special Agent Rob Laskey issued a statement on Thursday, saying that the agency was not able to determine if the person who made the comment on Ben Bennight’s YouTube video is the same individual who allegedly carried out the Florida school shooting.
