Last fall, a frequent YouTube vlogger noticed an alarming comment on one of his videos, reports Buzzfeed. “I’m going to be a professional school shooter,” said a user named Nikolas Cruz. The YouTuber, 36-year-old Ben Bennight, told the FBI by sending a screenshot of the comment to the bureau’s tip account. He also flagged the comment on YouTube, and the comment was removed. Bennight said that agents with the bureau’s Mississippi field office got back to him “immediately,” and conducted an in-person interview with him the next day. He didn’t hear from them again until Wednesday, when a 19-year-old named Nikolas Cruz allegedly opened fire at a Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in south Florida, killing at least 17 people. Since then, questions have emerged about whether officials and acquaintances had missed warning signs about the alleged shooter. Cruz was a former student at the school. He was expelled last year for disciplinary reasons. Many have described him as a “troubled loner” who often talked about guns and unabashedly displayed his obsession with weapons on his social media. Jim Gard, a math teacher at the school, said that the teen had previously been identified as a potential threat to other students. However, even though the alleged shooter’s name matches the YouTube user flagged by Bennight, FBI officials would not say whether they have confirmed that the account belonged to Cruz. The Nikolas Cruz YouTube account was still active until Wednesday evening. Now, it’s been deleted, due to “multiple or severe violations of YouTube’s policy on violence.”
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