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Education

Investigative Panel Wants To Ask FBI Officials Why They Missed Parkland Shooter Tip

Lily Oppenheimer
/
WLRN
Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri is chair of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission, which met last week at the BB&T Center in Sunrise.

A state investigative panel plans to interview officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation about why they failed to act on a tip that could have prevented the Parkland shooting.

Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, who chairs the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission, said he has requested documents from the FBI and expects someone from the agency to testify at the panel's September or October meetings.

Gualtieri said the FBI is conducting "internal reviews" regarding its botched handling of a tip that gunman Nikolas Cruz might be planning a school shooting. Cruz confessed to killing 17 people and injuring another 17 at his former high school on Feb. 14.

READ MORE: Did Cruz Go To PROMISE? Broward District Doesn't Know. Investigators Say It's Irrelevant To Shooting

Broward County's 911 System Under Scrutiny During Day 2 Of Stoneman Douglas Commission Meeting
 
"The FBI remains cooperative. They’ve expressed on behalf of the director himself a desire to be transparent and fully cooperate," said Gualtieri, who wrote a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray and has been communicating with his office.

"Hopefully we’ll have documents as soon as they can provide them, and we’ll hear from somebody from the FBI this fall," he said at the July meeting.

The panel met for three days last week at the BB&T Center in Sunrise and will convene again on Aug. 8 and 9.

Jessica Bakeman is Director of Enterprise Journalism at WLRN News, and she is the former senior news editor and education reporter. Her 2021 project "Class of COVID-19" won a national Edward R. Murrow Award.
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