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The List: People the FBI Was Warned About But Still Failed to Stop [Updated]

After it was reported the FBI was warned about the Parkland killer, scrutiny is increasing on the embattled agency
By Grabien Staff

BuzzFeed reports Thursday that the man who killed 17 people at Parkland High School, adding another name to a troubling list of terrorists and mass killers the FBI failed to stop despite receiving warnings about in advance.

Here's the current list:

1) Boston. After Russia sent U.S. law enforcement authorities a warning about the Boston bomber, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the FBI interviewed him but let him go; Russia later sent the Obama Administration a second warning, but the FBI opted against investigating him again. Three people were killed and 16 lost limbs. 

2) Fort Hood. The FBI received emails sent by Nidal Hasan saying he wanted to kill his fellow soldiers to protect the Taliban — but didn't intervene, leading many critics to argue the tragedy that resulted in the death of 31 Americans at Fort Hood could have been prevented.

3) NYC Bomber. The father of the radical Islamist who detonated a backpack bomb in New York City in 2016 alerted the FBI to his son's radicalization. The FBI, however, cleared Ahmad Khan Rahami after a brief interview. Between his bombings in New Jersey and New York, 31 people were wounded. 

4) Pulse Nightclub. The FBI also investigated the terrorist who killed 49 people and wounded 53 more at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Fla. Despite a more than 10-month investigation of Omar Mateen — during which Mateen admitting lying to agents — the FBI opted against pressing further and closed its case. 

5) Garland, Texas. CBS recently reported that when two terrorists sought to kill Americans attending the "Draw Muhammad" event in Garland, Texas, the FBI not only had an understanding an attack was coming, but actually had an undercover agent traveling with the Islamists, Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi. The FBI has refused to comment on why the agent on the scene did not intervene during the attack. One security officer was shot but the attackers were killed before others were killed or injured. 

6) Parkland. Months before the attack, a vlogger on YouTube saw a message from a user named Nikolas Cruz indicating he planned to shoot up his school. The man, 36-year-old Ben Bennight, immediately notified the FBI. "They came to my office the next morning and asked me if I knew anything about the person," Bennight told BuzzFeed News. "I didn't. They took a copy of the screenshot and that was the last I heard from them." CNN's Jake Tapper additionally reports that another person notified the FBI about Cruz, and "in both cases the FBI did not share the information with local law enforcement."

7) 9/11. FBI agent Coleen Rowley reports that FBI headquarters mishandled leads its Minneapolis field office produced relating to its investigation into the mastermind of the 9/11 terror attacks, Zacarias Mousaoui. Rowley wrote:

During the early aftermath of September 11th, when I happened to be recounting the pre–September 11th events concerning the Moussaoui investigation to other FBI personnel in other divisions or in FBIHQ, almost everyone's first question was "Why?—Why would an FBI agent(s) deliberately sabotage a case? (I know I shouldn't be flippant about this, but jokes were actually made that the key FBI HQ personnel had to be spies or moles like Robert Hanssen who were actually working for Osama Bin Laden to have so undercut Minneapolis's effort.)  

The FBI is also enmeshed in the Dylann Roof massacre, having mistakenly cleared the killer to buy firearms. After Dylann Roof killed nine South Carolina parishioners in cold blood, James Comey admitted that an error in their background check system allowed Roof to legally buy his gun. "We are all sick this happened," Comey said of the massive screw-up. Nine parishoners were killed and injured one more. 

Did we miss any? Let us know in the comments below. Or send us a note at tips@grabien.com

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