A bail bondsman in Mississippi alerted federal officials after Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz posted an alarming message online last year.
YouTube vlogger Ben Bennight alerted the FBI to a comment shared by Cruz on one of his videos back in September, when the boy wrote: ‘I’m going to be a professional school shooter.’
Bennight revealed that the FBI was quick to respond to the concerning statement, arriving at his office the very next day to find out if he knew anything about the young man.
That was after he called a local field agent, revealing that his initial attempts to send in a screengrab of the comment failed when the email address he found listed on the federal agency’s website came back with a domain error saying that it did not exist.
He finally heard back from the FBI on Wednesday, when they called with some additional questions after 19 people were murdered at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School
‘The FBI just left my house in regards to this situation and let me give you a little bit of backstory back in September or 2017 ,matter of fact on September 24, I sent a screenshot of a comment on one of my videos,’ said Bennight in a video posted to his YouTube channel on Wedensday.
‘Now people keep asking me which video was it, I don’t know … I screenshoted the comment I hit the report button and reported it to YouTube.’
Bennight stated that YouTube quickly removed the comment, though Cruz’s account on the Google-owned, video-sharing website remained active through Wednesday night.
The problems began when he tried to reach out to the FBI.
‘I found an email address tips at fbi.gov, sent it to that email address, I immediately got back a domain error basically that email address didn’t exist,’ revealed Bennight.
‘So I looked up the number for our local field office and called him and left a message.’
Bennight continued: ‘Well the next day I had two FBI agents standing in my office taking down the information, taking down taking copies of the screenshot and asking me questions that of course I couldn’t answer.’
He went on to discuss how people leave upsetting ajnd angry and ‘heinous’ comments on his page all the time, but this was a different situtation.
‘What I did think was, you know, this comment said “I’m going to be a professional school shooter,” and I knew that I couldn’t just ignore that so a screenshot of the comment.’
The FBI was then back in touch again on Wednesday.
‘I think we spoke with you in the past about a complaint that you made about someone making a comment on your YouTube channel,’ said an FBI agent who identified himself as Ryan Furr in a voicemail received by Bennight on Wednesday.
‘I just wanted to follow up with you on that and ask you a question with something that’s come up, if you wouldn’t mind giving me a ring.’
Agents also came ad visited Bennight once again on Wednesday night, and just like the first time he met with them back in September, Bennight said he had no information about the teenager.
Bennight also alerted YouTube