FBI says it missed tips on Florida school shooter 5 weeks ago

(WJBK) - The public is always told, if you see something, say something. 

But on Friday the FBI said someone did report the Florida school shooter less than five weeks ago. And that tip was ignored.

"There is no doubt something should have been done," says Dan Roberts, former head of the FBI's Detroit branch.

The FBI said a person close to Nikolas Cruz contacted the agency warning he was an armed psycho who might shoot up a school. They even pointed out his disturbing social media posts, yet no one investigated the claim.

Roberts spent 24 years with the agency and says someone should have followed up.

"My experience is that the 1-800 number that the FBI handles, takes in thousands of calls a day from potential terrorism cases to bank robbery cases," Roberts said. "So it is a little too early to point fingers until we have a deep investigation as to what happened and the process."

The recently appointed national FBI director Christopher Wray says no one passed that tip onto the Miami field office even though its own protocols say Cruz "should have been assessed as a potential threat to life."

It has also come out that the local police department also received several tips about Cruz and his potentially dangerous behavior.

But nothing was investigated and five weeks later Cruz opened fire at his former high school killing 17 people and wounding more than a dozen others.

"If the FBI had gotten a threat of any kind they should have followed up on it," Roberts said. "But if the local police had some indications of a threat they should have also followed up on it.

"But a lot of times it is hard to find out what's a mental health issue where there is no crime involved. And what's a freedom of speech issue and what is a crime. That's where we need to a deeper dive into this and see what happened."

FBI director Wray said in a statement the bureau is trying to figure out how the mistake occurred especially because the FBI encourages the public to be vigilant against threats and share them with authorities.

A 19-year-old victim, who survived the shooting, said the victims might be alive if they had done their job.

In the meantime, Florida Gov. Rick Scott is calling for the FBI director to step down.

"At the end of the day there could be some very strong disciplinary action there that happens," Roberts said. "Depending on what was involved."

Cruz is said to have dozens of run-ins with the law dating back to 2010, but nothing on his record that would have prevented him from legally getting a gun.