The FBI was reportedly warned last year about a threat from a YouTube user with the same name as the suspect in a deadly Florida school shooting.
BuzzFeed News reported that a YouTuber named Ben Bennight contacted the FBI’s tip account last September and sent a screenshot of a comment Nikolas Cruz left on one of his videos that said: “Im [sic] going to be a professional school shooter.”
Bennight also reported the comment to YouTube, according to the news outlet.
Bennight told Buzzfeed that agents responded “immediately” and interviewed him.
“They came to my office the next morning and asked me if I knew anything about the person,” Bennight added.
“I didn’t. They took a copy of the screenshot and that was the last I heard from them.”
{mosads}Bennight said he was contacted again Wednesday after a man named Nikolas Cruz allegedly opened fire at Marjory Stoneman High School in Parkland, Fla., killing at least 17 people and injuring more.
“I think we spoke with you in the past about a complaint that you made about someone making a comment on your YouTube channel,” an FBI agent, Ryan Furr, said in a message, which Bennight provided to BuzzFeed News.
“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.”
According to BuzzFeed, FBI officials declined to say if they had confirmed that the person operating the YouTube account is the same person taken into custody Wednesday for allegedly carrying out the mass shooting.
The YouTube account was deleted Wednesday due to “multiple or severe violations of YouTube’s policy on violence.”