It was a foreboding comment then and an especially eerie one now: "I'm going to be a professional school shooter" was posted to a YouTube video by a user named "Nikolas Cruz." Ben Bennight, the 36-year-old vlogger who'd uploaded the video, was alarmed enough that he brought the comment to YouTube's attention and also on Sept. 24 sent a screenshot of it to the FBI's field office in his home state of Mississippi. And the FBI took it seriously, responding "immediately" and interviewing him in person the following day. They "asked me if I knew anything about the person," Bennight tells BuzzFeed. "That was the last I heard from them." That is, until Wednesday, when the FBI reached out again in the wake of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting; they haven't said whether they now believe suspect Nikolas Cruz is the same Cruz who commented.
- The FBI did confirm in a Thursday morning press conference that they were unable to determine the commenter's identity at the time: "No other information was included in the comment, which would indicate a time, location, or true identity of the person who made the comment. The FBI conducted database reviews, checks, but was unable to further identify the person who made the comment."