People are understandably asking why the FBI didn’t know more and didn’t do more with what they did know about Nikolas Cruz. That criticism seems fair to me, although I wouldn’t go so far as to blame the director of the bureau. James and Kimberly Snead, who were letting Cruz live in their home, didn’t seem to suspect a thing about him, which shows how hard it is to identify mass shooters in advance. And while I feel worse for the parents and loved ones of people who were traumatized, injured, or killed, I still have something left to feel badly for this couple.
Keeping in mind that parts of their story may be self-serving, it seems like they tried to do a good deed by helping a young friend of their son who had just lost his mother after losing his father years before. They made him buy a locked cabinet for his guns and ask for permission to get the key, which he did on two prior occasions. Once they said yes and once they said no. But, unfortunately that was a ruse because he had retained a key for himself. They also insisted that he attend adult learning classes and even gave him rides because he didn’t drive. While he lived there, he also was employed at least part of the time. He rode his bike to work at the dollar store.
It’s going to be hard for a lot of people to believe that this kid could have the online persona he had without tipping off this couple that he was a violent, racist, anti-Semitic sociopath. But it’s believable to me. They were more consumed the night before the shooting on figuring out why he did things like putting a chocolate chip cookie in his cheese steak before he ate it.
Clearly he was weird. The Sneads said that he had the personality type that would attract a bully. He also was understandably severely depressed to find himself parentless as such a young age. There was a lot there to claw through before you could discern warning signs if you weren’t privy to what he was doing and saying online.
The Sneads actually saw him at the police station and he apologized to them. They said he looked utterly lost. I could change my mind if more information comes to light, but I don’t think the Sneads deserve criticism and they certainly don’t deserve to be in the position they’re in right now where they can’t possibly feel comfortable in their community ever again.
