WASHINGTON — A Senate committee will examine law enforcement breakdowns surrounding the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, later this month.
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Thursday the panel will hold a March 14 hearing that will examine the role of federal and local authorities, as well as social-media companies, in failing to prevent the attack.
“The FBI and local law enforcement failed to act on credible tips that should have neutralized the killer and gotten him help,” Grassley said at a meeting of the panel on Thursday.
Judiciary Committee staff, he said, have been briefed by the FBI as well as by “social media companies like Google and Facebook” on the circumstances that led up to the Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Dougles High School.
Shooter Nikolas Cruz is alleged to have delivered warnings, both on social media networks and in comments to classmates and others, that foreshadowed the armed attack that left 17 students and faculty at his former school dead.
“It has been clear from these briefings that the systems designed to prevent troubled individuals like the Parkland Shooter from engaging in violent acts failed miserably,” Grassley said. “Government must be held accountable for its mistakes. It is also clear that private companies can do more to prevent future mass shootings by identifying threatening content and warning law enforcement officials.”
Grassley made the announcement at a hearing scheduled to quickly refer a slate of judicial nominees to the full Senate. But it became a back-and-forth between Grassley and the panel’s senior Democrats who called for faster action to curb gun violence and complained that the committee had shirked from other duties like immigration reform.
“There’s a tendency among Republicans and Democrats on gun policy to hold out for legislation favored by groups on the extremes of the ideological spectrum,” Grassley told his colleagues. “We appear to be in a unique position where there’s a real opportunity to work toward legislation that can advance the common cause — and the common cause ought to be a safer and more civil society.”
The committee meeting came a day after Grassley and other lawmakers met with President Donald Trump at the White House to discuss action on new gun laws.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the Judiciary panel’s ranking Democrat, said Trump “was vigorous with his statements that broad, common sense measures should be adopted by this Congress.”
“He not only urged us to adopt sweeping gun violence reforms, but he also challenged us not to succumb to the gun lobby’s agenda,” she said, adding that Trump wants Congress to pass “a big, beautiful bill.”
Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., blasted Republicans leading the committee for failing to hold hearings or debate legislation to address gun violence, immigration policy or Russia’s interference in American elections.
Noting that lawmakers in both parties have generated several gun violence proposals in the last two weeks, Durbin asked, “How many hearings have been scheduled on any of these ideas? How will we actually promote legislation? Will it drop from the heavens or from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? Or will we do our job and sit down and draw up a bill, bring it to the floor, allow it to be subjected to amendment debate as the Senate once did regularly?”
In the House, leaders have also asked pointed questions about the institutional lapses that could have allowed Cruz to carry out his attack, while brushing off calls for significant new gun laws.
“This is a time for asking tough questions,” House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said Tuesday. “How could this have happened? What can we do to make our schools safer in the future? We’re going to be looking at the system failures that occurred here and are going to be talking about what changes are needed.”
The leaders of the House Judiciary Committee and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee sought and received a staff briefing from FBI leaders on their actions surrounding the Parkland tragedy. But they have not publicly announced any further oversight activities.
