Call Center Management Featured Article
FBI Call Center Management Saves Lives, Prevents Shooting
They say the only true failure in life is the inability to learn from failure. The same can be said for tragedy. It’s been some time since the Columbine High School massacre (as of this Saturday, 20 years to be exact), and since that time many lessons have been learned .Unfortunately, there is no bringing the victims back to life, but it is possible to mitigate loss in the future.
On February 14th2018, Nikolas Cruz was witnessed walking into Major Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, killing 17 people, and wounding another 17. The expelled student was apprehended by authorities nearly 90 minutes after the shooting when he was stopped by Police without incident in Coral Springs, Florida. While the situation certainly came to resolution, the FBI should have prevented the worst school shooting in United States history.
Why? Because in the FBI’s call center received numerous tips, warning of what Cruz had in store. In January of 2018, the FBI received a stern, specific warning. The FBI explained in a statement, "The caller provided information about Cruz's gun ownership, desire to kill people, erratic behavior, and disturbing social media posts, as well as the potential of him conducting a school shooting."
“After the Parkland shooting on February 14th, 2018, the FBI realized there may have been some clues that were missed,” Former FBI Special Agent Stuart Kaplan explained in an interview with cbs12. When we asked if some clues ‘may have’ been missed, Kaplan responded, “The FBI completely overhauled the call center.”
They knew, but due to a violation in protocol the message was never passed along to the proper authorities. And now, they’ve transformed the way tips are handled, agent training, call prioritization practices as well as call routing. Call Center management came under fire after Parkland, but drastic changes are showing life-saving results.
This week, a Columbine infatuated teenager was stopped before she could cause loss of life. The Miami native traveled to the Columbine area, purchased a firearm and the FBI’s system spring into place, and closed area schools. On April 17th, the teen was found deceased. A victim of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Over the past 20 years the number of shootings, let alone school shooting, has increased exponentially. I’m not hopping on a soapbox, but I will say this. The FBI’s call center management dropped the ball – probably not the only time – but to their credit, agents like Stuart Kaplan took it upon themselves to address the flawed system in place and prevent an appalling epidemic from gaining more steam.
Edited by Maurice Nagle