joining me now, jim cavanaugh, msnbc contributor and retired atf special agent in charge. a former hostage negotiator. jim, great to have you here this morning. >> good morning, dara. >> the fbi admitted that it received a tip about suspect nikolas cruz more than a month before the mass shooting. but it did nothing. how could this have happened? >> yeah, it makes you sick to your stomach. when i heard this, i was just -- i was just turned over. because this tip was so specific. it was from someone close to nikolas cruz, they gave specifics about him. said he might kill people in school. he had guns. you know, it's just everything you want to get from a citizen, trying to report something to prevent a mass killing. and you know, if i was a family member in florida, i would be outraged and very, very, very angry. you know, i've worked alongside the fbi for, you know, more than three decades, they're a great organization, and i can assure you they are sickened by it. all of their agents and employees. that is not what they want to happen, either. so director wray has to reall

jim cavanaugh, thank you very much.ekend. >> thank you, joy. >>> michael steele gets tonight's last word, next. -looks great, honey. -right? sometimes you need an expert. i got it. and sometimes those experts need experts. on it. [ crash ] and sometimes the expert the expert needed needs insurance expertise. it's all good. steve, you're covered for general liability. and, paul, we got your back with workers' comp. wow, it's like a party in here. where are the hors d'oeuvres, right? [ clanking ] tartlets? we cover commercial vehicles, too. i think there's something wrong with your sink. i had severe fatigue, became diagnosed with hodgkin's lymphoma. he was a good candidate for immune therapy, which is allowing his immune system to attack the tumor. learn more at cancercenter.com >>> tonight just before the show i saw a tweet from reporter john levine who was at cpac and wrote about a comment about former republican national committee chairman and msnbc contributor michael steele. john levine reported, cpac communications

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jim cavanaugh was saying, and he's so right, if this guy grot out of a vehicle and walked up to a high school building with a visible long gun by his side, that should have sparked a lot of alarms and obviously we'll see it as some form of it on surveillance video. >> i think that's quite certain, we're going to see the precursors on how this actually played out. another thing i think we usually see in these cases is that there were warning signs, when you look back it's easy to piece it together, but you often don't know. these shooters tend to put off many signals that this might be coming. so when we look back on this how do we assess that across the board so we can be more pre-emptive to someone prone to violence in our classrooms. >> and jim, how do you personally process the fact that, let's go ahead and predict, this guy, approximately 18 years old is what cops an edp, an emotionally disturbed person. he had a grudge, he had a problem, he had motive, he had access to a weapon and here we are again for the 12th time in our still new year. >> most warnings, i have found out this i

about this issue that we just can't seem to get our arms around it in a reasonable way. >> and jim cavanaugh is also with us. jim, i want to talk to you about a point i heard you make earlier in our coverage. and it has to do with mental health, it has to go wido with generations. i think you called it setbacks in life. we've learned this gunman is approximately 18 years of age, various reports he may have attended the school, may be a past student. obviously there is a triggering mechanism when someone goes crazy enough to grab a firearm and go into a school firing and we have, what, 20 injured as of the latest count. but talk to me about this aspect ever mental health as you've watched it over the years. >> yeah, i think one of the greatest tools we should have, we do have in some states is mental health restraining orders. and there is a lot of models in states that have those when people come up that they might be involved in violence, the police, family member can make petitions, they can go to a court and petition for a mental health restraining order. i think we should also think abou

jim cavanaugh is an msnbc contributor and retired atf agent. thank you to both of you for being here. jim, let me start with you. we are typically talking about the details of how these atrocities unfold, but i just want to get your reaction to what you have witnessed today, because it is remarkable. >> these kids -- i shouldn't call them kids. young people are very inspiring. this is a seminole moment. they are standing ob the shoulders of everyone from columbine, newton, pulse, las vegas, texas, they are standing on the shoulders of all those survivors and i think they are going to make some change. they are saying some smart things when they talk about the vote and they talk about the money. that's a very smart thing. they are going to be running into a rock, kristen, trying to change the minds of these nra politicians. it would be easier to get the devil to outlaw sin than it would be to get politicians in the pocket of the nra to change. so that's not going to happen, but i think these students, these young people understand that the vote a

. >> we're joined by jim cavanaugh, a retired atf special agent. also joining us is igor vul ski and curt andersen. >> jim, i want to go to you. we've been together so many times covering these events. what are you seeing in this one. >> a lot of failures. i read an ap post where the shooter posted on instagram accounts where he posted about killing animals, all the students knew he was a problem, the school had expelled him. this is a guy walking around with a rotating red light on his head, i may be dangerous, threatening, then he has a bunch of guns. there's contact with the school supervisors, so this is somebody we should have been paying attention to. that's the first thing. the second thing, all these magazines, the sheriff talked about he had just multiple magazines. countless magmagazines. you talk about the assault weapons ban, when that was passed in '94, one of the things we saw when we were picking up guns on the street, from criminal gangs and felons and users, we started to see in the later years, more and more guns we were seizing wi

jim cavanaugh, retired 30-year veteran of the atf. elite jordan, msnbc political analyst and "time" columnist. and bill cohen, a "vanity fair" special correspondent. elise, glad to have bill here, today is a day when it's tough to run a tv show when you're speechless. jim, what is the focus of the investigation right now? i mean, it's stunning when you hear the track record, the history, of who this man was, is, and yet there he was, able to buy the kind of weapons he had and march back into the school he was exspreled from. >> right. well, he has 17 first degree murder counts. i used to be a florida cop. they're going to put him in the express line for the death penalty down there. he's going to get convicted. he may -- he may get out of that if he has autism or some other disability. but he's going to get convicted of all these murders. we have to look back, though, at how to stop it. stephanie, tom's report, buzz feed reporting in the daily news in new york that he had posted in september i want to be a professional school shooter.

sean hennry former fbi assistant director and jim cavanaugh former atf special agent and nbc news law enforcement analyst. thank you sean and jim. the pattern is so strong. tell us both of you about this pattern that tom costello talked about a few moments ago, the pattern of the shooter. >> tom's talking about a young guy, teenager early 20s. disenfranchised. somebody who has access to weapons and certainly is motivated. there's some triggering factor somewhere along the way. those are the same types of characteristics we see in gang members. we see in people who become radicalized. it appears that anytime we have a violent incident, there's a same similar fact pattern, somebody who is shunned, they turn to a different order to try and be inspired. they're looking for a way to let out their aggression. in this case, this is what we see here this vi leapt shooting where somebody walks into a school and shoots dozens of people. i think the pure motivation in this particular incident, it's going to take a few dayses for that to come out. law enforcement will be doing a lot of interviews

but they are preparing -- and i suppose that is -- jim cavanaugh is joining me on the phone. jim, i would suppose that means -- he's on camera. we may put you on and keep these shots up. the idea that they are preaching for more than 21 victims is a category. mci three and that largely means because it is a cool, they're going to prepare for a bad outcome. >> yeah. exactly. i don't think that necessarily tells us there is that many injured. it is preparation of the emergency rooms and the paramedics to be able to deal with that level. so they've got initial reports from responding first patrol officers an maybe a little deeper in that because as you were showing on the feed, it looks like s.w.a.t. had arrived. so they have a pakt -- a picture and do they have a shooter. they looked like they had someone wounded loaded into the fire department ambulance. so do they have a shooter located? right there you see them searching the perimeter with the dog and some officers with long guns. >> you are looking at the same feed i am. let me ask you this. we are -- there is a local news s

. >> i want to bring in jim cavanaugh and retired atf agent.were looking a moment ago, the camera is moving around, we were looking at a white minivan pulled over to the side with what is appears to be at least the back window blown out and possibly a side window. i can't tell right now. we don't have enough detail to understand what that vehicle is. but obviously it is on white house property and it is -- it is shot up. so we'll try and get some information on that. tell me what you make of it, jim? >> well they're worried about a vehicle-born ied, explosive device. that is the major concern. if someone were to get out there with a long gun, they can't penetrate. secret service ud could take them out quick. they have snipers on the roof and armed officers with long guns all over. they've tightened up -- we were -- i served in atf in treasu treasury department with secret service and they were in the treasury department for 200 years up until about 15 years ago, post 9/11. so atf was called on to work the protection details during the campaign