FBI lacks strategy for handling tips on people with mental health problems – By Associated Press (The Guardian) / March 4 2020
Report finds FBI has problems with assessing whether individuals with mental health problems pose legitimate threats
The FBI must do better handling tips and leads about people who may carry out violent acts – including assessing whether individuals with mental health problems pose legitimate threats to natural security, according to a new report by a justice department watchdog.
The report from the inspector general’s office identifies what it says are weakness and inconsistencies in how the FBI evaluates tips on homegrown violent extremists – people who are motivated by jihadist ideology and are operating in the US independent of foreign terrorist organizations.
The report underscores the FBI’s challenges in preventing violence from people whose actions and ideology may be disturbing without violating federal law. Those difficulties attracted fresh scrutiny in recent years after several people the FBI once investigated but did not arrest because they had not broken the law later went on to commit attacks, including the gunman in the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando.
The FBI in 2017 directed its field offices to study whether they had properly handled terrorism-related tips over the prior three years. That internal review found problems in the way the FBI had handled 6% of those threat assessments, but even after that review, not all field offices adequately followed up on the fumbled tips and leads, according to the inspector general’s report.
Continue to article: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/04/report-finds-weaknesses-inconsistencies-how-fbi-handles-terrorism-tips
