FBI director urged to resign after failing to handle tips of Florida school shooting

WASHINGTON - Rick Scott, Governor of Florida state, urged Friday the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to resign in the wake of the agency's admission that it failed to follow up on an earlier tip over the shooter who killed 17 people in a Florida high school.

"The FBI's failure to take action against this killer is unacceptable," Scott said in a statement. "The FBI Director needs to resign."

The remarks were in response to an FBI statement released earlier in the day, which acknowledged that the law enforcement agency received a tip in January on Nikolas Cruz, the 19-year-old shooter, but failed to act.

"Seventeen innocent people are dead and acknowledging a mistake isn't going to cut it," Scott said. "An apology will never bring these 17 Floridians back to life or comfort the families who are in pain."

"We constantly promote 'see something, say something,' and a courageous person did just that to the FBI," Scott stressed. "And the FBI failed to act."

The FBI said earlier in the day that a person close to the shooter called the agency's tip line on January 5 to warn 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."

The agency said that proper protocols were not followed for the tip, therefore the information was not provided to local authorities, and no further investigation was conducted at that time.