The FBI says the gunman that killed 7 people and wounded 22 others in Midland-Odessa on Saturday was on a “long spiral down” before he went on his rampage and called the FBI’s tip line just minutes before he started shooting.
That tip line can be critical in preventing tragedies. According to the agency’s website, those tips from the line, established after 9/11, have “led to captures of Top Ten fugitives and short-circuited scores of criminal and terrorist plots.”
The FBI said they got about 1,300 tips per day in a recent year, with only about 100 or so being “actionable”. However, agents say any one of those, no matter how seemingly small or unimportant, could help stop violence.
“I always like to use the analogy of a puzzle,” said Dennis Franks, a retired FBI agent who spent 22 years in the Houston office. “It’s like little pieces of a puzzle may not seem important individually, but when you put it all together, it’s extremely important. That’s what any investigation involves.”
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Franks says knowing when to call the tip line about someone else can be a tough call.
“It’s really hard to know when something is actionable and when it’s not,” he said. “The problem I think is when people don’t take action.”
His rule of thumb: if someone think it’s suspicious enough, they should call 911 for immediate threats and the FBI for suspicion of possible terrorism or mass shootings.
“Let the authorities determine whether or not it needs to be acted upon,” he said.
In a video posted on the FBI website, the head of the tips unit says every single tip is looked at by at least two individuals, part of around two dozen employees working around the clock.
Franks says a supervisor also reviews the tip before it’s routed to the right FBI field offices and local law enforcement agencies.
“That takes a while, so it’s important that that is done to provide information that may be of national consequence,” said Franks.
Members of the public can submit a tip online or call their nearest FBI office 24/7.
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