“The federal government already knew about this for months, they had been evaluating him for a while, but they didn’t do anything.”
More precisely, it looks as if the federal government failed not Estaban Santiago, but the people in the Fort Lauderdale Airport, and the citizens of the United States.
“Brother of airport shooting suspect says U.S. government failed him,” Chicago Tribune, January 7, 2017:
The brother of a man accused of killing five people at a Florida airport questioned Saturday why his brother was allowed to keep his gun after U.S. authorities knew he’d become increasingly paranoid and was hearing voices.
Esteban Santiago, 26, had trouble controlling his anger after serving in Iraq and told his brother that he felt he was being chased and controlled by the CIA through secret online messages. When he told agents at an FBI field office his paranoid thoughts in November, he was evaluated for four days, then released without any follow-up medication or therapy.
“The FBI failed there,” Bryan Santiago told The Associated Press. “We’re not talking about someone who emerged from anonymity to do something like this.”
Speaking in Spanish outside his family’s house in Penuelas, the brother said: “The federal government already knew about this for months, they had been evaluating him for a while, but they didn’t do anything.”
In recent years, Esteban Santiago — a new dad — had been living in Anchorage, Alaska. But there were signs of trouble.
Esteban told FBI agents in Alaska that the government was forcing him to watch Islamic State group videos, a law enforcement official said Friday. The official was not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The FBI office in Alaska, which declined to comment ahead of a Saturday news conference, interviewed Esteban Santiago and then notified police, who took him in for a mental health evaluation.
Also, he was charged in a domestic violence case in January 2016, damaging a door when he forced his way into a bathroom at his girlfriend’s Anchorage home. The woman told officers he yelled at her to leave, choked her and smacked her on the side of the head, according to charging documents.
A month later, municipal prosecutors said he violated the conditions of his release when officers found him at her home during a routine check. He told police he had lived there since he was released from custody the previous month. His Anchorage attorney, Max Holmquist, declined to discuss his client.
Bryan Santiago said his brother had requested psychological help but barely received any.
“I told him to go to church or to seek professional help,” he said….
Sen.-elect Nelson Cruz, who knew the family and represents the town where they live in Puerto Rico, said he had been talking regularly with Bryan Santiago since the shooting.
“They’re very humble and very Christian people,” Cruz said. “They want to tell the families of the victims that they’re extremely saddened and extremely upset by what happened.”
Esteban Santiago himself may not have been all that Christian.