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Kash Patel, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigations, is once again facing criticism for rushing to social media to tout his agency’s work on tracking down a person of interest in a shooting prematurely.
After a shooter killed two and injured nine at Brown University on Saturday, Patel, a lawyer and rightwing commentator before his job in the administration, posted on X that his agency had helped detain a “person of interest in a hotel room” in Coventry, Rhode Island, acting off a lead from the Providence police.
But the person of interest was later released from custody hours later, and the shooter is still at large.
“We have not yet solved this case, but I am confident we are going to do that in the near future,” Rhode Island attorney general Peter Neronha said Monday, adding there was only a “quantum of evidence which justified detaining this person as a person of interest”.
Local authorities said in a press conference Sunday night that a tip came in about the person of interest, which the FBI picked up and investigated. The evidence wasn’t sufficient to keep the person, a 24-year-old from Wisconsin, in custody. Local police have said they don’t believe the shooter poses an ongoing threat to the local community.
“Everyone in this admin, from the president on down, rushes to social media to put things out rather than act responsibly and prudently,” Ron Filipkowski, editor-in-chief of MeidasTouch, a liberal outlet, wrote on X. “Always looking to declare victory while seeking praise.”
Adam Cochran, a commentator with more than 265,000 followers on X, said: “Kash Patel needs to immediately resign his post,” citing his incompetence. Author Don Winslow noted that the “SAME thing happened before,” and that Patel is “totally UNFIT” for the role of FBI director.
This isn’t the first time Patel has erroneously posted online to tout police work. After Charlie Kirk was murdered on a college campus in September, Patel shared on social media that “the subject for the horrific shooting today that took the life of Charlie Kirk is now in custody,” though the shooter had not yet been apprehended. Conservatives came after Patel for the error. Some have referred to him as “Keystone Kash,” a reference to slapstick policing by Keystone cops depicted in silent films.
Agents within the bureau and those who have recently left it have said Patel is “in over his head” and leading a “chronically underperforming” agency paralyzed by fear and plummeting morale, a report compiled earlier this month said. The FBI sources told a national group that Patel doesn’t have the experience necessary to run the agency, leaving it a “rudderless ship”.
