Shooter's Father Held Accountable?

In a fascinating legal development in rampage shootings, German authorities have charged the father of a school shooter with 15 counts of manslaughter for failing to keep his legally-registered guns secure. An article on BBC.com details the charges and summarizes the case, where 17-year-old Tim Kretschmer took his father's guns into his former school and killed 9 students and 3 teachers at Albertville secondary school on March 11, 2009. After leaving the school, Kretschmer commandeered a car, drove 25 miles, then killed two more people in a nearby town before turning the gun on himself as police approached. The charges allege that Kretschmer's father was negligent in his storage of his weapons -- even though they were legally registered - so that Kretschmer was able to get his hands on his father's gun and a large amount of ammunition as well.

As far as I know, the parents of U.S. school shooters have never been charged with any charges that encompassed some negligence or responsibility for their children's school shootings. It will be interesting to follow the trajectory of this case as it develops in Germany.

Safety Tip: Watch for Abduction/Car-Jacking Attempts

An article in today's Reno Gazette-Journal describes an attempted car-jacking in Reno, where a woman put her kids in the car and, leaving the keys in the ignition, left the vehicle to lock up her business. The would-be car jacker jumped in the car and started to drive away with the woman's children in the backseat. Fortunately for everyone involved, the woman's boyfriend was able to get in the car and plead with the car-jacker to let the kids out. A short time later, the car-jacker crashed the car into a low wall and fled on foot. The kids and boyfriend suffered only minor injuries.

This safety tip may seem obvious but it's worth a reminder, especially as the holiday season approaches: Don't leave your keys in the ignition. Especially with your kids in the car. Instead, do whatever you can to make yourself a more difficult target: Park in a well lit area, near lots of foot traffic/stores. Ask someone from the store to help carry your purchases to your car, so you are not alone and not loaded down with bags. If there is someone loitering near your car, turn around and go back in the store - and wait until the person leaves or until someone can escort you to your car. And as you approach your car, take note of your surroundings. See who is around you. Glance under the car as you approach to see if anyone is there. Glance in the backseat. If anything looks odd, turn around and go back in the store and get help. And don't worry about looking overly-anxious if you do. Personally, I'd rather be alive and thought to be a bit of a worry-wort, than dead and remembered as (foolishly) brave.

Suggestion for the Army: Establish Threat Assessment Teams

The rampage shooting by Nidal Hasan at the Fort Hood army base was a textbook case of targeted violence (see earlier Threat Resources blog post on 07 NOV). Nasan had raised concern among several people -- including co-workers and law enforcement -- for recent troubling behavior. He was also known to be facing multiple losses and appeared to be increasingly desperate about his upcoming deployment. Having a threat assessment team on base could have given his co-workers and others a place to report their concerns. Similarly, a threat assessment team that learned about Nasan could have reached out to law enforcement and discovered his recent Internet postings and the concern they generated within the law enforcement community.

My point here in not to serve as a Monday-morning quarterback, declaring with 20/20 hindsight what should have been done. Rather, I want to encourage the U.S. military to give serious consideration to establishing behavioral threat assessment teams to guard against future threats. The purpose of establishing a behavioral threat assessment team is to have the ability to identify, investigate, assess, and reduce risks from within - from soldiers, family members, and others not typically seen as "enemies." Establishing behavioral threat assessment teams on bases and in field units would give the military the ability to address a wide range of concerning, threatening, and odd behavior - and to be able to identify emerging problems, before they become explosive or deadly.

Establishing behavioral threat assessment teams would also help to re-assure families of soldiers that something is being done to ensure their loved ones' safety - off the battlefield as well as on. Having threat assessment teams in place also offers family members a place to report concerns of their own.

The high rate of suicide in the U.S. military argues even more for building a threat assessment capacity - as behavioral threat assessment can be used to prevent suicide as well as harm to others. The U.S. military does an excellent job of force protection in guarding against threats from the outside. Adopting threat assessment processes -- and getting training on behavioral threat assessment from professionals with demonstrated experience assessing and managing threats -- would go a long way toward helping our military guard against threats from within -- and help address suicide concerns at the same time.

Fort Hood Shooting: A Textbook Case

What a week - first the rampage shooting by a U.S. soldier, where Nidal Hasan killed 13 and wounded 30 at Fort Hood, the army base where he was assigned. From what news accounts have reported so far, Hasan's shooting at the Fort Hood army base in Fort Hood, Texas was a textbook case of targeted violence. An recent article in The Washington Post provides a great synopsis about Hasan and what was known about him before his attack. Nasan's pre-attack behavior looked quite similar to so many of those who have engaged in assassination, stalking, workplace shootings, school/campus shootings, and other acts of targeted violence.

Like many other attackers, Hasan had a serious grievance before his attack - in this case, it was his deep opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was also juggling multiple losses. He has tried repeatedly to obtain a discharge from the army but was unable to do so. And he was about to be deployed to serve in the Iraq war.

Like so many other attackers, Nasan had concerned multiple people around him prior to his attack: in this case, these included co-workers at the medical facilities where he worked were reluctant to refer patients to him -- even though he was a psychiatrist specializing in traumatic stress (arguably a sought-after speciality in today's military) -- because of his odd behavior and interactions. And he had also raised concern among law enforcement for a recent Internet post where he compared suicide bombers to kamikaze pilots, and praised their actions as honorable.

Like so many other attackers, his recent behavior also suggested that he was suicidal prior to his attack. He had been giving away his possessions (although some attributed that to his deployment) and he had not mentioned his impending deployment with his aunt even though he's exchanged email with her recently. This last point may indicate that he had planned out his attack for a while (typical of attackers in targeted violence) and never intended to get to the point where he would be deployed. It is quite possible that Nasan hoped to be killed in the course of his attack or planned to kill himself as part of it. These are things we won't know until law enforcement and military police interview him.

In the case of Nasan - as in so many other attacks -- it seems that no one had all of the facts about what Nasan had been thinking about and planning to do. But Nasan had raised serious concerns among several people for odd behaviors and praise of suicide bombers. This type of concerning behavior is exactly the type that a threat assessment team can investigate, evaluate, and decide whether some intervention was necessary to reduce the likelihood of harm.

SafetyTip: Do You Know Where Your Blackberry Is?

I just saw a fascinating article about a new application for Blackberry phones that can turn your Blackberry into a surveillance device. An article in The Washington Post highlights the fact that your Blackberry can be used against you to track your conversations and listen in on your surroundings. Fortunately there are some critical flaws in the application's design: namely that the application must be installed on your Blackberry before it can work and that it leaves a noticeable icon on the Blackberry's screen. So either the would-be spy will need to get their hands on your Blackberry and install it, or they need to find a way to convince you to install it.

Some simple tips to protect you from this application: Keep your Blackberry in your possession at all times; periodically check for new/unknown icons; and don't click on any executable files that are emailed to you. Simple things we already know to do to keep our computers safe - but a good reminder to take the same precautions with our Blackberrys and other smartphones.

Hostage Situation Ends Peacefully

Last week a gunman, Patrick Clayton, entered the Workers Compensation Bureau offices in Edmonton, Alberta (Canada) and took several people hostage at gunpoint. The facts of this situation mirror those we typically see in rampage shootings and other incident of targeted violence: he was facing multiple losses, had a grievance, was suicidal, and wanted to call attention to his problem. One of the initial articles in the Edmonton Journal relayed the details - the gunman, Clayton, had an existing claim at the WCB for having been injured on the job and had an ongoing dispute with the WCB over whether he was well enough to return to work. Three months before this incident, he told his neighbors (and possibly others) that he was thinking about killing himself. He was in the middle of a bitter custody battle over his 6 year-old son. And he recently had been told his workers compensation benefits would soon end.

One fascinating aspect to this case was the reaction of the hostages to the gunman. According to reports that came out after the incident was over, the hostages had listened to Clayton's story and his goal to call attention to his situation, and helped him craft emails to local media. Some have credited this reaction by the hostages - and expert work by the trained hostage negotiators - with helping to resolve this incident without any bloodshed or injuries.

I happened to be in Edmonton at the time this hostage incident unfolded, in town to provide threat assessment training to a college in Edmonton (see the 26 OCT blog post). I was interviewed by several media outlets regarding the WCB hostage incident, including the Edmonton Journal, Metro News (Canada), and a live interview on Alberta Prime Time, a province-wide television program.

Jaycee Dugard Investigator Honored

On Tuesday the town of Brentwood, CA honored one of its residents, Officer Allison Jacobs, for her critical role in solving the kidnapping of Jaycee Dugard from South Lake Tahoe 18 years ago. An AP article in the San Jose Mercury News provides some details on how Jacobs, who is an officer with the University of California, Berkeley police department, followed up on a concern from fellow UC Berkeley employee Lisa Campbell that Phillip Garrido and his two young daughters acted strangely when they visited the UC Berkeley campus on the previous day. When Officer Jacobs acted on Campbell's initial observation that something wasn't quite right, she found out that Garrido was a registered sex offender and contacted Garrido's parole officer regarding his concerning behavior and the fact that he had children with him.

Were it not for Lisa Campbell telling someone about her concerns about Garrido's behavior, Officer Jacobs would have had no reason to look into Garrido's background. And were it not for Officer Jacobs' initiative in following up on Campbell's brief report, Garrido's parole officer might never have discovered that Garrido had children living with him - and likely would never have determined that the children's mother was Jaycee Dugard, who had been kidnapped and held captive by Garrido for 18 years. This case offers a compelling example of how a simple act of reporting a concern over troubling behavior can lead to a crime being solved, a family reunited, and harm prevented to other children. Bravo to Officer Allison Jacobs and to Lisa Campbell!

Grandma Threatens School

From the Now-I've-Heard-Everything file comes a story on msnbc.com about a 51-year-old grandmother who called in an anonymous bomb threat to her grandchildren's elementary school. The call resulted in the school's immediate evacuation. Apparently the grandmother did not have permission from her daughter to visit her grandchildren at the school. No word yet on what the grandmother thought she might have accomplished by phoning in the threat. It will be interesting to watch this story unfold.

New Investigative Tool for Campus and School Threats

Hello again and welcome to Fall. After a higher-than-normal workload of threat cases (blame the downturn in the economy), I finally have some time again to devote to this blog and to sharing new developments in threat assessment and violence prevention. It's good to be back.

The first news I have is that following the demise of JuicyCampus.com, several new campus and school gossip web sites have emerged to take its place -- just in time for the start of the school year. A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education describes the launch of a few of these sites -- including CampusGossip, CollegeACB, and PeoplesDirt (which includes sections of high school gossip as well as some campus gossip). The Chronicle article provides a good overview of these sites, and a good recap of the rise and fall of JuicyCampus.

Although many campus administrators, educators, parents, and students have -- understandably -- been highly critical of campus/school gossip sites, I have found them to be a helpful investigative tool for any threat cases I work involving colleges or schools. I can quickly and easily search these sites to see if a particular institution, student, or professor/teacher is mentioned. And any posts about a particular person (be they a threatener, target, or third party) can give me a better understanding of the situation at hand and/or interpersonal disputes or grievances that may be relevant.

If the posts turn out to be bogus, it is still informative to know that the person in question has been targeted publicly. And yes, the posts are anonymous - but that doesn't detract from the utility of their content. Although I don't know for certain, it may be possible for local or campus police to gain access (through formal procedures such as search warrants/subpoenas or even informal relationships) to identifying information about otherwise-anonymous posters if there is a potential risk to public safety. They can certainly try, in any case.

Even when my searches on these sites fail to yield any hits on specific names of threateners or victims - as often happens - the information posted about the particular campus/school can still offer a different perspective on the institution's climate or culture than I get just from talking with administrators or faculty. As long as these sites are around, we can at least leverage their content for some good investigative and preventive work.

Safety Tip: Fake Babysitting Ad Ends in Murder

Incident
This past week Michael John Anderson was sentenced to life in prison for killing Katherine Ann Olson. According to an Associated Press article, Anderson "lured" Olson to his house with a fake online ad looking for a babysitter. Olson, 24, answered the ad, which Anderson posted on the web site Craigslist.com. When she arrived at Anderson's house, he shot and killed her. Prosecutors said that Anderson lured Olson to his home because he wanted to know 'what it felt like to kill.'

Analysis
This terrible tragedy underscores the importance of checking out anyone you meet on the Internet, but the same goes for any classified ads in the newspaper or displayed in your local grocery store. The need to be vigilant is especially true for women. When answering an advertisement - whether for a babysitter, a cheap sofa, or a date -- it is important to ask probing questions, check references where possible, and use the buddy system. Bring a friend with you to check out that sofa or babysitting job. A large male friend can be particularly useful for such excursions (plus he can help carry the sofa). And if a potential job involves going to someone's home - for babysitting, mowing the lawn, etc. - you are just as entitled to check out your potential employer as they are to vet you. Ask for names and contact information of people who have worked at their home before - and then call those people and ask about their experiences. Be sure to ask whether they still do work there -- and if not, why not.

For dates, you can be more discreet but still be safe. First, always meet the person in a public place, such as a restaurant or a bar. Don't let ever let someone you don't know pick you up at your home. And remember, no matter how long you may have been communicating with this person online and by phone, this is still somoene you don't know. Nor should you agree to meet the person at their home - even if they argue that it's on the way or claim they have no means of transportation. If they get pushy, take that as a big red flag and forget the date altogether.

Once you choose a public place to meet, tell a few friends where you are going and ask one or two of them to drop by and make sure you are ok. Your date doesn't have to know they are there; your friends can sit and have a drink at the bar and just make sure you look safe. Or you can develop a subtle hand signal to let them know you're okay. And if you're going to change locations, send your friends a text message to let them know where you're going and how long you'll be there. At the end of the date, say goodbye at the restaurant or bar and get in a cab by yourself; or wait until your date has gone before walking to your car. If you feel unsafe for any reason - or if your date gets pushy about driving you home or walking you to your car, that's a big red flag too. Go back into the restaurant and ask them to call you a cab, or ask the bouncer at the bar for help. And you can always call that friend to come pick you up. Just offer to return the favor some day.

Above all, trust your intuition when meeting someone you don't know - whether through a online ad, newspaper classified, or grocery store homemade sign. If any part of the situation feels wrong - even if you can't put your finger on why -- chances are high you're right. Get out of there quickly and safely and don't go back for any reason. If you forget something like your purse or cellphone, you can always ask a friend to go back with you.