The Era of Mass Violence:
What Counselors
Should Know
J. Barry Mascari, Ed.D.
www.kean.edu/~jmascari
What Should Counselors Know?
•
Assessing site vulnerability
•
Identifying potential perpetrators with the
help of the community
•
Recognizing the duty to warn
•
Raising awareness of individuals to be more
mindful of their surroundings
•
Recognizing that mental illness is a small
risk factor
•
Trusting "the gift of fear”
Definitions
• Active Shooter: an individual actively engaged in killing or
attempting to kill people in a confined and populated area
• in most cases, active shooters use firearm(s) and there is no pattern
or method to their selection of victims.
• Mass Murder: any single sustained incident that takes the lives
of four or more victims (FBI)
• While victim selection is often random, the violent attacks are
not.
• They are meticulously planned, resourced, rehearsed, and
methodically executed.
This is not a new…
•
1966 University of Texas
•
1984 San Ysidro McDonalds
•
1991 Luby’s Cafeteria
•
1999 Columbine
•
2007 Virginia
Tech
•
2006 Amish School house
2012: Twice the Toll of Any Prior Year
• Norcross, Ga Health Spa 4 killed + shooter
• Chardon, OH HS Cafeteria 3 killed, 2 injured
• Pittsburgh Psychiatric Hospital 1 killed shooter, 7 injured
• Oakland, CA University Classroom 7 killed, 3 injured
• Seattle Coffee Shop 5 killed + shooter, 1 injured
• Aurora, CO movie theater 12 killed, 58 injured
• Oak Creek WI Sikh Temple 6 killed + shooter, 3 injured
• MN Sign Co 6 killed + shooter, 3 injured
• Brookfield, WI Spa/Salon 3 killed + shooter, 4 injured
• Happy Valley, OR Shopping Mall 2 killed + shooter, 1 injured
• Newtown, CT Elementary School 27 killed, + shooter, 2
Shooting: March to October 2013
• Sparks, NV, Sparks Middle School 2 killed + shooter, 2 injured
• Washington, DC Navy Yard 12 killed + shooter
• Hialeah, FL, apartment complex, 7 killed +shooter
• Santa Monica, CA, college, 6 killed + shooter
• Manchester, IL Federal Housing Complex, 5 killed
• Federal Way, WA 5 killed + shooter
• Herkimer County, NY 5 killed + shooter, 1 FBI K-9 dead
• Los Angeles, CA Airport, 6 killed including TS agent, shooter
shot
• Paramus, N, Mall, shooter suicide
• Nairobi, Kenya, mall 67 killed including 6 soldiers + 5 shooters,
Dr. Richard Friedman, Professor pf Clinical Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medical College
NY Times OpEd, May 5, 2014
• Mass killings (4 or more people killed) is very rare
• 2012 – they accounted for about 0.15% of all US homicides
• Only about 4% of overall violence attributed to those with
mental illness
• Our current ability to predict who is likely to be violent is no
better than chance
• Lifetime prevalence of violence among those with serious
mental illness is about 16%, compared with 7% among those who are not mentally ill
• Drug and alcohol abuse are far more powerful risk factors for
Active Shooter
(fbi.gov/active shooter)•
Incidents often occur
in small/ medium-sized
communitie
s where police departments are
limited by budget constraints and small
workforces.
•
The average active-shooter incident
lasts 12
minutes
.
•
Overwhelmingly, the offender is
a single
shooter
(98 percent)
•
primarily male (97%).
•
In
40%
of the instances they
kill themselves
.
•
2%
of shooters
bring IEDs
as an additional
weapon.
•
In
10%
of the cases the
shooter stops and
walks away
.
Active Shooter
• No one demographic profile
• 43% of the time, the crime is over before police
arrive. In 57% of the shootings, an officer arrives while the shooting is still underway.
• The shooter often stops as soon as he hears or sees
law enforcement, sometimes turning his anger or aggression on law enforcement.
• Patrol officers most likely respond alone or with a
partner. When responding alone, 75% had to take action.
• A third of those officers who enter the incident
**Active Shooter
• A person who makes a threat is rarely the same as the
person who poses a threat.
• Successful threat management of a person of concern
involves long-term caretaking and coordination between law enforcement, mental health care, and social services.
• Exclusionary interventions (e.g., expulsion,
termination) do not necessarily mean the end of threat-management efforts.
• Many potential active shooters are on a trajectory
Active Shooter
• Many display observable pre-attack behaviors, if
recognized, can lead to disruption of planned attack.
• Pathway to targeted violence typically involves an
unresolved real or perceived grievance and violent resolution ideation moves from thought to research, planning, and preparation.
• Thorough threat assessment needs a holistic review of
an individual with historical, clinical, and contextual factors.
• Human bystanders represent the greatest
Warning Behaviors
•
Pathway
•
Fixation
•
Identification by others
•
Energy Burst
•
Leakage
•
Directly communicated threat
Incident Characteristics
NYPD “Active shooter” (see references)§ Attacker Gender: 96% Male; 4% Female.
§ Number of Attackers: 98% single attacker; 2% two or more.
§ Weapons: 64% single weapon; 36% two or more
(purchased legally)
§ 2/3 are semiautomatic handguns; the others are a
mix of rifles, shotguns and revolvers.
§ 2% of the shooters bring IEDs as an additional weapon.
About Shootings…
LOCATION
•
School 24%
•
Office Building 11%
•
Open Commercial
24%
•
Factory/Warehouse
12%
•
Other 29%
RELATIONSHIP
Professional 38% Academic 22% Familial 6% Other 8%
No relationship to victim 26%
AGE
Counselor Responsibilities
§
The ACA Code has emphasized the
“duty to warn”
§
When should a counselor identify the
Tarasoff “rules” affecting the specific
client?
§
The Colorado shootings & Sandy Hook
U. Cal. Santa Barbara, Isla Vista
§ Authorities had had three contacts with [the shooter] in the past year, including one case in which he
claimed to be beaten but deputies suspected he was the aggressor.
§ On April 30, officials went to his Isla Vista apartment
to check on him at the request of his family.
§ Deputies reported back that he was shy, polite and
having a difficult social life but did not need to be taken in for mental health reasons
§ Rodger says in his manifesto: "If they had
ASSESSING THREATS
• A history of prior violence.
• Recent traumas or losses, real or perceived. • Serious family and/or financial problems.
• Externalized blame for personal mistakes and difficulties.
• A strong sense of entitlement. • Social withdrawal or isolation.
• Romantic obsession/stalking of former or current worker(s) or student(s).
• Fascination with news stories about others known incidents of workplace violence.
• Verbal expression of paranoid/suspicious thoughts. • Brandishing a weapon.
