Examining the psyche of an adolescent killer
October 15, 2000 WASHINGTON--What type of kids kill at school? That's the wrong question, say researchers from the Secret Service. The people who protect the president have spent the last year studying the rare but frightening events known as school shootings. The Secret Service studied the cases of 41 children involved in 37 shootings at their current or former school, from 1974 to 2000. It shared its findings with the Chicago Sun-Times and plans to publish a guide of advice for schools. The Secret Service researchers read shooters' journals, letters and poetry. They traveled to prisons to interview 10 of the shooters, who sat for the video camera in orange prison jump suits, all acne and handcuffs, more sad than evil. "It's real hard to live with the things I've done," said Luke Woodham, now 19, who killed two students in Pearl, Miss., in 1997. The researchers found that killers do not "snap." They plan. They acquire weapons. They tell others what they are planning. These children take a long, planned, public path toward violence. And there is no profile. Some lived with both parents in "an ideal, All-American family." Some were children of divorce, or lived in foster homes. A few were loners, but most had close friends. Few had disciplinary records. Some had honor roll grades and were in Advanced Placement courses; some were failing. Few showed a change in friendships or interest in school. "What caused these shootings, I don't pretend to know, and I don't know if it's knowable," said Robert A. Fein, a forensic psychologist with the Secret Service. "We're looking for different pieces of the puzzle, not for whether kids wore black clothes." Looking for a type of child--a profile or checklist of warning signs--doesn't help a principal or teacher or parent who has vague information that raises a concern. Having some of the same traits as school shooters doesn't raise the risk, there being so few cases for comparison. "Moreover, the use of profiles carries a risk of over-identification," the Secret Service says in its report. "The great majority of students who fit any given profile will not actually pose a risk of targeted violence." Instead of looking for traits, the Secret Service urges adults to ask more questions, and quickly, about behavior and communication: What has this child said? Does he have grievances? What do his friends know? Does he have access to weapons? Is he depressed or despondent? These questions are not posed from the traditional law enforcement perspective--has the student broken a rule or law?--or even from a mental health perspective--what is the diagnosis? The uselessness of a profile is made clear by Barry Loukaitis, 14, who walked to junior high school on the coldest day of 1996 in Moses Lake, Wash. He wore a black cowboy hat, black clothes, black boots and a black trench coat hiding a .30/.30 rifle underneath. He killed two students and a teacher. "His behavior did not appear obviously different from that of other early adolescents," wrote a psychiatrist who examined Loukaitis, "until he walked into his junior high school classroom and shot four people, killing three people." But Loukaitis' behavior was different. He had spoken often, to at least eight friends, for as much as a year, of his desire to kill people. He had asked his friends how to get ammunition. He had shopped for a long coat to hide the gun; unknowing, his mother took him to seven stores to shop for the right one. He had complained of teasing, but no teacher intervened. His poems were filled with death. Many teenagers write frightening poetry. Loukaitis also told his friends just what he planned. "He said that it'd be cool to kill people," one said. "He said he could probably get away with it." Q. How long ago was this? A. For the last year, probably. I didn't think anything of it. Q. And when he showed you the sawed-off shotgun? A. I kind of blew that off, too. The teacher Loukaitis killed, Leona Caires, 49, had written on the report card of the A student: "pleasure to have in class." Why is the Secret Service studying school shootings? The Service once believed in profiles. Assassins were presumed to be male, loners, insane. That profile was changed by Squeaky Fromme and Sara Jane Moore, who each tried to kill President Gerald R. Ford in San Francisco in 1975. The night before Moore's attack, the Secret Service had taken away her gun, but she bought another gun and was allowed to approach Ford outside the St. Francis Hotel. She didn't know that her new gun fired high and to the right. In that same hotel last year, Secret Service agents were briefed on the results of a study by the Service's Protective Intelligence Division. The Service studied all 83 people who tried to kill a public official or celebrity in the United States in the last 50 years. Assassins, the team found, fit no profile. They rarely threaten. They often change targets. Even if mentally ill, they plan rationally. But because they follow a path toward violence--stalking, acquiring weapons, communicating, acting in ways that concern those around them--it may be possible to intervene. As the team presented its findings around the country, its audience often made connections to other kinds of targeted violence: workplace attacks, stalking and school shootings. School violence decreased in the 1990s, but the rare school shootings increased in the 1990s. And then came Columbine High School, where 15 died. The Service established the National Threat Assessment Center, a sliver of the Secret Service headquarters, just around the corner from Ford's Theater in Washington. "My hope," said the director of the Secret Service, Brian L. Stafford, "is that the knowledge and expertise utilized by the Secret Service to protect the president may aid our nation's schools and law enforcement communities to safeguard our nation's children." Kids are kids, of course, not presidential assassins. Fewer of the school shooters show signs of mental illness, which often starts in late adolescence or beyond. The children talk more with peers, perhaps testing and probing for the reaction their action will bring. After seeing that the young shooters didn't just snap, the researchers believe that more responsibility for the shootings rests with adults. "If kids snap, it lets us off the hook," said Bryan Vossekuil, a former agent on President \ Reagan's protective detail and executive director of the Service's threat assessment center. "If you view these shooters as on a path toward violence, it puts the burden on adults. Believing that kids snap is comforting." Although there is no profile, the shooters do share one characteristic. "I believe they're all boys because the way we bring up boys in America predisposes them to a sense of loneliness and disconnection and sadness," said William S. Pollack, a psychologist and consultant to the Secret Service. "When they have additional pain, additional grievances, they are less likely to reach out and talk to someone, less likely to be listened to. Violence is the only way they start to feel they can get a result." Copyright 2000 Chicago Sun-Times |