Schools may miss mark on preventing violence

Tips for parents

Based on their study of school shooters, Secret Service researchers and the Department of Education offer suggestions for schools and parents.

"Because information about these attackers' intent and planning was potentially knowable before the incident, some attacks may be preventable," the Secret Service says.

"However, because the time span between the attacker's decision to mount an attack and the actual event may be short, quick responses are necessary."

  • Understand that violence is the end result of a process, which is understandable and often discernable. Students don't snap.
  • There are no accurate or useful profiles of school shooters. Focus on thinking and behavior, not traits.
  • Targeted violence stems from an interaction among attacker, situation, setting, and target. Pay attention to the role of bystanders, people who know what is going to happen.
  • Use an investigative mind-set. Rely on the facts of this specific case. Corroborate key information. Investigate communications. Talk to the circle of friends. Investigate weapon-seeking.
  • Each case is different. Each requires an individual, fact-based approach.
  • Reduce barriers to students telling what they know.
  • Because many students brought in guns from home, consider issues of safe gun storage.
  • Don't look only for threats. Many students who posed a threat did not threaten.
  • Improve handling of grievances.

"Bullying was not a factor in every case, and clearly not every child who is bullied in school will pose a risk for targeted violence in school. However, in a number of cases, attackers described experiences of being bullied in terms that approached torment.

"They told of behaviors that, if they occurred in the workplace, would meet the legal definitions of harassment. That bullying played a major role in a number of these school shootings supports ongoing efforts to combat bullying in American schools."

-- Bill Dedman
Deadly Lessons: Part II
Deadly Lessons: Part I

October 16, 2000
Chicago Sun-Times
BILL DEDMAN STAFF REPORTER

WASHINGTON--After the carnage last year at Columbine High School, the nation's schools have been bombarded with ways to "prevent" school shootings: metal detectors, SWAT teams, profiles, warning signs, checklists, zero-tolerance policies, even software to compare a student's actions with past attacks.

These approaches are "unlikely to be helpful" and could be dangerous, warn the authors of the Secret Service study of school shooters. In the draft of an academic paper shared with the Chicago Sun-Times, the authors and their academic advisers warn of over-reliance on quick fixes.

"There is a tremendous amount of confusion," said William Modzeleski, a co-author of the paper and official with the U.S. Department of Education. "We need to be more skeptical consumers."

The researchers encourage principals and teachers to listen to children, improve climates in schools, and investigate thoroughly whenever a child causes concern.

Why rely on SWAT teams, they ask, when most attacks are over before police arrive?

Why focus on which kids fit a profile or show warning signs, when there is no profile that fits all those who kill?

Why expel students immediately for the most minor infractions, when expulsion was just the spark that pushed some students to come right back to school with a gun?

Why buy software to evaluate threats, when the killers rarely make direct threats, and the software isn't based on a study of school shootings?

Why rely on metal detectors and police officers in schools, when the shooters often make no effort to conceal their weapons?

"It is misleading to think that magnetometers are going to stop this problem," said Secret Service psychologist Marisa Reddy.

Reddy wrote the paper with Bryan Vossekuil, Robert A. Fein and John Berglund of the Secret Service; psychologist Randy Borum of the University of South Florida; and William Modzeleski, director of the Safe and Drug-Free Schools Program of the U.S. Department of Education.

"Most of what's been done has been based on Columbine, when in fact Columbine was exceptionally rare," Modzeleski said. "You can't just slough this off on law enforcement. We've had 40 shooting cases in 30 years. We have a million cases of bad behavior daily in schools. Those can't be ignored."

The Secret Service researchers said that most responses to school shootings have been inductive, relying on aggregate information about past cases to guide inferences about specific facts in a given case.

They urge a more investigative, deductive approach, focusing on the facts.

The researchers warn against hasty use of these approaches:

Profiles
Profiles are not specific enough, failing to discern which students pose a threat. Many school shooters studied by the Secret Service would not have been identified by any profile.

Profiling can unfairly label or stigmatize students who stand out because of dress or musical interests or other characteristics.

And profiles are often based on media accounts, which proved to be inaccurate when compared with case files. One academic paper identified all "schoolhouse avengers" as white, when three have been African-American, one Hispanic and one Native Alaskan.

Warning signs and checklists
Since there have been so few school shootings, it would be easy to ignore a child just because he didn't fit the known "pre-incident indicators" on checklists distributed to schools. And a child showing more "warning signs" may be no more at risk for violence than a child showing none.

Software
The lightning rod for much attention after Columbine has been a software tool, MAST, or Mosaic for Assessment of Student Threats.

A principal or teacher answers a series of questions, and Mosaic "tells the user whether the case contains factors and combinations of factors experts associate with escalation" of violence. The software would sell for about $1,200 per year per user.

"The free enterprise system is alive and well and stimulated by American tragedy," said Wesley C. Mitchell, the chief of police for the Los Angeles schools.

Cook County State's Attorney Richard Devine, has been among Mosaic's champions.

"It's one tool. It's not the be all and end all," said Pam Paziotopoulos, Devine's public affairs director "I don't think it's such a bad thing, as long as we use it with discretion."

While the Secret Service does not take a position on any commercial product, its researchers note that MAST is not based on a study of the actual cases of school shootings, but on expert opinion and a broader look at various kinds of school violence.

Mosaic's designer, Gavin de Becker, will not say how factors are weighted, but defends the software as useful for guiding inquiries when a student causes concern.

The Secret Service work "is of great value in informing us about the process that led to violence in the students they studied," de Becker said. The solution is not only "MAST or some other approach; all of the methods work together."

Copyright 2000 Chicago Sun-Times