Are School Massacres Preventable?
December 24, 2012 08:26:13 am
By Matthew T. Mangino
Fourteen years ago, President Bill Clinton convened a White House Conference on School Safety. The purpose was to identify the causes of school and community violence, as well as to identify strategies for improving school safety.
As a newly elected district attorney, I was invited to participate in the conference.
Throughout the conference and for months after that, the participants spent a great deal of time debating access to guns, target hardening and availability of community mental health services.
As we mourn the senseless tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, guns, target hardening and mental health are once again front and center.
It wasn’t long ago that a gunman opened fire in the cafeteria of Chardon High School near Cleveland. The alleged gunman, 17-year-old T.J. Lane, killed three students and wounded two others.
At a news conference shortly after Lane's initial hearing, Geauga County Prosecutor David Joyce said the defendant is "someone who's not well."
Joyce continued, “[He said he] did not know the students but chose them randomly."
In the wake of the carnage at Sandy Hook, a relative of Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook killer, told ABC News that he was "obviously not well."
He was also described as troubled: "[Adam] was not connected with the other kids."
After the rash of school shootings in the late 1990s that resulted in the White House Conference and culminated with the Columbine massacre, the U.S Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center conducted a detailed 14-month analysis of 37 school shootings.
The assessment, by and large, found that schools are the safest place that students spend time during the course of a day.
That said, the assessment made some significant findings in terms of preventing future mass attacks. Incidents are rarely impulsive. The attacks are often the result of meticulous planning.
According to news reports, the Sandy Hook killer was wearing dark clothing, a mask, and a bulletproof vest, and was carrying three guns—a Glock and a Sig Sauer(both handguns), and an AR-15 rifle.
In addition, most attackers engaged in some behavior prior to the attack that caused others concern or indicated a need for help.
Jeff Kaas, author of Columbine: A True Crime Story, wrote this summer in the Washington Post that 81 percent of school shooters tell someone about their plans.
An attack involving time-consuming preparation, and a planner who is talking about his lethal intentions, lends itself to being detected and prevented, if those close to the planner—teachers, administrators and staff—know what to look for.
Target hardening and emergency response strategies are important components to minimize, or even deter, an attack. Intelligence is essential to preventing one.
Training and education are keys to prevention. Teachers, administrators and staff need to understand the dynamics between mental health issues, peer relationships and assessment of risk.
Suspicious conduct, indirect threats, even alarming expressions in school assignments need to be documented. Information must be shared so that a coherent snapshot can be created of a potentially volatile situation.
The accumulation of intelligence can and must be done without violating a student’s civil rights, and in compliance with FERPA and other state and federal regulations.
Educators need to foster relationships with students built on trust and confidentiality. A student who is uncomfortable with another student’s conduct, or rhetoric, or who is concerned with that student’s mental health should feel confident that he or she can seek the appropriate help and guidance from faculty, administration or staff.
School districts need to collect, document and share.
Schools should establish fusion coordinators, “Intel officers,” who can synthesize documented activity occurring in school, outside of school and on social networks. Teachers, administrators and staff should have regular roundtable discussions about unusual behavior, threats, bullying and social isolation of students.
Intelligence has been cultivated and used effectively in this country’s anti-terrorism efforts.School leaders should not ignore what has been gleaned from the detailed analysis of school tragedies around the country.
An intelligence model might not only help prevent a violent rampage, but may assist school districts more effectively reach out to students who need support, counseling or more specific interventions.
Matthew T. Mangino, of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C., is the former district attorney for Lawrence County, Pennsylvania and former member of the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter @MatthewTMangino). He welcomes comments from readers.
Posted by vince
Thursday, December 27, 2012 09:30
FERPA and HIPPA need to be changed 14 years later and give teeth to sharing of mental health information with Schools, Colleges, Law Enfocement, DA Office, and have negligence civil and criminal penalities apply if not followed by mentaL HEALTH SIDE. Also, the 4.5 billion cut from mental health budget since 2010 needs to be re-instated partially in 10 years.
Posted by Derek
Tuesday, December 25, 2012 02:46
Although there are clues that indicate trouble at the individual level, the indicators are often vague. Messages are not always indicative of outcomes. For example, so far there are no latent indicators that made it known that Lanza would set off on a killing spree ending the lives of those innocent victims. The same applies to the Amish School shooting in Pennsylvania months ago. There are others examples. Loved ones keep the family secrets hidden and the Lanza case was no different. Medical professionals cannot disclose a patient’s history based merely on the illness itself. If we are going to protect our schools, then the NRA Chief was correct in his assessment of future school safety. Your statement “Teachers, administrators and staff need to understand the dynamics between mental health issues, peer relationships and assessment of risk” is a good standard, but it only covers the schools.
Posted by Christy Brown
Tuesday, December 25, 2012 12:16
In terms of prevention, the issue is that “troubled” people do need help but a very few are violent school shooters. Treating a wide array of problems as if the person is a threat to others will scare people away from getting help. I have seen this at a university where the officials are understandably worried about liability but treat a person with mental problems as a potential threat although the disability laws prohibit assuming that the person is a threat without strong evidence. Teachers etc. are not professionals and at universities often have hundreds of students in a class with zero personal relationship. Parents are the best source of knowledge about their children, but the FERPA keeps them ignorant and parents may feel their child will be stigmatized by being labeled as mentally ill. Talk to families about how difficult it is to get help for troubled children, especially after they are 18. It is a nightmare. An analogy would be to ethnic profiling as with middle easterners being considered terrorists. Unless you can find specific evidence of suspicious behaviors, one should not leap to conclusions and stigmatize a whole population.