Mind Of The Assassin

(CBS)  If you think what happened at Virginia Tech is incomprehensible, you're about to meet some people who understand that kind of madness very well: they're the people who protect the president of the United States.

For years, the U.S. Secret Service has sent psychologists into prisons and mental hospitals to interview those bent on assassination.

As Scott Pelley reports, their interviews bring extraordinary insight into the mind of an assassin; what has been discovered in the process is that many of the same characteristics found in assassins can also be found in school shooters.

In recent years, 60 Minutes has had unprecedented access to the Secret Service Intelligence Division.

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When it comes to protecting the presidential motorcade, the Secret Service training center outside Washington D.C. is without a doubt the most hostile "town" in America. You won't find its streets on any map; the center was built after the Kennedy assassination to drill the agents of the presidential protection detail. There's even an airport with one half of an Air Force One plane, where agents take turns playing the commander-in-chief and the gunman in the crowd.

This is practice for last ditch defense, but as one agent told 60 Minutes, "If the guns come out, we've already failed."

It's up to the Secret Service Intelligence Division to stop the assassin before he picks up a gun. They open new cases every month, investigating people who may want to harm those under Secret Service protection. The trouble is how to sort out those who just make a threat from those who actually pose a threat.

"Many of those who committed attacks did not threaten prior to their attack of violence," explains former Special Agent Brian Vossekuil.

In 1999, Vossekuil and psychologist Dr. Robert Fein were the primary authors of a groundbreaking Secret Service study of stalkers and assassins. They called it the "Exceptional Case Study."

They analyzed 83 attacks, and interviewed gunmen including Arthur Bremmer, who gunned down presidential candidate George Wallace, and Mark Chapman, who murdered John Lennon.

"What was it that struck you about these 83 cases you researched in the exceptional case study?" Pelley asks Dr. Fein.

"There was no, 'quote' profile of an assassin or a near assassin. People came from a range of backgrounds. Some had criminal records, most did not, some had histories of violence, most did not," Fein explains.

"The behavior in the acts generally included, things like communication to others, planning, target selection," Vossekuil explains.

"These were not impulsive, out of the blue, attacks. They were part of a process," Fein says.

"And we found, as Robert just said, acts that were in engaged in that was identifiable, understandable and consistent with someone on might be on a pathway toward mounting an attack," Vossekuil adds.

In one of their interviews, in a psychiatric ward, Vossekuil and Fein talked to a man called "J.D."

"I was looking for a location where I could test fire the gun," J.D. told the researchers.

In the late 1980's, J.D. stalked two presidents across the country, robbing banks to pay for the travel. What was his motivation?

"J.D. was a person who had dropped out of graduate school, who had served in the military, who became convinced that he had a choice to make, that aliens were ordering him either to kill innocent schoolchildren or to kill the president," Fein explains.

"He sounds too crazy to be a threat," Pelley remarks.

"Because he was quite organized, because he believed that he had this horrible choice. And the organization that he had to look normal, to explore security, to get weapons, to travel around the country that was quite chilling. Though if you talked with him, he was – he did not come across as a hostile, angry – fitting any stereotype of quote an assassin," Fein says.

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[samthetvcat]

part 3
Like I'm just trying to think of it from the place of the people who crossed paths with the VT shooter to imagine the dilemma:

Taking photos under skirts - EEEWWW! Creepy pervert - I wouldn't think: shooter

Scarily violent 'creative' writing - EEEEW! I might want to move across the room and not make eye contact with this individual . . . but then I think Quentin Tarantino is a sicko too, so I'd question my judgment and defer to the First Amendment.

Loner roommate who doesn't talk - I'd just give this person his space.

Loner roommate who stalks women - Well as a woman I'd move out, but even then how do you make the leap to mass murderer?

Loner stalker roommate who wants to kill himself - this is where the caring aspect might alter the choices one makes because if secret service is thinking that if Cho had been admitted he'd have never had a gun and the shooting wouldn't have occurred, I would be concerned that a roommate might choose at this juncture not to tell authorities that he is suicidal because I'm not sure people who are living with people automatically think along the lines of 'my roommate is suicidal therefore he's a future mass murderer'.

I don't know though . . .

[samthetvcat]

part 1
"But you're right, a de-stigmatized community of the like minded would have helped significantly, imho."
Posted by booyaw_77

This is so key. I think identifying and addressing the at-risk individuals is obviously priority but I think when it comes to school shootings this law-enforcement approach could be twice as powerful if it was married with a counselling approach that might feel more natural to teachers.

Like perhaps past school shooters could describe what might have been said or done by teachers that might have changed the outcome - maybe an early intervention for loners might be as simple as referring the kid to a big-brother program (with a law-enforcement or psychologist big brother or with somebody with common experiences or interests).

[samthetvcat]

part 2
Or maybe society needs to have a greater understanding of common mental illnesses and their manifestations and courses of treatment. Like did the VT shooter have schizoprenia? Is that what caused him in part to do what he did? Maybe knowing what we know now if it was common knowledge on campuses that schizoprenia tends to emerge around that time in life and that help is readily available and that there is hope and a future and a place for him it would be more socially acceptable for people to say 'dude, maybe getting this checked out might take some of the edge off your stress - it'll be okay'.

I think some of the fear for people is fear of the unknown - like they don't know what the solution is so they recoil. Also, people probably sort of care for the potential shooter in the sense of not being sure what one is capable of (because teachers and classmantes won't know whether somebody's acquired a gun or not) and with an innocent until guilty mentality I think people would be a lot more inclined to err on the side of caution if reporting included caring for the at-risk person rather than treating him as a criminal (perhaps?)

[taylpatr]

Could it possible that the cast system that America has developed might have something to do with these horrific acts of violence? Let's face it; India has been living with the cast system forever.Now, thanks to capitalism, they have people starving to death on sidewalks right in front of BMW's stuck in traffic.This nation is reaching an economic disparity that, while not as wide as India's yet,is creating a barrier between the haves and the have not's.As prices continue to spiral out of control and wages are either cut or remain the same, something has to give.Sometimes it's a persons self control that gives, resulting in another needless bloodbath. May I suggest that instead of making more of a burden on the already over-burdened less wealthy cast, that for once the capitalist pigs that run the over wealthy cast start cutting the pie a little more even. That killers rants about the "rich kids" and their debauchery should be a wake up call instead of a "rant."

[booyaw_77]

http://www.nami.org

[booyaw_77]

But you're right, a de-stigmatized community of the like minded would have helped significantly, imho.

[booyaw_77]

"Perhaps if he was schizophrenic and had managed to connect with other schizoprenics he would have seen that ultimately it wasn't anybody's fault and that the solution wasn't with guns but with medication from knowledgeable professionals."

Well, getting the right cocktail for a schizophrenic is no easy task. In fact, its very difficult. No two people are the same. And it requires months and years to find out which medication works best for them. Seroquel and Zyprexa, and a heep of other medications, that are not only mysterious in their effect, but very very expensive. And none of them rid them of their hallucinations.

In any event, it seemed that there was a lot of time needed for attention that wasn't there. And in a whole bunch of areas, besides diagnosis. Maybe humor. Maybe Cho couldn't laugh at himself. Not in a university setting, and not with nobody to talk to. He took himself too seriously.

[rhs648]

The gun debate clouds the real issues. The shooter was mentally ill and everyone around him knew it. A judge had declared him incompetent. The system allowed this person to roam freely. State and Federal laws and court rulings make it very difficult to hospitalize a mentally ill person. A recent documentary on tv stated that 20 to 30 per cent of inmates are mentally ill. Yet, the authorities can not force mentally ill people to take medication. The reality is that the system failed the students. If this person was in a mental institution, the incident would not have happened. Certainly, there was fair warning. Once again, the system failed to protect the innocent

[ajblackwood]

I wonder whether CBS realizes how weird it sounded to have a piece like that with only a passing reference toward the end to access to guns. The mind of an assassin would be much less murderous if he had access to only knives and baseball bats as weapons rather than semi-automatic guns.

[ajblackwood]

I wonder whether CBS realizes how weird it sounded to have a piece like that with only a passing reference toward the end to access to guns. The mind of an assassin would be much less murderous if he had access to only knives and baseball bats as weapons rather than semi-automatic guns.