Mind Of The Assassin

Scott Pelley On How The Secret Service Studies The Minds Of Assassins

(CBS)  "I decided I was going to dress up like a law enforcement person, so I bought a suit, the shoes and bought a trench coat and had a haircut," J.D. told the researchers.

He stalked the presidents for three years with a .38 caliber handgun. But before he got close enough, he was busted for robbing banks.

"What do we know about assassins that we didn’t know before?" Pelley asks the researchers.

"The assassins, near attackers, followed a path, they planned, they thought, they made efforts to get weapons, assassination is the end result, we believe, of an understandable and often discernable process of behavior," Fein says.

"When someone is on a path to attack or considering an attack, other persons with whom this person comes in contact know to some degree of the activities and the planning that this person is engaging in," Vossekuil adds. "They knew enough that would cause a reasonable person to conclude that there’s the basis for concern and that there’s activity that might end in some lethal action."

"There were situations in which a person would communicate, for example, that he was considering killing himself," Fein says.

"So a desire for suicide, if you will, is an important marker?" Pelley asks.

"The line between suicide and homicide can be a very thin line," Dr. Fein replies.

It was after Columbine in 1999 that the Secret Service thought what it knew about assassins might apply to school shootings.

"After the Columbine attacks, Secretary of Education [Richard] Riley asked whether the department could work with the Secret Service to do a similar study to the one we'd done on assassination – to school shooters," Fein tells Pelley.

In 2000, Fein, Vossekuil and psychologist Marisa Reddy went back to the prisons and mental hospitals, this time to interview kids who attacked their schools.

"In my life things have never been o.k.; it ain't never seemed like anybody cared, never," school shooter Luke Woodham said during a Secret Service interview.

In 1997, Woodham killed his mother, two students at school, and wounded seven others. "I couldn’t find a reason not to do it," he tearfully told researchers.

The new research evolved into a joint project with the Department of Education, called the "Safe School Initiative."

"With the school attackers that we studied there’s no profile, there’s no set of demographics that they share. But there are certain behaviors that they undertake," Georgeann Rooney, a threat assessment specialist at the Secret Service, tells 60 Minutes.

Behaviors that, she says, are like those of assassins. "This isn’t an individual who just snaps and wakes up and decides they are going to attack their school. There’s a planning process," Rooney says. "This planning, a lot of times, if you know what to look for it can be detectable."

And one theme they detected was bullying: two-thirds of the school shooters were victims of bullies. "They'd call you gay, call you stupid or fat or whatever. Kids would sometimes throw rocks at me and push me and kick me and hit me and stuff like that," Luke Woodham told researchers.

The Secret Service research reads like a road map to the mind of Virginia Tech killer Seung-Hui Cho; he mentioned suicide to others, and he planned for months, buying one of his guns nearly three months before the attack.

Now, investigators are asking whether Cho told others about his plans. The Secret Service found that is much more common than you would imagine.

"These, for the most part, is an adolescent population; they really will talk about what they are intending to do and that’s what we found in a majority of these cases, these individuals are communicating what they are intending to do to someone," Rooney says.

In 81 percent of school shootings they studied, other kids knew in advance and said nothing. Today, the Secret Service is trying to figure out why with a new study due out in the next few months.

Psychologist Dr. William Pollack gave 60 Minutes an advance look at his interviews with the kids who knew but didn’t tell adults.

"Well, think about it from their point of view you're afraid to tell them because, one, you're afraid you'll get in trouble. Two, you're afraid your name will get out and people will hurt you and, three, you're afraid that the person you talk about won't get help. But, will somehow be harmed or adjudicated. So, you keep your mouth shut," Dr. Pollack explains.

"When you say 81 percent of these people told someone what they were going to do, what do you mean? How specific were they?" Pelley asks.

"It started out at from the lowest end being, you know, 'I'm so angry I might kill someone or hurt someone in the school' up to, including, 'Tomorrow, I'm coming with a gun. So, be careful. Don't come.' Or one shooter actually said 'Bring your camera to take pictures,'" Pollack replies.

"In that particular case, did the person who was told tell the authorities?" Pelley asks.

"No. They brought the camera," Pollack tells Pelley.

[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.

[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 rather than semi-automatic guns to kill with.

[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 rather than semi-automatic guns to kill with.

[ajblackwood]

I wonder whether CBS realizes how weird it sounds 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 rather than semi-automatic guns to kill with.

[godofredo29]

Correction...www.cdc.gov.

[godofredo29]

Okay, here we go again. There's nothing mysterious about suicide. Just go to www.cdc.com and their suicide fact sheet. Unfortunately, journalists can't seem to resist the temptation to practice their creative writing (which is why journalism degrees should be considered fine arts degrees). Caray!

[samthetvcat]

booyaw_77

I think sometimes people let their fear drive their actions instead of their heart and their head because even though others may look like they have it all together stress and confidence issues plague us all in a society where a socialite like Paris Hilton becomes a celebrity for making a ***-tape while the vast majority of us have to work hard and deal with lots of different people who have different agendas from ours to earn a living.

I think we all have tremendous gifts to offer society and sometimes we just have to believe in ourselves because sometimes others who look like they have it together have confidence problems too. Maybe the message from this piece is that we're never alone - the gunman was not alone even though he felt alone. 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.

[samthetvcat]

booyaw_77

I think sometimes people let their fear drive their actions instead of their heart and their head because even though others may look like they have it all together stress and confidence issues plague us all in a society where a socialite like Paris Hilton becomes a celebrity for making a ***-tape while the vast majority of us have to work hard and deal with lots of different people who have different agendas from ours to earn a living.

I think we all have tremendous gifts to offer society and sometimes we just have to believe in ourselves because sometimes others who look like they have it together have confidence problems too. Maybe the message from this piece is that we're never alone - the gunman was not alone even though he felt alone. 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.

[samthetvcat]

Basically I guess ultimately what I would really want to say to anybody who feels alone and different is that ultimately who's opinion do you value more - the opinions or other people's or your own. But you have to believe in yourself - don't focus on other people and what they say because that gives their words power and yours can be more powerful if you believe in yourself. What is it about you that you like? What do you do well? What do you like to do? Do you like pets? Pets are great companions!

You know what might be a good start for anybody feeling alone and angry who might be reading this is to go pick up a copy of William Pollock's 'Real Boys' (the guy in the 60 Minutes piece) and read it cover to cover . . . he really understands . . . I hope this helps :)

[gunownerdan]

Criminals Love Defenseless Victims
a-human-right.com

[booyaw_77]

And when you mix a high school god damned "look at de geek" with final exams? And paranoia?

BOOM!!