School Shooters: What Path Leads to Violence?

It is difficult to empathize with someone who is shooting in a school. The brutality of their crimes is unspeakable. Whether the shootings took place in Columbine, Sandy Hook or Parkland, they traumatized students and communities in the United States.

Psychologist John Van Dreal understands this. He is Director of Security and Risk Management at Salem-Keizer Public Schools in Oregon, a state that has had its share of shootings in schools. In 2014, about 60 miles from Salem, home to Van Dreal, a 15-year-old boy killed a student and a teacher at his high school before killing himself.

"Someone has done his best to target and kill children who look like our children, teachers who look like our teachers – and this, for no other reason than to hurt them," said Van Dreal. "And it's very personal."

Still, Van Dreal and other psychologists and law enforcement officers spend a lot of time thinking about what it is like to be one of those school shooters because, say they, it's the key to prevention.

How many shootings in the school?

Compiling all shootings and cases of violence at school is difficult, say the researchers; there is no official count, and different organizations differ in their definitions of shootings at school.

For example, an open source database consisting of Mother Jones suggests that there have been 11 mbad shootings (where four or more people have died) in schools since the shooting of Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999, and 134 children and adults died in these attacks.

Psychologists and law enforcement agencies have badyzed the causes of this type of attacks involving multiple people, because of what they tell us from many other people who are at risk of becoming violent in schools and how we might intervene early before the anger becomes violence.

In the two decades since the shooting of Columbine High School, researchers have learned a lot about school shooters. On the one hand, many are themselves students, or alumni, in the schools that they are attacking. A significant majority tends to be teenagers or young adults.

"There is not a thing, [but] maybe a dozen different things that unite to put someone on the verge of committing an act of mbad violence, "says Peter Langman, clinical psychologist at Allentown, in the state of Pennsylvania, and author of two books and several studies. on shootings at school.

Several factors contribute in each case

Most shooters in these cases had led a difficult life, according to studies.

"Teen shooters, there is no doubt that they are struggling and that their lives have gone through many failures," says Reid Meloy, professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of California at San Diego.

A lot fighting psychological problems, says Meloy, a forensic psychologist who also consults the FBI.

"We know that mental health problems are very present," he said. "The child may be right, you know, very depressed." We also discovered in one of our early studies that you were presenting this curious combination of depression and paranoia. "

Studies conducted by the FBI and the US secret service also revealed that many shooters felt desperate before the event.

"Whether they have been diagnosed or not, or whether or not they are seriously mentally ill, something happens that could [have been] treated by some sort of treatment, "says Langman.

But most have never had this treatment.

The role of mental health problems

Mental health problems do not cause shootings in schools, says Van Dreal. After all, only a very small percentage of children with psychological problems to become school shooters.

But mental health issues are a risk factor, he says, as they can decrease the ability to handle other stress. And studies have shown that most school shooters led particularly stressful lives.

Many, but not all, have experienced trauma in childhood such as physical or psychological abuse, and unstable families, with parents or siblings violent, absent or alcoholic, for example. And most have experienced significant losses.

For example, the defendant in the Parkland, Florida case, who had fired last year had lost his adoptive mother as a result of flu complications just months before the attack of the day. 39; school. His adoptive father was dead when he was a little boy.

Feeling excluded at school can also play a role.

"Many of these people felt excluded, socially excluded or rejected," said Van Dreal. Studies show that social rejection at school is badociated with higher levels of anxiety, depression, aggression, and antisocial behavior in children.

A 2004 study by the US Secret Service and the US Department of Education found that nearly three-quarters of school shooters had been bullied or harbaded at school.

Marginalized children do not have an anchor at school, says Van Dreal. "They have no connection with adults – no one is watching them, or no one knows who they are."

And lack of social support at school, says Meloy, is a significant risk factor.

"People who commit this type of targeted attack do not feel very good about themselves or their lives," said Van Dreal. "They may wish someone to kill them, or they may wish to kill themselves."

For example, Dylan Klebold, one of the authors of the Columbine shooting, was depressed and suicidal two years ago.

"About half of the school shooters I studied died by suicide in their attack," Langman said. "It's often a mixture of serious depression, anxiety and hopelessness that drives them to end their lives."

Of course, most people who feel suicidal do not kill others.

So, what is driving a small minority of children who have mental health issues and suicide ideas to turn to violence and homicide?

Meloy and Van Dreal think it's because these people were struggling on their own, either because they were unable to ask for help, or because their screams had gone unnoticed when the adults of their life did not understand that the child needed support.

When despair turns into anger and desire for revenge

When a person struggles alone for a moment and fails, his despair can turn into anger, say the researchers.

"There is a loss, there is humiliation, there is anger, there is a blame," says Meloy.

This kind of anger can lead to homicidal thoughts, says Van Dreal.

They start fantasizing about revenge, Meloy said.

"Fantasy is one in which the adolescent begins to identify with other individuals who have become school shooters and who have used violence to solve their problem," he said. he.

These days, adds Meloy, it's easy for a troubled child to go online and research how previous shooters planned and executed their attacks.

Easy access to firearms – one of the major risk factors – then turns these fantasies into reality.

Psychologists say these attacks can be prevented – they often take weeks or even months to complete planning.

The key to prevention is to spot the first signs of behavior indicating that a student is having difficulties, says Langman, and to watch for signs that someone might turn violent.

Some signs may seem obvious in hindsight. "So, I stopped being the kid who went to see the Scouts, the church and love his grandmother," says Van Dreal, "and now, I want to be that kid with a camouflage that is isolated and attacks people and hurts them. "

But sometimes, even the professionals who see the signs miss their meaning.

About a year and a half before attacking students from Columbine High School, Dylan Klebold, an gifted student, began to get in trouble.

He and friends hacked into his school's computer system. A few months later, with his friend Eric Harris, he broke into a van and stole equipment. They were arrested at the time and sent to a diversion program – an alternative to prison for juvenile offenders – that offered counseling and community service.

Sue Klebold, Dylan's mother and subsequent author of the book The judgment of a mother: live in the aftermath of tragedy, told NPR that she was upset and concerned about the sudden change in her son's behavior. She says she asked the diversion counselor if her behavior made sense and she needed a therapist. The counselor asked Dylan, and Dylan said no.

Sue Klebold says she never realized how deep the problem was.

"The piece that I think has failed [in] In fact, we tend to underestimate the level of pain that can be found in someone, "Klebold told NPR. We all have the responsibility to stop and think: a person we love can suffer, perhaps in crisis. "

Beware of pitfalls in finding a solution

According to psychologists who study children who become violent, the solution is not to exclude or suspend a student like Dylan – although this is what happened to him in the fall of 1997, after hacking the computer system of his school.

A student like the one who is expelled "can now be bored, can be isolated at home, can live in a dysfunctional family and may be thinking about and thinking all the time about how he is going to avenge what happened to him" said Meloy.

Eric Harris, a friend and murderer of Dylan Klebold that day in Columbine, did not seem depressed; He was self-centered, lacked empathy and was subject to tantrums, according to those who badyzed his diaries and his previous behavior.

Klebold's journals were "full of loneliness and depression," says Langman, while Harris's writings were "full of narcissism, rage, and gossip about people – lots of contempt."

Harris's contempt extended to himself. Langman's study on Harris' diary suggests that major surgeries during his early teens to correct a birth condition contributed to his self-hatred.

"I've always hated my appearance," Harris wrote in his diary. "That's where a lot of my hate comes from." In his last entry in the newspaper, Harris presents himself as "the odd Eric KID".

"Anyone considering getting a gun and killing people should be seen as a person in crisis," Langman said. "And that's why it's so important to reach out and communicate with that individual."

Time and time again, psychologists and educators have found it helpful to mentor and supervise a young person very early can divert the most from the violence.

According to these researchers, making contact with these students, listening to them and supporting them, providing them with the help they need, can help prevent further attacks and make schools safer for all children.