Trigger Points

Inside the Mission to Stop Mass Shootings in America

Mark Follman

• Publisher: Dey Street Books
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9780062973559
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Violence in Society
• Index: Social Sciences

"An urgent read that illuminates real possibility for change." —John Carreyrou, New York Times bestselling author of Bad Blood

For the first time, a story about the specialized teams of forensic psychologists, FBI agents, and other experts who are successfully stopping mass shootings—a hopeful, myth-busting narrative built on new details of infamous attacks, never-before-told accounts from perpetrators and survivors, and real-time immersion in confidential threat cases, casting a whole new light on how to solve an ongoing national crisis.

It's time to go beyond all the thoughts and prayers, misguided blame on mental illness, and dug-in disputes over the Second Amendment. Through meticulous reporting and panoramic storytelling, award-winning journalist Mark Follman chronicles the decades-long search for identifiable profiles of mass shooters and brings readers inside a groundbreaking method for preventing devastating attacks. The emerging field of behavioral threat assessment, with its synergy of mental health and law enforcement expertise, focuses on circumstances and behaviors leading up to planned acts of violence—warning signs that offer a chance for constructive intervention before it's too late.

Beginning with the pioneering study in the late 1970s of"criminally insane" assassins and the stalking behaviors discovered after the murder of John Lennon and the shooting of Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s, Follman traces how the field of behavioral threat assessment first grew out of Secret Service investigations and FBI serial-killer hunting. Soon to be revolutionized after the tragedies at Columbine and Virginia Tech, and expanded further after Sandy Hook and Parkland, the method is used increasingly today to thwart attacks brewing within American communities.

As Follman examines threat-assessment work throughout the country, he goes inside the FBI's elite Behavioral Analysis Unit and immerses in an Oregon school district's innovative violence-prevention program, the first such comprehensive system to prioritize helping kids and avoid relying on punitive measures. With its focus squarely on progress, the story delves into consequential tragedies and others averted, revealing the dangers of cultural misunderstanding and media sensationalism along the way. Ultimately, Follman shows how the nation could adopt the techniques of behavioral threat assessment more broadly, with powerful potential to save lives.

Eight years in the making, Trigger Points illuminates a way forward at a time when the failure to prevent mass shootings has never been more costly—and the prospects for stopping them never more promising.

Part I

Chapter One

It’s a Small World

On a sun-soaked afternoon in August 2015, the Downtown Disney district in Anaheim, California, bustled with families crowding storybook shops and cafés, the promise of funnel cakes sweet on the air. A short walk beyond the main plaza led to the central courtyard of the Disneyland Hotel resort, with its tiki bar and swimming pools ensconced in tropical foliage. Weary parents lounged with cocktails in hand as kids flung themselves down pool waterslides and others frolicked to pop tunes from a DJ. Summer vacation season was peaking just as it should in the Happiest Place on Earth.

Once the late afternoon sun descended and families departed for dinner, the deepening quiet revealed a faint jingle of classic theme music from speakers tucked into the courtyard scenery: It’s a world of laughter, a world of tears, it’s a world of hopes and a world of fears . . . Behind the scenes, a very different kind of activity was also beginning.

By dark, hundreds of forensic psychologists, plainclothes cops, FBI agents, and other mental health and security experts traveling from around the country would finish arriving on the hotel grounds. They were about to spend the next four days sequestered in the conference center’s chilly, windowless ballrooms, training and trading tips on how to head off psychopaths, rapists, and mass murderers. While families meandered through Downtown Disney enjoying ice cream cones and played in the nearby theme parks, these specialists would be treated to sessions such as “20 Years of Workplace Shootings,” “Homicidal Cyberstalking,” and “Evil Thoughts, Wicked Deeds.”

The gathering here was no accident. Disney had played host to the annual summit of the Association of Threat Assessment Professionals ever since the group’s establishment in the early 1990s, owing in part to ATAP’s roots in the Los Angeles Police Department. More than two decades later, professional interest in the emerging field of behavioral threat assessment was rising alongside an ever-expanding list of places marred by gun rampages: Aurora, Newtown, the Washington Navy Yard, Fort Hood, Isla Vista, Charleston. As mass shootings in the United States increased both in frequency and lethality during the 2010s—soon further to include Roseburg, San Bernardino, Orlando, the Las Vegas Strip, and Parkland—the blast and quick fade of the national gun debate became ritual. But beyond all the “thoughts and prayers” and polarizing vitriol, something else was happening across the country, albeit mostly out of view: threat assessment teams were cropping up. These collaborative groups were based in suburban school districts, university police departments, corporate headquarters, and theme parks, meeting regularly to evaluate and manage cases of concerning behavior. In 2008, Virginia had become the first state to require threat assessment teams at its public colleges and universities, a policy that began to trail high-profile gun massacres throughout the US, with Illinois, Connecticut, and other states soon to follow. The experts trained in this vaguely ominous-sounding work were striving to thwart America’s next rampage killers, handling eye-opening cases that were unknown to the public simply due to the fact that disasters had been averted.

The twelve hundred or so members of ATAP, a small but flagship organization for the field, convened each year in Disneyland to focus on the developing science, and also the art, of preventing violent tragedies. There was perhaps no more prolific research expert among them than Reid Meloy, a forensic psychologist based at the University of California–San Diego, who, sporting a charcoal suit, bright tie, and his signature white hair and goatee, gave the keynote address that first morning. Any lingering air of family fun from beyond the walls of the low-lit main ballroom dissipated with an image on the big screen showing a 430,000-year-old skull excavated in northern Spain. Researchers had recently concluded that the two gaping cracks in the skull’s forehead region resulted from “interpersonal” blunt-force trauma, the earliest known anatomical evidence of a homicide.

“Our recognition of patterns is an evolved skill that helps us survive threats,” commented Meloy, a longtime consultant on threat cases for the FBI. His presentation cruised between primal human history and modern Hollywood as he peppered the forensics with some gallows humor on psychopaths. A few short video clips illustrated the point that these dangerous specimens came in various kinds: There was Kathy Bates’s chillingly polite, sledgehammer-wielding kidnapper in Misery, and then Bryan Cranston’s cancer-surviving, homicidal meth maker from Breaking Bad. With further discussion of the evolutionary traits of such killers came images of Anthony Hopkins’s FBI nemesis from The Silence of the Lambs and a wild-eyed Jack Nicholson “playing himself” in The Shining. “I’ve been getting mileage out of that line for thirty years,” said Meloy, grinning amid the burst of chuckles.

Reviewing some underlying science for the newer practitioners in the crowd, Meloy displayed an image of a pet kitten recoiling with a hiss, its eyes aflame and teeth bared. This was what the imminent threat of reactive violence looked like—defensive, exploding from instinctive fear and rage. Mass shootings, however, were not impulsive crimes, he explained. Case evidence had long shown that virtually every attack was planned, thought out over a period of days, weeks, or months. The more apt image, Meloy suggested, was the subsequent one showing a mountain lion on the hunt, its body lowered and taut. This was the imminent threat of predatory violence—offensive, calculating, and targeted. The animal’s stare didn’t burn with danger; it was focused and icy blank. Research dating from the 1940s showed that violence in mammals, humans included, evolved with two distinctive modes of aggression, each important to survival and activating differently in the brain. But the pair of cats depicted more than that behavioral contrast. They showed the potential for stopping a predatory attack. Watchfulness, preparation, the stretch of time before the pounce—these were the terrain of prevention work.

The field of behavioral threat assessment was conceived in the 1980s and forged in the crucible of America’s rising gun massacres, yet the work had long remained an obscure professional niche, virtually unknown to the general public. Its leaders could seem aloof, with their clinical jargon and elusive professional koans, like “The map is not the territory” and “Follow the rules, but think outside the box.” The field’s growing body of case research made clear how little the public understood about the behaviors and conditions that led to mass shootings, the rise of which had defied a steady decline in America’s overall murder rate since the early 1990s. “Personally and professionally that trend is a big concern, especially as violent crime has decreased,” Meloy later told me, further describing the ideal of the mission. “With a lot of these cases, you peel back the curtain and there are good social and mental health interventions that are diverting the person onto a better course.”

Threat assessment cases are closely held for a variety of legal, ethical, and strategic reasons, and between the confidentiality of mental health treatment and the tight-lipped culture of law enforcement, it was easy to see why the field remained inaccessible. Until now, a journalist like me had never been allowed inside the training summit. On the first morning, I was met by an emissary, Russell Palarea, ATAP’s sergeant-at-arms and soon-to-be president. A genial forensic psychologist in his mid-forties with a close-shaved head, Palarea was known among colleagues for his indefatigable pace, working cases and traveling nonstop to conduct trainings and help build threat assessment programs. He was optimistic but also notably frank when we talked in between sessions. “We’ll never be able to stop every attack,” he said, referring to his work with private companies and the federal government. “But we can stop a lot of them, and we have.”

His claim sounded inspiring, but what evidence was there to support it? Details of two cases soon shared with me confidentially by sources elsewhere began to reveal how threat assessment teams had intervened at stages of heightened concern and helped people who appeared headed for terrible acts. There was a sixteen-year-old student in suburban Wisconsin who commented indirectly but repeatedly about the possibility of a shooting at his high school. School leaders soon learned that he carried around a notebook containing a list of “top enemies” he wanted to “eliminate.” He’d been bragging to a friend about plans to steal a handgun from his uncle’s truck, telling the friend to make sure to be around for an upcoming school assembly because “something big” was going to go down. Another case involved a twenty-nine-year-old military veteran in Arizona who had recently lost his job and girlfriend. He posted a picture of himself on Facebook posing at a gun range along with the comment: “I’m not putting up with any of the bullshit anymore.” In another post, he indicated he planned to show up at his former place of employment, where his ex-girlfriend still worked. “Wait till they see these beauties,” he commented, displaying two recently purchased handguns.

Investigations into each individual revealed prior incidents and volatile behavior that, taken together with the above circumstances, spelled serious danger in the view of threat assessment professionals working the cases. Yet, how these two cases were handled as their subjects spiraled into deeper states of agitation looked at first to be counterintuitive—there was no rush to expel the student, or to take legal action against the military veteran, who had since been involved in a drunken bar scuffle and could have been arrested and charged. In the Wisconsin student’s case, school officials worked closely with the local police department, also consulting behind the scenes with a threat assessment liaison in a FBI field office, to put together an intervention and management plan. In Arizona, the veteran was approached by law enforcement members of a threat assessment team, who made clear that they had eyes on him but emphasized their interest in steering him toward help. In each case, periods of mutually agreed upon mental health counseling, along with support for accessing educational and work opportunities, led to more stable circumstances for both individuals. While some quiet monitoring of the student continued, neither of the cases remained an active concern by the time I learned about them.

Nonetheless, there existed fundamental reasons to be wary of behavioral threat assessment as a prevention method, including the risk to civil liberties. Reckless comments from kids are a given, typical youth behavior only compounded by the disinhibiting effects of social media. Countless adults have coping problems or anger-management issues but don’t act criminally or plan violent attacks. Was this field and its close monitoring of individuals not a slippery slope to Orwellian thought-policing or the “precrime” dystopia imagined in Steven Spielberg’s 2002 film Minority Report? Even presuming a thorough, lawful process in the hands of seasoned experts, was it fair to turn an investigative spotlight on someone over a few dark comments or an online display of armed bravado? And with threats communicated ever more frequently via digital platforms, wouldn’t there be temptation to use data mining or other broad surveillance tactics, with vanishing regard for personal privacy?

These were important questions with complex answers, and yet I couldn’t stop thinking about a different equation that haunts the American public whenever mass shooters’ troubling backstories surface in media reports. If we could have done more to detect and resolve the danger before it was too late, wouldn’t we have done it? The affirmative answer to that question hinges on proving a negative: in threat assessment cases, the absence of a violent outcome is evidence of success. But how could you really know you prevented an attack if one didn’t occur?

Meloy favored an analogy to fighting heart disease. Cardiologists, he suggested, couldn’t determine how many of their patients never had heart attacks because of the care and treatment they provided. But they could do a lot to mitigate risk: “You try to lower the probability.”

Meloy, Palarea, and other threat assessment leaders acknowledged that it was far easier after the fact to see why certain behaviors or circumstances were telltale. But with the expanding capabilities of the field came a compelling possibility: so many tragedies—at schools, office buildings, movie theaters, festivals—never should have happened. And the next ones could be stopped.

* * *

The work of threat assessment professionals is a process of identifying, evaluating, and intervening. Many in the field use the term threat assessment to refer to the entire process, though the intervention phase is also widely known as threat management and involves longer-term monitoring and care for people who act in ways indicating danger.

Cases often begin with an ordinary person having a gut feeling that something is off. That pang of worry or fear, itself a sensation connected to evolved survival instincts, can prompt the person to seek help. A teacher notices something disturbing about a student’s comments or notebook marginalia, for example, and alerts a principal. Or an office worker gets freaked out by a colleague’s odd or vaguely menacing behavior and tells a supervisor. Or a family member or friend senses an unsettling change in a teen, perhaps accompanied by a conspicuous interest in weapons, and reaches out for assistance. Behavior that provokes instinctive discomfort in bystanders along these lines often hints at a broader mix of warning signs, which could range from aggrieved or threatening communications to an aberrant focus on graphic violence or signs of suicidality.

When a case comes to the attention of a threat assessment team, the group moves quickly to gauge whether there is any immediate risk of violence. They will talk with family, friends, teachers, or coworkers to gather context and gain insight into the alleged or observed behavior. They will also talk directly with the case subject and investigate any relevant lawfully available records. The imperative is to determine whether the person has the intent, the means, and possibly a plan to kill.

Forensic psychologist Mario Scalora, a longtime trainer for ATAP members in Disneyland, recounted a case from the threat assessment program he oversees at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. His campus team grew alarmed after receiving a tip about a twenty-something graduate student named Bob who reportedly was muttering to himself and making ominous comments. The team dispatched a pair of plainclothes women detectives to the young man’s residence for a wellness check, where they expressed concern for Bob and asked to come in and talk. Hanging on one of the walls inside was a theater mask, its mouth sewn over with black string. Bob soon told the detectives that voices were commanding him to hurt people at the behest of God and that he was scared. The string, he said, was “the voices telling me to shut up about them.” The detectives further gleaned that Bob had been following around potential victims at night.

Their empathetic approach from the moment they knocked on his door was key. They persuaded Bob to voluntarily check into a psychiatric ward immediately for evaluation. “This made him feel cared for and gave us a mechanism by which we could continue to manage him,” Scalora said. “By building rapport with Bob, we’re learning a lot about him and getting rich assessment data, and in the meantime he’s not stalking people on our campus. It’s a win-win.” When the lead detective followed up with Bob during his hospital stay, he asked her, “Can you go to my room and get the mask and this big knife that’s under my bed? I don’t want them anymore.”

Seasoned threat assessors know that a top priority is to find out whether a person of concern has access to weapons. This isn’t limited to firearms, as Bob’s story suggested. Mass attackers also use explosives, knives, poison, and motor vehicles. But guns have been the weapon of choice in more than half of all cases since the 1980s. “There are so many firearms out there, you just assume everybody has one,” Scalora noted. “It’s safer to assume that than the opposite.”

A case like Bob’s also exemplifies how effective threat management often goes against pressure in a community to rapidly expel or lock away a person thought to be dangerous. The university offered Bob a more dignified path: He could withdraw indefinitely and potentially reenroll later through a petitioning process. The threat assessment team also let Bob know he could stay in contact with the lead detective. He called her periodically as his condition improved and he eventually r...