To view this site you need Adobe Flash Player and your browser must allow javaScripts. Go here to get the latest Flash Player. FROM REACTIVE TO PROACTIVE rarely sudden, impulsive acts. Rather, in most of the incidents examined, other people knew about the attacker’s idea and/or plan. In over three-quarters of the incidents, at least one person had information that the attacker was thinking about or planning the school attack, and in nearly two-thirds of the incidents, more than one person had information about the attack before it occurred. Further, the study documented that over 90 percent of the attackers engaged in some behavior prior to the attack that caused others–school officials, parents, teachers, police, fellow students–to be concerned. In most of the cases, one or more adults were concerned enough by the eventual attacker’s behavior to report their concern to someone. One clear implication of the Safe School Initiative report, according to Sokolow, is that schools often have ample forewarning of an escalating pattern of behavioral disturbance exhibited by the perpetrators. Unfortunately, that information is so widely scattered in “data silos” as to be unrecognizable and, therefore, useless. Though Virginia Tech may be the most dramatic example of missed clues, it’s unfair to single the school out, or to view it as an anomaly, a former intelligence analyst who has studied theVirginia Tech case told Homeland Security Today. “Virginia Tech is one vivid example everyone thinks of, but it’s fully representative of many other cases,” he said. “It’s a classic example of where there were a raft of clearly visible indicators of a severe emerging problem, indicators that were seen beforehand but had no context in which to be understood.” Overcoming informational silos Proactively overcoming these informational silos and, above all, according to Sokolow, locating and ultimately helping students and other campus community members in danger of harming themselves and others, requires new forms of organization and collaboration between university departments and areas of jurisdiction, collaboration which differs in fundamental ways from traditional methodologies of campus threat assessment. “Campus threat assessment teams that existed before Virginia Tech generally had some commonality,” Sokolow explained. “They were often informal. Their scope and function was narrow. Rarely did they have a capacity for longitudinal tracking of student behaviors over time. They also lacked the ability to see trends in behavior, both individually and collectively.” Putting an effective assessment system in place requires significant changes in both organizational process and cultural habits on campus, according to Thomas Bourgeois, associate dean of students at Mississippi State University and coordinator of the college’s behavioral intervention program. “You can’t underestimate the culture shift that needs to take place to create an effective program,” said Bourgeois. “At the university, different departments have a long tradition of acting in their own orbit. So it does take an extra large effort to create a setting in which the information being generated by faculty, by housing, by campus security, by student activities, all of it gets connected. Technology certainly helps best, but it’s far more than that.” Mississippi State maintains a dedicated incident report website on which students, faculty and campus employees are urged to anonymously report incidents that may indicate highly disruptive, potentially dangerous behavior patterns. These include classroom disruption; violation of residence hall rules; drunkenness or other clear intoxication in the classroom; threatening words or actions; writings that convey clear intentions to harm self or others; observed self-injurious behavior (cutting, Virginia Tech: Behavioral red flags and missed clues The 2007 Virginia Tech massacre is perhaps the most vivid illustration of how clear behavioral “red flags” can go unheeded, loud signals can be missed and dots can go unconnected. As the Report of the Virginia Tech Review Panel (http://www. governor.virginia.gov/TempContent/techpanelreport.cfm), commissioned by the State of Virginia in the wake of the shootings, made clear, Cho Seung-Hui, the 23-year-old Virginia Tech gunman, left some clear warning signs—details that, unfortunately, were never pieced together until after he’d killed 32 people and himself. In the fall of 2005, the report found, Cho’s sullen and aggressive behavior had culminated in an unsuccessful effort by the campus police to have him involuntarily committed to a mental institution. During that same autumn, a female student complained of unwelcome phone calls and in-person communication from Cho.After she declined to press charges, the campus police referred the matter to the university’s disciplinary system,which failed to follow through on the matter,either at that time or subsequently,when a second woman asked the police to put a stop to Cho’s instant messages to her. The report also noted that an unidentified acquaintance of Cho’s notified the police that Cho might be suicidal, that a counselor had recommended involuntary commitment and that a judge had signed an order saying he “presents an imminent danger to self or others”. 38 May 2009 | Homeland Security Today Magazine This month’s issue is now available online at…