Keys to Preventing Future School Attacks

we're talking about what happened earlier this week. We're trying not just to make sense of the tragedy but also understand where the United States can go from here. We've got a great voice on this. Dr Marissa Randazzo is executive director of Threat Management at on Tick. She joins us this afternoon from Washington, d C. She's got a great background serving with the U. S. Secret Service for a decade. She was the agency's chief Research psychologist assigned

to the National Threat Assessment Center. Also co directed the Safe School Initiative, conducted jointly by the U. S. Secret Service in the US Department of Education. Dr Randazzo, it's good to have you with us. I wish it were under different circumstances. Um, we we're trying to understand how this type of thing can can be prevented. And we know what is happening politically right now. That's not what we're going to talk about. But what we're gonna talk

about is is real solutions here. And and you say it's possible to prevent school shootings, how well, it's absolutely possible to prevent school shootings. That I was part of a team that has been studying school shootings since the Columbine attack happened, and we actually went back twenty five years and the Secret Service has continued this research. And

I just want to emphasize school shootings are preventable. We can prevent them because they are sought out and plan out in advance, and because the person who engages in that violence typically tells other people beforehand, so we stand a chance at hearing about someone who's planning for this type of horrific violence before they actually get to that point.

And one other important pieces that people who carry out and students who carry out school shootings in particular, typically do it when they're at a point of feeling desperation. There at the end of their rope, that they may even be actively suicidal and they see no other way out of their problems. Um and and maybe really just looking to violence as the last solution or the best solution to to to solve their problems and commit suicide

at the same time. Often is the case. So the way we prevent this is typically by setting up threat assessment teams and training lawn personal personnel, school personnel, and mental health professionals. In This process, known as behavioral threat assessment, was first of all by the Secret Service. It's been adapted for K twelve, it's been adapted for higher ED and and even the Department of Defense is concluded this is exactly the tool that works best. It's our best

hope going forward. I mean this else like being kind of an offensive offensive like being on the offense right looking for the problem areas are problem individuals. Why aren't

we set up better? Is it just we still are in a society, even though in the pandemic we talk so much about well being, in mental wellness and you know, employers being more sympathetic the whole world kind of getting a better understanding of how it can impact everybody, or anyone um is it's just still society's lack of expertise and knowledge when it comes to mental well being and willing to kind of identify it, like, what is it that we're not better about this? Well? I think I

think that that's a big piece of it. And I think the other thing that distracts us is that depression in in girls and women look different than a typically dozen boys and men were used to kind of a Hollywood script of you're just withdrawing from activities, you're sleeping all day, you're eating a tub of ice cream. For boys and for men, clinical depression actually looks very active anger,

it's trigger temper, it's rage, and we miss that. We miss it a school personnel, as law enforcement, pediatricians missed that as a possible symptom of clinical depression. It's part of what attracts some people to extremist ideas in the first place is feeling like the only legitimate expression of their emotions is hatred. If they were to cry that we made fun of, But if they are angry and seizing and full of hate, then they're not made fun of.

So part of it is we have an opportunity if we know what to look for, especially employed young men. Miss I can't help but think that if these kids did not have access to guns, these things wouldn't happen. Because we have mental health issues in countries outside of the United States where it is harder to get a gun, and we do not see mass shootings like this. That's absolutely the case. We can't deny the fact that the

US has really cornered the market on mass shootings. We have so many more than any other similar country with similar mental health problems, stressors, etcetera. Um. But I will tell you, at the same time, I have been working in the field of threat assessment for over twenty five years. I've been doing research in different types of gun control for even longer than that, and and the sides haven't changed,

and the and the divisionness has has only worsened. So what I want us to look at it what can we do right now? And what one thing we can do is state legislatures can actually enact these extreme risk protection orders. So I can't remember nineteen or twenty three states have them. It's a temporary order, a temporary restraining order, separating someone who is planning violence or maybe a risk to themselves from their weapons until they can be stabilized.

So that's something we could actually take action on. Right we're talking about these red flag right um types of legislations or moves if you will, Hey, um, Dr Randaza will come back to you just a mount We're gonna do a little bit of news, but we're going to come back to Dr Marissa Randazzo. She's executive director of Threat Management at on Tick, joining us on the phone from Washington, d C. You are listening to Bloomberg Business Week Carl Master, Tim Stanovic, and this is Bloomberg Radio.

We're talking with Dr Marissa Randazzo. She is executive director of Threat Management and on Tick. They are a threat assessment and management services company. She also served with the U. S. Secret Service for a decade, most recently as the agency's chief Research Psychologist assigned to the National Threat Assessment Center. She's still with us on the phone from Washington, d C. Dr Randazzo, I am curious, first of all, after this shooting that we just got this week, and we've had

a couple of shootings right in just a short time. Um, you know, I am curious. Is your phone ringing off the hook? Are people calling saying how do we deal with this? What do we do? What's our first step? Yeah, and actually, for anyone that has a threatening situation that there are a number of things that you can do. First and foremost, go ahead and call local law enforcement.

Let them be aware of it. UM, if it is occurring in a school, from a student, from a parent, wherever it's occurring, you can find out if that school has a threat assessment team. If your workplace may well have a threat assessment team or a workplace violence prevention team. These are teams that are trained to handle these situations or to call in outside experts who have the ability

to handle those situations. But something that's important to know is when we get a series of these news grabbing, high profile events, these horrific acts, it oftentimes prompts an influx of more more threats coming in. For for a couple of different reasons. One, sometimes hearing something like this news about it destabilizes people who are kind of barely keeping things together and may feel like, well, now that's

a way out for me. I'm also suicidal and I could I could get some variety at the same time. For example, UM, it also tends to lower people's threshold for reporting. So a coworker who may have been worried about some behavior they've seen in the workplace may now be much more inclined to bring that forward to their HR department, to their corporate security department to let them

know about their concerns. So people on the receiving end THREAD Assessment team security law enforcement are likely going to see an uptick in those threats coming in, both because maybe more threatening behavior is occurrent, but coast so largely because people who are much more inclined. I don't want this to happen to me. I've been worried about this situation for a while, and now I'm going to tell

someone the doctor random I'm wondering, what you know. I think a lot of people are turning to lawmakers right now to see what Congress can do to try to create laws that will prevent this. What would you like lawmakers to do so? On my wish list, first and foremost, I want to get THREAD Assessment training training on how to do these threat investigations. Every local police department and

shariff's office in the country. Federal law enforcement typically gets this training, local law enforcement often does not, and yet this is where the threats are being reported. We heard years after the Sandy Hook shooting, when the FBI finally released their full analysis, we heard that the shooter in the in the at Sandy Hook Elementary had threatened to do exactly what he ends up doing. It was reported to local law enforcement, and they didn't think there was

anything they could do. They didn't have this type of training. So first and foremost, I want to start yesterday and get threat assessment training, threat investigations training to every police department and sheriff's office in the country. Congress can make that happen. Just got about a minute or so left here.

We are curious about the time you spent in the Secret Service and what that was like and how that kind of makes you think about what threats are, what realistic threats are, um how that kind of has affected your thinking. And again, just got about a minute or so. It was a wonderful experience, in large part because it showed me firsthand how much we can prevent acts of violence,

and often in ways that we don't expect. The Secret Service agents handling active threat cases people threatening to assassinate often worked more like social workers to connect with that would be assassin to find out what the underlying problem is, to give them off that pathway to violence and and really establish a relationships to get them into care and support. Was fascinating to watch an incredible mission that they are

part of. Well so enlightening to have you joined us and talk about what we can do and what can be done to really prevent school shooting, something that unfortunately just seems to be a lot more frequent, uh than we then should be. It shouldn't be happening at all in our society, um, Dr Randazzo, thank you so much. Dr Marissa Randazzo, Executive director of Threat Management and ANTICK.

As I mentioned, they are a threat assessment and management services company and she was joining us on the phone from Washington, d C.