The public has had a long held fascination with detectives. Detective sy aside of life. The average person is never exposed her I spent thirty four years as a cop. For twenty five of those years I was catching killers. That's what I did for a living. I was a homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated. The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
and honest, just like the people I talked to. Some of the content and language might be confronting. That's because no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join me now as I take you into this world. Today, I had a conversation about an area of criminal investigation I find fascinating. I sat down and spoke with doctor Nathan Brooks, who is a forensic psychologist. Although based overseas, we're fortunate enough to say speak with him in person today.
Nathan discussed with a sum of the high profile and sensitive cases wherein acts of extreme violence, multiple people have been killed. We looked at these crimes, what caused these crimes and whether these crimes could have been prevented. I learned a lot from today's chat and I found it fascinating delving into the minds of people who cause unimaginable pain to victims and communities. We talked about serial killers and the emerging, frightening trend of lone actors responsible for
mass casualties. Nathan gave me a fascinating insight into this world. Dr Nathan Brooks, Welcome to I Catch Killers.
Gary. Thank you for having me.
Well, I'm excited to have you on the podcast, and I know our listeners are fascinated by the type of work that you do, forensic psychology. It fascinates what goes on in the mind.
Yeah, it's a fascinating career and I've been really fortunate to find myself now in the police and look at the applic of that because it's really where forensic psychology gets to come to.
The fore Yeah. I think so many people talk like I have a lot of people come up and say, how do you become a homicide detective? But just as many I'd love to work as a psychologist in that field.
Yeah. I think the FBI shows and some of the Hollywood shows that we've seen over the years have really pushed and made people gravitate to wanting to become a forensic psychologist. The hard thing is it's a long road to get qualified, and even more challenging is once you get qualified, there's actually very few jobs around. If you wanted to get into the police, there's certainly lots of jobs working in the correctional space, but if you want to get into police, it's very hard.
There's not many spots. We were fortunate that you talked about the FBI and that were fortunate that have Professor An Bergers on the show, but she the original mind Hunters working with John Douglas and that profile and offenders, and I found that chat fascinating.
It is, I mean, it's remarkable, and I think we forget now that the work that they pioneered really around the early eighties nineteen eighties, it has paved the way for how we bring psychology into investigations now, and it's easy to forget that. I think time in decades passed and new people come along, but we forget that. You know,
they set that up. But even if you do look at the FBI model now, a large part of the FBI is still around that behavioral analysis unit or team that they have, and there's four or five different branches to that now. So that really evolved for the FBI, and it certainly has changed the landscape a lot.
Something that I picked up from the conversation I had with Anne about serial killing, and that was their focus to start with all serial offenders, but they're also looking at trying to profile the mass killings where people strike out and the lone actors. Do you agree that sort of landscapes changed in a way from serial killing into these mass killings.
It certainly has, and the US, as it seems, with a lot of these really horrific crimes, has really been the place where we've seen some of those major differences in a shift. So there was the serial killers throughout the probably the nineteen seventies through to the nineteen nineties, which were really challenging over there, and we saw incidents of that across other countries across the world, but certainly
not in the same severity or the same frequency. And then from around the nineteen nineties onwards to where we are today, there's gradually been a reduction in serial crime, but an increase in what we would say these mass casualty events, and they are occurring with really high frequency over in the US and then again across other international countries. We're seeing that the numbers are also rising at the same time.
With serial killing. Do you think part of the practice of law enforcement agencies and a better understanding of it has in part the advantages we've got in forensic science and everything else that comes into play these days. Do you think that is a reason for the reduction.
We've certainly seen with the forensic science, DNA, improved technology, mobile phones, CCTV, it's harder to go and commit crimes now without leaving some sort of trace or footprint. And when serial killing was really rife back in that eighties period, we didn't have some of those advancements, so that made
it very easy for people to go undetected. At the same time, we've developed much more specialized expertise in policing, such as the Behavioral Analysis Unit in the FBI, and most countries now have some form of specialist unit for major crimes or serial offending. So I think technology and bringing in specialist experts has really changed the landscape around that.
The rise of mass casualty type attacks that caused the chaos that they do in the tragedy that they do. My concern is how hard it is to anticipate those, and I know that's a lot of the work work that you do. Would you agree with that it's harder to anticipate that type of attack?
It is tricky, as we'll probably talk about today. A lot has changed in how police approach that now. So for a long time, the police in response was always detect and intervene. So if there's an issue, will intervene, and generally that's by arresting or charging the person. Now the model's change to making sure that we can screen the issue, then try and understand the issue, then put some form of prevention in place, and then basically review
that and then start again. So we've gotten to the place where we're much more proactive around that now rather than reactive, so we're not waiting for incidents to happen. And when we do identify people that are concerning it's about trying to understand the nature of that concern and then put some form of support and prevention process around them. But of course the limitation of that is we only know what we know, so we only know about the people that are coming through to us and we're getting
the information around. If we don't get that though, and there's someone out there that we're unaware of, then we're very vulnerable.
Okay. And the intervention side of it. I spent a long time in as a homicide detective and my frustration looking back at the career is that you come in when it's too late, unless you're working the case with a serial killer, but invariably it was a murder and you're coming in at the end. So this intervention identifying risk factors, I would imagine it'd be very rewarding.
It's hard. I think you'd have to ask the police that are doing the real groundwork there because it has it's required police to nearly take on social worker type roles, which I think so probably fine, challenging or not necessarily what they got into the role for and realizing that exit to get out and talk to people and engage with them and be supportive and put plans in place and be available to talk to them if they need to, ring them, go outter coffee with them, try and help
mold and shape them into a more pro social pathway. And get in front of them and change the way that they maybe perceive police. And I think that is why we're seeing some good results. But again, as I was mentioning before, it is only who we know that we get to do that response with.
Okay, we've jumped straight into it. Let's find out a little bit about yourself. What got you into this field of expertise and what studies have you done to become a forensic psychologist.
So study for a long time. I think I did about eleven years all up with the pH d, which I've never intended to at the beginning.
Easy task.
Yeah, And look, initially I probably went in a bit blind and thought psychology was interesting, and I was very much keen on sports psychology and the way things aligned. At the time, sports psychology wasn't available, so the option was really standard normal psychology where you sit there and talk to people, or forensic which seemed much more intriguing and exciting, and I gravitated to that and I liked
the challenge. I was doing triflons at the time, so I was very probably goal focused and liked to be tested. And then as I got into forensic psychology, I then came across psychopaths, and I did my PhD on psychopaths, and it was fascinating because they were folks that did
everything different to what normal people did. And you know, we grow up and we learn about people, but we don't really ever learn about psychopaths unless you've had certain experiences or challenging upbringing where you might have been targeted or victimized by them. But psychopaths are the ones that stay calm and cool under pres They are the ones
that are a few steps ahead. And that was really intriguing to look at those fellows, and that kept me really pushing through forensic psychology and then wanting to work with high risk and high harm offenders that present with some pretty I think difficult offending behavior and difficult interpersonal styles. And so for much of my early career I spent a long time in the treatment space with probably thirty
different offenders a week. I was working with for several years and then moved into specializing in higher sex offenders, and then had a brief stint working in academia lecturing in forensic psychology before jumping into the New Zealand Police.
Where did you get the access to that many criminals to work with was that through creative services, So.
Part of it was through coreative services, but I was working as a contracting forensic psychologists in a private capacity for quite a few years, and corrections are always needing private independent practitioners to assist them, but also to send
them send offenders for treatment in the community. So a lot of it was there's the treatment aspect, but in many ways it's actually having conversations with offenders and trying to build a relationship with them where they haven't actually had a lot of stability or predictability in their life, and a lot of the time it's just holding space for them to actually feel like they could have a trusting relationship with someone and open up and talk about
the problems in their life because many of them have never had that opportunity.
Didn't have the people that they could turn to. No, the obvious question that I ask if you've done a PhD in psychopaths, nature and nurture, have you got a learning like that question gets asked so many times and different views.
It's a combination of both. I don't think. I don't think exclusively it's genetics, but there's certainly a genetic aspect to that, and then the environment can either really dial up those traits and make them much more maladaptive or dysfunctional, or potentially it could keep them somewhat contained. I always go back to the scenario that you can have potentially the genetic makeup to be psychopathic, but if you've got a good upbringing, a good education, you learn pro social
ways to express those tendencies. If you're able to go and do sport, if you're able to find ways to community Kate, it could be driving fast car, skydiving, you can find ways to manage those if you have a level of self awareness as well. I think people become very much handicapped though, if they have some of those tendencies and then they are also dealt with a difficult childhood, because it really puts that person on really a one way path to offending or something else.
It's interesting you answer it that way. I had the fortune to speak to a neuroscientist from the United States that did pet scans on the whole range of people that were considered psychopaths, and they were some of the country's most notorious psychopaths that had been brought down for the crimes that they've done. And without going into the neuroscience because I've got no idea what I'm talking about. He basically said with a PET scan of their brain
that they had a common feature in there. So he needed a reference point and did scans on people that weren't identified as a psychopath. James Fallon was his own. Yes, PET scanned his own brain and that had the same predisposition,
all the same that features as the psychopaths. And he reasoned that he grew up in a loving environment, a nurturing environment where he was cared for and that and that probably steerred him in those formative years till the age of three or whatever, steered him in a direction. And then with the people that had the psychopaths that had played out in the criminal world, they didn't have that nurturing around them, they didn't have that family environment.
They said that might make a difference. So I take on what you're saying that's a combination of both.
Yeah, absolutely, and that his book's really interesting where he does talk about that. Yeah, he had the brain structure as he described to be the same as serial killers looking that he was assessing. But yeah, he certainly I think he says he pushed push, pushed lots of boundaries, and he could be quite dominant and overbearing at times. But yeah, it didn't go into becoming full fledged violence.
Yeah, it was channeled in a positive way. Or he could talking to psychopaths. And you said, how some people that plays out? Is my understanding, it's just a general talk that you know, some of the headed industries are psychopaths, successful soldiers, all sorts of different even sportsmen, all sorts of personalities might have that psychopathic trait, but they stir it towards another thing. Is that Is that true?
Yeah, it's interesting, you know, having a level of boldness and ruthlessness, some of those traits can be quite desirable for certain occupations, maybe even the police.
I'm just pulling back on I was thinking that, but I'm not going to.
And you do get some psychopathic folks that are skilled enough to again modify those traits and rather than going and violently stabbing someone, they might go and ruthlessly cul people in organizations. So there's some really interesting books. You know. John Ronson wrote a book and he talked about our Dunlap who has known aed Texas I think Texas chainsaw
Our or something like that. Who would go into organizations and he worked for Sunbeam for a while and basically just he would just go in and cut and fire hundreds of employees in a very ruthless way. Bernie Madoff, who was the head of the Nasdaq ran I think it was a thirteen billion dollar ponzi scheme over a couple of decades over in New York. He's often considered
the poster boy for corporate psychopaths. So we do see that Summer are quite capable of channeling those traits without needing to get their hands dirty in.
That spec Understand what you're saying, Yeah, it's interesting and the different way they steer their life. So the work you do with New Zealand place, what'said involved? What do you engage with?
So I'm an operational psychologist in our behavioral science unit over there, and we have two operational psychologist roles that serves the country and within that we also run the VY Class, so the Violent Crime Analysis Linkage system where we track stranger sex crimes across the country and that's got three analysts that are staffing that, and then we also have a sworn senior sergeant that sits over the top of our unit as well, and so our unit
really is brought into major crime investigations to provide operational support, particularly when we have very serious crimes just homicide, could be terrorism offenses, major sexual offenses, all the way through to arsons and other sorts of offending, and we provide a range of different services. Sometimes it's very much advice on the fly as a homicide is evolving or emerging
in the early stages of the investigation. Other times it will be risk assessments around what do we need to know about this person and how concerning are they to the community. We also occasionally will do the classic criminal profile of a who done at crime, but most of them are solved very quickly now so there's not the need for criminal profiles. And then also things like cold case reviews and a lot of work around interviewing as well.
Yeah, and I know you're familiar with her, doctor Sarah Ule. I work closely with her in New South Wales Police and I not use her on all the investigations I had some there wasn't a need for the role that she could fulfill, the tricky ones, the ones that it's not blatantly obvious for what has occurred here, or an interpretation of a crime scene as you said, or we've interviewing of what's the bets buttons to push? Is that
Carrotle's stick? Which way to approach that? I found it so beneficial and I'm surprised, and I've been out of New South Wales Police for a couple of years. I don't know what the status is now, but we didn't properly resource that. Like I think it is a tool that can be really used in the difficult investigations. I see that's the role where you guys come in.
I found that it is really well received and certainly over in New Zealand it's a major crimes the lead investigators and also the investigated team, but they often really are quite receptive of that advice. It's rare that we get pushed back, and I think that the challenges. Of course, it's your reputation and what you provide for a product
and service. In some ways, people keep coming back to you if you provide good service, but if you provide you know, poor service, or go to sort of far one way or the other way, or you know, don't quite tailor it to what the investigation needs. The unit can become vulnerable in that respect. So it's there's a constant process there of needing to make sure what you're doing really holds up and supports investigations.
And I think it's also important that investigators understand what you can bring to the investigation. Yes, I saw some misunderstandings in working with Sarah. Other investigators thought this is what they can provide to the investigation, but wasn't the type of thing that she could.
Yeah, there's the risk that someone thinks that you're going to come out and say of it or find the magical clue. And you know, policing is as you know, it's a combination of different areas of specialty coming together to get the end product and the end outcome. And it's really you know, one person or one unit. It's
a cumulative effort. And sometimes I think even if we're adding one percent towards helping the investigation and you've got another unit adding one percent, those small one percents come together and they can be the difference.
They're the things that make a difference with a case being solved or not. You invariably get one shot at it and then if you miss it, and that one or two percent. But with Sarah, I found that what I liked working with a forensic psychologist was a different take, a different perspective. We get a little bit of group think in policing. We tend to think the same and it's good to have someone independent, someone outside the circle that looks at it from a different view. And quite
often with Sarah, have you considered this? And I'd be looking at it. Go No, I haven't a very good idea, see, but I found that beneficial. It was a really powerful, powerful tool to have.
Yeah, it's good to sometimes have someone that can step back and bring that different perspective. And often psychologists are going to look at the person and try and in some ways deconstruct the puzzle and then rebuild it and look at what does that then give us for the investigation, So that might be understanding the functionality of the behavior all the way through to let's go and approach the person and try this style of engagement, because that's the
type of individual they are. And if we go in really hot and in our suits and quite brazen and kick the door in, that's not going to get their response and they're not going to engage with this and then we're going to miss the opportunity to interview with them.
Serial killing, the type of investigations we're talking about. I read your book Mass Casually over the weekend and it's you me up to speed on quite a few things, and I found a fascinating, fascinating read and putting sort of might take in it from a homicide detective and your thoughts and theories. What I found particularly interesting was the onset of the loan actors in the way that
they're starting to leave their mark. Sadly, because when someone commits an offense of mass casual these a lot of lives are destroyed. What's your involvement in that type of work?
So our unit really is the main unit within New Zealand that would service persons of concern, whether it be a sort of a fixation or grievance point of view, or also a terrorism aspect. So we would provide the operational consultation on those matters. And that's an ongoing area as it is in Australia, where there's people that are often presenting with concerns or concerning behaviors and the task then is to try and understand the extent of that concern.
I always think it's good to boil it down to looking at two factors, so their intent and their capability. So do they have the intent to act violently or the intent to act on these concerning thoughts or beliefs or whatever they might be exhibiting, and do they have the capability to progress with that behavior? So that might be all the way through to the capability to carry out an attack, capability to plan, the capability to resource. So where they sit on the intent and capability scale
is important. And then of course as the intent increases and the capability increases, then we get quite concerned.
Right. If I can refer to a couple of things from the book, that one that I found particularly interesting was the Toronto vehicle ramming attack where a number of people A person that's gotten in the.
Car, Alec Manassian.
That's the one twenty five year old killing eleven people and then during fifteen others. Could you just describe what happened and then we'll break that investigation down.
Yeah, So he was a twenty five year old. He was studying I can't remember the exact I think it was a computer science degree and had just graduated and was about to start his first first day of professional work for his career, and he heed a van. He made the decision to book that a couple of weeks earlier, picked it up and drove into downtown Toronto and through a heavy pedestrian area in the city and struck numerous people so killed eleven, injured fifteen, and initially they thought
it was an Islamic inspired attack. Once they had him in custody, they then began to look through his various online accounts and discovered a really interesting post that he'd made earlier that morning which talked about this in cell rebellion. And I've spoken with Rob Thomas, who was the lead interviewer of Manassian, and he mentioned that a lot of the planning went into preparing for an Islamic state type
of offender. And then as the day progressed, they discovered that it was actually this in cell ideology that had been a heavy motivating factor for that, and that really was I think one of the first public examples that we got of an in cell and spied attack. It was sort of known, I guess in the underground space and in online forums, but it really brought it to the fore and that then interview of Manassin where he talks about chad's and stacy.
Fascinate fascinating breakdown what the in cels are for people that don't know.
So in cells are those that are self described as being involuntarily celibate, so they're unable to find a sexual or intimate part. And they would say that that it's forced on them in many ways due to the social hierarchy and social structure. And this is where it gets a little distorted in a little extreme, where they attribute that to basically a set group of men having access to the majority, so roughly eighty percent of the women.
So these our for males with the chisel jewels and abs and biceps of the chads, and the blonde barbie type as you know, as you imagine, is known as the staceys. And so it's really this hierarchy of chads and Staceys, and the in cells want to be aut to date and have sex with the staceys, but because of the sort of social and evolutionary nature, they're unable to.
So there's also another level, which is the Bicki's that kind of a step or rank below staceis, and the in cells don't desire the Beckies, they want the they want the Staceys. And we also have normies as well that sit above above in cells and normis are the ones that are not necessarily attractive and not necessarily succeeding. They're kind of just floating by in life. And underneath them are the in cells who are basically deprived of all the joys and successes in life because they've been
disadvantaged by looks and various other aspects. And as you step back, it's just it blows your mind, because it's a bit like you're reading a teenage science fiction magazine or its game characters in some sort of sci fi sci fi game. And but we've seen so many of these ideologies that have even the Sovereign Citizen movement for example, where there's all these different rules and laws and norms, and it's very confusing to get your head around.
Do you think they're on the increase or decrease in Australia.
It's a hard one to answer whether they are on the increase. I certainly don't think that the numbers are reducing at all. We're seeing more and more just fringe social groups are attracting people, and people are identifying with others on an online space because they are not having
those face to face conversations now. So I think in cell culture and those that are struggling with socially and also on intimate relationships maybe conversing with others in these groups, I don't think we're necessarily seeing any more violent or misogynistic views increases or directly from these groups at the present.
I think the numbers are staying pretty stable around about that five percent, but we may be seeing more people that are identifying with the underlying themes and messages around that.
I wonder with the advent of dating apps that seems to be the norm of people meeting people these days, and the picture of the profile and all that, a lot of people be getting rejected without even understanding who they are or what they are, and I can see some resentment perhaps building building from that.
Yeah, I think that that's a piece that probably hasn't really been answered. And you raise a really good point. You know, what's the implication of not only face to face rejection but online rejection as well, and how does that amplify that. An interesting point is we've got in cells. There's also fem cells, which are female in cells, and I think a couple of years ago I saw it.
Can't we put the in cells together with them?
Well, it's the females that are having a similar challenges and they're not liking the available males to them, and they are involuntarily celibate. And yeah, I saw recently, you know, there was a TikTok I think with twenty six million likes or hashtags around fem cells. So we're certainly seeing more and more unusual and maybe fringe sort of groups popping up.
Well, see how it plays out because the social norm has changed, isn't the way that only in the last a couple of decades. It's changed significantly how people used to meet and because like the in cell's sitting in isolation and what you described, you can picture many lonely people in that situation. But the world is set up now that they can reach out and that their views can be validated, so they can get on social media or what they're before them, and their views can be
magnified by the people that are supporting their ideologies. Is that a fair or a simplistic assessment of it?
Well, I think we're finding more and more groups pop up and various online communities now that people are identifying with and that's okay because it's not necessarily unhealthy. So jumping onto an insell forum by itself is not a problem. But there's been debate around, particularly in Australia or in New Zealand, you should in cell forums or even identifying with the in cell ideology be classified as terrorism at
the moment. It's not. What the research tends to say is it's about five percent of people that are on in cell forums that are very misogynistic and promoting quite violent rhetoric towards females. So it is only a small proportion. Where we get worried though, is there's always someone out there that may be very vulnerable though to those ideas and that messaging and then progress to carry out a violent act.
Well, I suppose, And we're not saying that that initially thought as a terrorist attack, but it's not being called a terrorist attack. But that's very similar to how terrorist groups bring in the extremists, isn't it, yeh, a shared ideology that they've got like minded people and then it starts to escalate from there.
Yeah, and it doesn't necessarily need to be in ideology, we're seeing more and more people that are just promoting just violent, violent intentions, self harm, the idea of trying to dominate others. The FBI recently talked about the seven six' four group that are basically a group that are promoting
dominance and control and satanistic. Practices there's a right wing sort of white, supremacy lean and Neo nazi spect to, it but a lot of it is about trying to get absolute dominance and control over, someone so that may be getting someone to self harm or make engravings on themselves of someone's, initials all the way through to encouraging them and trying to basically coerce them into carrying out
a violet. Acts, so, unfortunately we're seeing with the rise of The internet and certain subcultures that we are getting more and more pockets of violence emerging with.
That, okay with The toronto, massacre was there any red flags or indicators that when we look back and hindsight it's a wonderful, Thing but is there anything that jumps out to. You we've identified in cell was the seed that generated the, Attack but was there any things that warning signs that you could see looking at.
It it's really tricky looking back at that one Because Alec, menassian he was a fellow that had struggled throughout his. Schooling he had an autistic spectrum, disorder never really was able to form strong social. Relationships he was bullied throughout his schooling even though he was quite intellectual and quite academically.
Successful socially he. Struggled but he wasn't talking openly in person to anyone about his ideological positions or his views about Female it was largely done from the confines of his. Room and that is the. Challenge so our responses to lone, actors it has improved a, lot but it is very contingent on information. Flows so With, manassian the challenge there was he basically was, isolated kipt to, himself wasn't sharing
this and planned it in. Secrecy and, again you, know someone Like Anders bravic over In norway is a very good example where we do occasionally get what we would say are Black swan types of, incidents so outlies where we don't get a lot of leaked information or shared information with others about and.
You're talking that the concert At norway is that the So.
Anders bravic in twenty, eleven carried out that the bombing at the news at The Norwegian government building and then got on a boat To Utoya island and went over there it was a young labor party camp and carried out the mass shooting there AND i think it was around around seventy seven people that he killed in.
Total and he you were saying and then sorry in the rupted you just to clarify the. Event but he was very, isolated was.
He so he spent years preparing and planning for that. Attack he he used his savings to basically, plan, prepare purchase various tops of, ingredients, firearms tactical equipment over a number of, years trained himself in using, weapons groundown fertilizer pellets for several months to create a bomb that he set off in The Norwegian government building and used multiple different sort of aliases, online have packages delivered in certain
locations and in other locations with various bits of. Equipment so he wasn't an exceptional outlier because he was so meticulously planned and he viewed it very much as a cat and mouse game with police where he was intending to carry out this mass casualty, attack but at the same time he was preparing like a warrior and trying to keep any types of warnings to the minimum to not alert.
Authorities, okay with the view of not being. Caught isolation seems to be one of the. Things and isolation is. Hard, well you can't legislate against, isolation but it seems to be a common theme in these people that or in an, event and that could be a breakup of a. RELATIONSHIP i Had Tim watson mun On The Criminal psychologist talking about The Hottle street massacre where a person that was
rejected in the army his car broke. Down it was sort of a build up when you look at it looking, backwards you, go, okay this was, okay there's breaking point and all of a sudden the. Damage the damage is done with a lot of these a lot of these. Things it is the. Isolation so how do we encourage people to come forward if someone's acting, strangely if they're, isolated it's very hard to pick up.
On, yeah there's a couple. ASPECTS i think fixations are, important grievances and then the isolation component that you spoke about as.
Well fixation grievances and.
Isolation, yes, yeah and the isolation as tricky as, well because what we find is that a lot of lone actors do have social, interactions so they're not isolated in the traditional sense where they have no conversations with anyone and they're just sitting at home. Alone many will have
supportive family. Members they may even be in a, relationship but what's missing is the social, Reciprocity so they don't get the same things out of social relationships that often you AND i, Would so they don't get their enjoyment out of the. Relationship they don't feel that strong sense of connection or. Longing so there's often something just missing there that makes them feel isolated and disconnected from, others rather than the classic sense of this person's just isolated and not around.
Others, okay so even in an environment they can internally feel, yes, yeah we're referring to these people for the mass casualties as loan. Actors it used to be called lone. Wolf what was the logic behind the changing of the way that we identify, This, Yeah SO.
I think around the nineteen nineties late, nineties THE us were populating the turn lone wolf and it got a bit of pushback because it added a level of mysteriousness to these, fellows and you, know they were someone that was planning in secrecy and carrying out a, mission and the sort of mystique ended up in some WAYS i
think fueling them. Encouraging, yeah, Absolutely and that was then rebranded really probably in the academic space to loan, actors so those that basically are acting alone or with minimal outside. Influence and we cavet at that though now BECAUSE i would say that it's those that are self initiating towards violence and they're not doing that at the direction of someone, else but they could very easily be online communicating in a group and getting ideas or sharing extreme views with.
People so they are self initiating to, violence but they may not be loan or alone in that classical.
SENSE i think that there's an importance and it always worries me AND i now work in the media coming from law, enforcement if we give too much of a profile to someone who's committed a horrendous. Crime AND i think lone wolf could be a pretty Cool i'm a lone. Wolf the lone actor doesn't sound quite as. Cool and when you talk about the one, percent that might be the one. Percent that makes a difference that someone that doesn't get a fantasy about being seen as a lone.
Wolf, yeah AND i Think australia And New zealand have done it pretty. Well certainly over in THE us with the high rates of school shooting as workplace, incidents there's just this constant stream of news coverage which really sort of sensationalizes the action in some.
Ways with loan actors my, understanding and most of the play out in the media tend to be. Male is there a predominance of male loan actors or can? Female is there female loan actors as?
Well looks mostly. Males it's quite heavily steered towards. Males around about ninety to ninety five percent of loan actor
attackers are. MALE a good example of a female probably here In australia would have Been Momina schomer down In, victoria WHO i think is the first female charged with the terrorism In, australia and she stabbed her homestay, host obviously identifying with The Islamic jehardy ideology and had influences from several others that were affiliated with Other islamic based, attacks but she traveled solely To australia to carry out an.
Attack did she tax and mind in custody as? Well there was another attack and the sister over yep from their homeland attacked the police officer of making.
The year your spot. On so she, RECENTLY i think it was a Blonde canadian female in custody that she attacked and afterwards made comments About allah would be happy with her for, THAT i think with a pair of gardening. Shares and then, yeah the time that she was, charged police over there went to speak with her sister and when they arrived at the, door the sister came out with a knife and tried to attack the. Officers, no it was.
The fact that both sisters continents apart that there's something that's got into their ideology and going out the.
Attacks, yeah AND i think that the differences with males and females in respect to this form of violence probably is very similar to what we see with a lot of different forms of. Offending, yeah you, know males are often the ones doing the more serious, homicides and they certainly perpetrate homicides at at much higher rates than. Females and in some, ways you, know males tend to act
out their emotions and females are often internalizing. Those SO i think we see different ways of coping with emotion and dealing with. Problems and for, men when they have, struggles it is acted out and it's, expressed often in harmful, ways in quite destructive. Ways and we do talk about there being copycat effects and it can take.
IT i was going to ask, that like when you see a series and then shortly after there's another, one and especially in THE, US i think we're all aware of that with the school, shootings and do you think that that the copy can come into?
PLAY i no doubt that we've seen many attacks that have been copied over the, years and As Bravic Brenton tarrant In New zealand have certainly given inspiration and also tactical knowledge to other perpetrators that have then gone on to carry out attacks after. That we also probably have a contagion aspect as, well you, know like the social.
Contagion and for a long time media outlets didn't report suicides because suicides are known to have a contagion, aspect where if you've got friends that then others that know that person that at increased risk of, suicide particularly they've got mental health. Vulnerabilities we know that if suicides are in the, media it actually leads to people thinking about the idea. More AND i think no doubt that it's
a similar thing with mass casualty. Attacks that the more that we see that people are trying to resolve life problems in this, way then the more it. Normalize it normalizes that and that's quite.
Frightening, yeah, well you saw it with, schools and with schools if a child has committed, suicide it was always a concern that other, kids friends and all, that and it's something that you, know, again if we can will it back or reduce minimize the risk factors all the. Better terrorism has distinct from low and actors BECAUSE i think we've all been caught up in you, know we're living in times when there are terrorist attacks and have been some significant, ones and then the loan actor attacks
and sometimes they get a little bit caught. Up it's all the same, thing, like if it's a mass casually it must be a terrorist. Attack what's the difference between the.
Two, yeah it's a really good. Question and in some ways terrorism is more at a legislative criminal prosecution. Level we often see that there's many common, threads so there
could be fixations and grievances and. Ideologies, now it's often the presence of an ideology that leads to something being classified as, terrorism and we also look at it in terms of what was the intended outcome and often is there an intention to create social and political, change and that's often where the ideology is paired with, that and that would then become classified as. Terrorism we've seen, though that many mess casualty attacks are not perpetrated with clear
intentions to create social and political. Change they are instead a result of grievances or fixations and other, factors sometimes coupled with aspects of, ideology but they don't necessarily meet the classification for. Terrorism so it is a bit of a fine, line AND i think the risk is we focus too much on terrorism and miss that there's actually
more universal threads amongst all of these. Individuals and sometimes it's terrors, specific but other times it's just intended to really be a form of revenge, retribution trying to restore natural order or response to perceived.
Injustice, well i'd take on board what you said earlier on about, grievances how that plays a, part and that's you, know we've all been slighted in some, way and there's ways of dealing with your anger and your, grievances but you can imagine people that haven't got the emotional skills to handle. That it just becomes a fixation That i've been, Wronged i'm going to get.
Revenge, Yeah and we talk about querulous individuals to those that just constantly make complaints that are unable to be, pleased that are distrusting and suspicious and. Paranoid and, look there are people out there like, that but they don't ever resort to. Violence and that really raises the question around what is it that is tipping people over the into,
Violence and it's often it is the violent. Identification so they start in some way trying to see themselves as someone that's going to make a big statement to bring an ultimate conclusion to an, event and then we do pair that with ideology in certain, times then we really get this quite sort OF i, guess concerning mix or factors that come. Together and one of the MODELS i quite like is this idea of the bathtub, model where.
It was bath tub all the, staircase the staircase you explain. THAT i found that quite.
Interesting so the bath tub is the idea that we have a couple of different water faucets that are pouring into a bath, tub and that can be different motivating. Factors so sometimes it's sometimes it's, political sometimes it's personal, factors sometimes it's social, factors and they gradually pour in over time and fill up the bath. Tub it might be that your relationship breaks, down you get fired at, work you then start looking at concerning media on the, internet and gradually they all just.
Or three of. Those, sorry, no you're not looking at. Me i'm not going to do, Anything so.
Start filling up the. Bathtub and where it goes wrong is there's no release style on the, bathtub so it just fills up over. Time and EXAMPLE i used in the book of that Was Thomas, mayor who Kills Joe cox over in THE, uk and he's a guy that had long term right wing Neo nazi views and they just simmled away for roughly twenty. Years but then When brexit came, about that really just fueled things for him
that tipped him over the. Edge and then we look at something like the, staircase and that looks at really how things transform for someone over. Time and the idea
is that you walk into the base of the. Staircase so you walk into the first door because things are not quite going right or the way that you'll you want them to in, life and you walk into the door looking for an, answer looking for a, solution and you get to the first level or the ground, floor and then if you don't find any solutions, there you walk up the next, level and, gradually as you keep going up the, levels your options narrow and Violence, ultimately
once you get to the fifth, level becomes the only solution and the last resort answer to your. Problems so we see that as the person climbs the, staircase not only do the options and solutions, dwindle but they're thinking about the situation changes and they come to accept that the only way through this or the only justifiable response.
Is violence and breaking it down in the simple concept of the bath tub and the. Staircase does that help a lot of the times you might be doing the thread, assessment is that the type of thing that you're looking at the build up or, okay how dangerous AND i really take on. Board one of the aspects that you
say is, capability because that's a big. FACTOR i look from a homicide investigator point of, view opportunity made even, capability could have the, opportunity could have the, motive but if they haven't got the, Capability so that's another fact that comes into.
It it is an unfortunately capability though is becoming as we've seen with say The BOND dii junction. Attack now it's just a, cheap easy available weapon and someone can do an enormous amount of. Harm but we don't dismiss capability because it is still very, important and things like
the Cross church attack highlight something like capability. Factors but we do need to balance that then with, intent so you, know how strongly is this or how strong is this person's, Intent and then if we are concerned about the, intent well then we know that they could be capable of doing a low capability. Attack so it is a bit of a balancing act where we need to look at all. FACTORS i always, think how died up are the dial
for this? Individual how concerned do we need to? Be so as you, know the more concerning things that we, see then, generally as a loose, principle you would be you'd be saying that you, know there's a lot of risk or threat that needs to be mitigated here.
Looking at just pick a, case if you'd be familiar with The linp cafe With Man, Momus, yes looking back that and people know we've spoken about on here we had one of the hostages from the siege that was in the cafe the whole time and some of the police. Involved but looking At Man, momus like you look back and you go red, flag red, flag red. Flag but that's. Hindsight it's a wonderful. Thing is there anything that you
see in that if you're familiar with it at? All something About Man momis's background that if you were assessing him prior to him committing this, offense is what sort of vindicators would concern?
You, yeah that's, look that's a really good. Question and the coronial inquest that looked at The Link cafe siege had some really good findings and one of them was the need for a Fixated Threat Assessment, center which came into place in twenty seventeen In New South wales AND i Think queensland was the first state to bring that in Because monus he had the grievance and the fixation And Michelle, pathay who's done a lot of work in the F tach space and set up The queensland F
tach and also The VICTORIAN. TACH i saw a presentation that she did and she talked About monus and we looked at him through the terrorism. Lens and that's one of the biggest shortfalls probably of our management or response To monus was he was a fixated and grievance fueled. Individual but we were making all our assessments and judgments on him based on is he a whole risk of a terrorism? Offense and the worry was that wein we're missing him as a person and what was actually motivating
and driving? Him and so it was the grievance and the need for notoriety and significance rather than the presence of a strong. Ideology so we got caught up in does he have the ideology and the desire to act violently for that, ideology rather than is this an individual that's got the psychological makeup and the psychological factors that
are fueling him towards? Violence AND i think now looking back at, that we've seen that had you, know the emergence of f tax and more specialized, police particularly you know psychologists and. Psychiatrists we've come a long way since.
Then, yeah looking for the dangers of those fixated. PERSONS a lot of the work that you're doing now and break it down into prevention and. Intervention And i've just got some of the discussion points here policing. STRATEGIES i suppose you touched in part on that that the way we were looking at man momus was more from a terrorist point of view than a fixated person with a grievance that might play out risk. Assessments that's the work
that you're. In break us down for a risk. Assessment what IF i was seeing here GOING i am so angry at The New South Wales police for how my career came to an, end what sort of assessments would you be making without getting too? Personal MAYBE i should have used another, example but, Okay i'm, angry BUT i think my, Situation i'll just move on and get on with my. Life another. Chapter so what type of things would be a warning sign to?
You and that's part of, it isn't is that rigidity and the cognitive. Rigidity do you have the ability to think about other, options other, solutions other ways of coping or is it tunneling down to you becoming very fixed and very stuck and very fueled by this? Injustice and so we do look at we look at factors like. Fixation how psychologically preoccupied is someone with this issue or this? Person how aggrieved are they so how strong is that grievance for some of these folks that they wake up
every day living and breeding. This then you look at the, intent so you, know do they have an intent to progress that? Issue and then do they have the capability to act on? That so that is a simple way of looking at. It another way is to think about it from a threat perspective and Read, malloy who's a forensic psychiatrist over in THE us has done some really good work and he talks about eight key warning. Behaviors and so the first one's, pathway so is the evidence
of planning and preparation for some sort of. Act we then have, fixation so that psychological. Preoccupation then there is, identification so is the person experiencing a shift in their identity so that they are now starting to see themselves more as a as a warrior or someone that's being driven towards a. Mission so often that commando type of identity that they're developing novel. Aggression so are they engaging anything to test their ability to the? Results how we
also have. Leakage so have they made any remarks to anyone about an intent to carry out an active? Harm we have a directly communicated threat as? Well have they made any threats to? Anyone last resort as? Well so last? Resorts often have they reached their end of?
Tether is?
This are they at the position where they think.
This, loss loss of family and just what else have they got left in the?
Eye this is never going to be, resolved AND i need to do something about. IT i need to make a final statement and make my. Mark and often that making your mark is often quite crucial in this in these sorts of, offenses because unfortunately we see that it's often people that don't have significance that are wanting, significance and that the act becomes part of gaining that. Significance, okay it's, interesting that's.
FASCINATING i love like the structure you put into such a because it's such a gray area with so many different. Layers but you actually need the, structure don't. You, well as you're breaking down the. Structure it helps me even the bathtub and the. Staircase, okay if you told me the science behind it, All i'll probably get, Lost BUT i understand what you're, saying and you really do need the.
Structure government. Influencers we had the shooting situation down In tasmania and we restricted guns and made a very strong gun. Policy is that the type of thing you're talking with government. Influencers.
Yeah government influences are the fascinating and sometimes concerning at the same, time and they can be spot on or really missed the. MARK i think understanding the lone actor landscape In, australia it's hard to have that conversation Without Port. Arthur so where we are now and maybe the lack of significant incidents that we, have AND i say that cautiously is probably largely a result of the decisions that
were made back in nineteen ninety six around the. Firearms if we think about even The Link cafe ces or some of the other even The bondai attack, recently had those people been able to get high caliber, firearms it may, yeah very very. Different and the potentially the argument there for the Christ church terrorist attack may that have happened In australia if our firearm policy hadn't ever been, changed because part of the part of that was the accessibility
of firearms at the. Time so governments have a really important part to. Play my concern is that we try and restrict our way out of, things and there's a balance there between.
You because you could create another potential offend.
That absolutely the everyday person is doing the right thing and they are losing a lot of their freedoms because of restrictive measures that are put in. Place AND i always think, that you, know people need to have a
level of. Autonomy we can't regulate and control our way out of, everything AND i think it's good to put safeguards and parameters in, place but becoming too restrictive and too intrusive risk thin creating another problem on the flip side of that with someone then getting aggrieved and FEELING.
I, think and TALKING, covid THE covid, RESTRICTIONS i saw PEOPLE i knew that the way they were, reacting you could almost see the, tension the anger build up and the frustration build up in them in the, restrictions and you could see how that could play out in the extreme And i'm not saying my, friends BUT i just saw how many people are, affected and affected each and every one of. Us you had the isolation and then the restrictions and loss of, control and people are losing
their livelihood or losing contact with their. Families those type of RESTRICTIONS i think is just sort of pouring fuel on the.
Fire, Yeah So i'm always big on empowering and educating, People and THEN i think governments ideally put the safeguards and the parameters in, place but people still need that. Autonomy AND i think rather than restricting and, controlling we
should try and educate and. Teach and there's the, argument, say with the restrictions for social media that are looking like coming in for, adolescents which which is, positive adolescents will still go and find other platforms like discord and all sorts of online groups that they can still access and still find extreme. Content so what about if we taught people or children to use social media, safely you,
know something like a social media. License we teach people to, drive you, know we teach them how to do things in a safe. Manner SO i think there's a role there where we can empower rather than.
Restrict, well giving that degree of, autonomy it takes a sting out of any, restrictions doesn't. It you've got a little bit of. Control, okay you've just got to go through this, pathway but you can get. THERE i see what you're. Saying i've never thought of it that, way but, yeah we shut down the social media for the, kids they're going to get access to. Things.
Absolutely, yeah and again it's the masses that are probably doing the right thing that are impact in. IT i think it's a good conversation to have because there are always pros and, cons but the ones that seek this out will still be able to find. It.
Yeah, okay look we might take a break. Here when we get, BACK i want to talk in detail about the Christ church massacre and put in or discuss some of the things we've discussed here and how that played out in the build up to the. Case i'd also like to talk about. STALKING i know part of you the reason you're over here that you're delivering a lecture on. Stalking i've always thought from a policing point of, VIEW
i always had concerns when people were. Stalking it starts, off, well nothing's really, done but the way that they become fixated on the person they're. Stalking always concerned, me And i'm sure there's a lot of other things we've got to talk. About i'm finding it quite quite. Fascinating so we'll take a break and we'll be back shortly for part. Two Thanks, Gary cheers.
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