School Shooters Exhibited Unreported Warning Signs, Secret Service Study Finds

November 8, 2019 by Dan McCue
School Shooters Exhibited Unreported Warning Signs, Secret Service Study Finds
Students are evacuated by police out of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland after the shooting.

WASHINGTON – Students who have committed deadly school shootings in recent years exhibited worrisome warning signs that went unreported to authorities, a U.S. Secret Service study released Thursday says.

The report, “Protecting America’s Schools: A U.S. Secret Service Analysis of Targeted School Violence,” is the result of 20 years of analysis of these tragedies conducted by the Secret Services’ National Threat Assessment Center.

Researchers examined 41 school attacks from 2008 through 2017, and had unprecedented access to a trove of sensitive data from law enforcement including police reports, investigative files and nonpublic records.

While the center found there is no single profile that defines a student attacker or the type of school that has been targeted, it did find some commonalities.

For instance, many of the student shooters were badly bullied and had a history of disciplinary trouble.

Most bracingly however, all of the young people who carried out the 41 attacks exhibited concerning behaviors that someone observed but did not report, either out of fear, misjudging the immediacy of the situation, or believing they had dissuaded the attacker.

In most cases, the attackers communicated a prior threat to their target or communicated their intentions to carry out an attack.

In at least four cases, attackers wanted to emulate other school shootings, including those at Columbine High School in Colorado, Virginia Tech University and Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

“While communities can advance many school safety measures on their own, our experience tells us that keeping schools safe requires a team effort and the combined resources of the federal, state, and local governments; school boards; law enforcement; and the public,” said Secret Service Director James Murray in the forward to the report.

“With this study, the Secret Service provides an unprecedented base of facts about school violence, as well as an updated methodology and practical guidelines for prevention,” he said. “We encourage all of our public safety partners and education partners to review the information within, and to use it to guide the best practices for maintaining a safe learning environment for all children.”

The information gleaned through the research will now be used to help train school officials and law enforcement on how to better identify students who may be planning an attack and how to stop them before they strike.

“School safety is our collective responsibility as a nation and we must remain one step ahead of tragedy,” said Dr. Lina Alathari, chief of the National Threat Assessment Center, in a written statement. “The Secret Service mission uniquely positions the agency to equip our schools with the most comprehensive intelligence in the development of prevention and threat assessment programs.”

The Center has already scheduled dozens of training sessions and presentations of the new research in communities across the country, including Chicago, Los Angeles and Miami.

The outreach is similar to the effort the Secret Service carried out following the publication of the agency’s school threat assessment model last year.

A+
a-
  • Protecting America's Schools
  • School shootings
  • Secret Service
  • In The News

    Health

    Voting

    In The News

    Musk's AI Company Scrubs Inappropriate Posts After Grok Chatbot Makes Antisemitic Comments

    (AP) — Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company said Wednesday that it's taking down “inappropriate posts" made by its Grok chatbot, which... Read More

    (AP) — Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company said Wednesday that it's taking down “inappropriate posts" made by its Grok chatbot, which appeared to include antisemitic comments that praised Adolf Hitler. Grok was developed by Musk’s xAI and pitched as alternative to “woke AI” interactions from rival chatbots... Read More

    July 8, 2025
    by Dan McCue
    IRS Says Churches Should Be Allowed to Endorse Political Candidates

    WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service said in a court filing on Monday that it believes churches should be permitted... Read More

    WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service said in a court filing on Monday that it believes churches should be permitted to endorse political candidates, abandoning a decades-old rule that has been in place since the Eisenhower administration. The eye-opening statement came in a filing in the... Read More

    July 8, 2025
    by Alexa Citrin
    Study Indicates Decline in Children’s Health 

    WASHINGTON — A new study has found that the health of U.S. children has deteriorated since 2007, with notably higher... Read More

    WASHINGTON — A new study has found that the health of U.S. children has deteriorated since 2007, with notably higher rates of obesity, chronic illness and mental health issues becoming more common at earlier ages than in the past. The study, published in the Journal of... Read More

    July 8, 2025
    by Tom Ramstack
    Gun Rights Groups Sue to Block National Firearms Act Enforcement

    WASHINGTON — A coalition of Second Amendment advocates is suing to invalidate gun ownership restrictions that were revised by the... Read More

    WASHINGTON — A coalition of Second Amendment advocates is suing to invalidate gun ownership restrictions that were revised by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act President Donald Trump signed July 4. The bill removes many of the National Firearms Act taxes associated with gun ownership. The... Read More

    July 8, 2025
    by Dan McCue
    Supreme Court Lifts Stay on Trump Effort to Slash Federal Workforce

    WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday lifted a lower court’s order that had prevented the Trump administration from moving... Read More

    WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday lifted a lower court’s order that had prevented the Trump administration from moving forward with planned mass layoffs and the dismantling of a number of federal agencies. In its unsigned ruling, the court said an executive order signed by... Read More

    July 8, 2025
    by Alexa Citrin
    Trump Crackdown on Pro-Palestinian Campus Activists Goes to Trial 

    BOSTON — A trial over the Trump administration’s attempts to deport international students and scholars involved in pro-Palestinian activism on... Read More

    BOSTON — A trial over the Trump administration’s attempts to deport international students and scholars involved in pro-Palestinian activism on college campuses began on Monday with the plaintiffs arguing the efforts threaten to upend free speech rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. “Not since the McCarthy... Read More

    News From The Well
    scroll top