Profiling Mass Shooters

We watched – again – nauseated, stunned, horrified – hearing the grief-stricken wail of dying innocence — a six-year-old, a husband, a mother gunned down — for what? Communities — again – face the loss of precious life randomly killed, en masse, so that one sick shooter could play out his deluded fantasy and make it big — a final violent hateful suicidal splash that he knew would flicker across the news like an impotent light before it was extinguished, bleeding into darkness.

We speak our outrage and despair: “DO SOMETHING!”

(I will not discuss our negligent, reprehensible senators blocking responsible gun legislation in this blog).

I have culled snippets from the NY Times and other sources on the days the mass killings took place, to focus attention on the profile of the shooters. You will see similarities amongst all of them. These individuals have serious mental health issues that do make them dangerous. To be clear, most individuals with “serious mental illness” are not dangerous; many are medicated appropriately and others are simply not inclined to violent acting out.

Had these folks received treatment early-on when their family problems began, when child or adolescent problems became obvious, their story may have turned out differently. If schizophrenia and/or psychosis had been diagnosed (hallucinations, delusions, disorganized thinking) as “psychotic breaks” often appearing in late adolescence, and they were given medical and psychological attention including medications, we might not be witnessing repeated tragedies (more on shooter developmental history below). Mental health issues include a broad spectrum of disorders. With my method, diagnostic character types are delineated that clarify personality and the many other disorders; there are no mysteries here. We as a society must become educated both as to our own and others’ psychological problems so we, the community, can help.

Shooter Profile

The shooter profile defines those prone to aggressive acting out;

the profile is male — an individual who may have been a defiant, rebellious youth, in trouble with school authorities and who often called attention to himself. Later in life, he flies low and under the radar until it is too late and horrific damage has been done.

There are similarities in the profiles of mass shooters: lost, angry, uncontained individuals existing in the large swaths of society’s margins, engulfed by feelings of entitlement, belligerent hostility, and consumed with envy, while denying their deeper feelings of inadequacy. They often hate women who they feel reject them. They are captured by social media and find a way through online groups to redeem themselves. They find a “home to belong to” within social media, stimulated by hateful allegiances as they live more and more in fantasy delusions online until, finally, they burst into deadly action. The adrenalin rush of preparation, planning and purchasing guns and ammunition increases the “high” and the delusional sense of omnipotence in an all-powerful countdown. Drugs can play a part, particularly speed, accelerating the momentum. They seek out violent ideologies, identifying with other mass shooters and are preoccupied with enhancing violence and hate.

These individuals present a clear and present danger to society and will prey on the innocent to achieve a moment of fame, wreak revenge, act out the hatred, racism, and paranoid thinking they project onto others. These types, prone to creating mass destruction, compensate for their chronic sense of weakness, emptiness, defectiveness, insecurity and devalued sense of self by making a last stand of “potency” for a brief flash.

There are clear markers, and those close to those individuals: parents, school authorities, local police investigators, neighbors and friends, social media watch dogs, must spot the obvious signs and respondto their observations by alerting multiple authorities to the potential threat.

In most cases antisocial behaviors began developmentally early-on. Often these individuals suffered abusive parents: fathers who shamed their boys, humiliating them; who were violent, ridiculing — as a way to make themselves feel powerful at the expense of their male child. Homes were depriving, neglectful with passive, frightened mothers often victims of domestic violence, offering a barren absent home life that left the child no structure, discipline or assistance. The child might have been sexually abused by other family members and extended family. The child learned to bully others and became abusive to their pets and other animals. There are many stories that portray a variation of these variables: add alcoholism and drug abuse, abandonment, racism and bigotry.

Dayton

August 5, 2019 NY Times: The Dayton gunman appeared to be ‘exploring violent ideologies,’ the F.B.I. said.

Todd Wickerham, the special agent in charge of the F.B.I.’s Cincinnati field office, told reporters Tuesday afternoon that the investigation into the mass shooting in Dayton on Sunday had “uncovered evidence that the shooter (Connor Stephen Betts, 24) was exploring violent ideologies.” He added that no evidence had been found suggesting a racial motivation for the shooting.

Wikipedia: Two former high-school classmates stated that the gunman was suspended from Bellbrook High School after he made lists of other students he wanted to kill and rape. The “hit list” was discovered in early 2012 and resulted in a police investigation. A classmate also described him as a bully, reporting that he enjoyed scaring people while attending school. He was involved in a “misogynistic, male-dominated” music scene, and Buzzfeed described him as focused on gore, violence and necrophilia, known for its dark, satirical themes of sexual violence delivered for shock value. The suspect’s high-school girlfriend stated that at the time they dated, he had complained of visual and auditory hallucinations and psychosis and was afraid of developing schizophrenia.

A federal law enforcement official said that they were looking at whether the suspect was associated with incel groups (more on incel below). 

August 5, 2019 NY Times

A neighbor remembered the gunman making threats during his high school years.

Theo Gainey, 25, who lived for 10 years down the block from the Betts and was a year ahead of Connor Betts in school, remembered him as a “bit of an outcast,” ostracized in large part because of threats he made at school that got him into serious trouble.

“He got arrested on the school bus” for the threats, said Mr. Gainey, who added that he was on the bus himself when it happened. He recalled Mr. Betts being a freshman or sophomore at the time. Mr. Gainey did not remember the specifics of the threats but said that Mr. Betts had to leave school for the rest of that year. When he returned, “the threat thing followed him, and people didn’t want to hang out with him.”

August 7, 2019 NY Times

Earlier, a federal law enforcement official said that the F.B.I. was looking at whether the Dayton gunman was associated with so-called incel groups. Incels, short for involuntary celibates, are misogynists who are deeply suspicious and disparaging of women, whom they blame for denying them what they see as their right to sexual intercourse.

The F.B.I. views incels as a growing threat. But the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, stressed that the motive for the Dayton shooting remains unknown.

Mr. Wickerham declined to give any details about the nature of the violent ideologies being explored by Connor Betts, the gunman who killed his sister and eight others in Dayton’s entertainment district in the early hours of Sunday morning.

“We are still so early in this investigation,” he said.

On Tuesday night, the Betts family released a statement that offered condolences to the victims and their families and friends. It also requested privacy to mourn their own losses, and “to process the horror of Sunday’s events.” 

El Paso

August 3, 2019 NY Times

EL PASO — A 21-year-old gunman armed with a powerful rifle turned a crowded Walmart store in this majority-Hispanic border city into a scene of chaos and bloodshed on Saturday, stalking shoppers in the aisles in an attack that left at least 22 people dead and 24 others wounded, the authorities said.

The massacre in El Paso was the deadliest American mass shooting since November, 2017, when 26 people were killed in a church shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas. The 22 people in El Paso were killed in an entertainment district by a gunman with a history of misogyny and violence…

For several minutes late on Saturday morning, the packed Walmart near the Cielo Vista Mall on the city’s East Side filled with gun smoke and the echo of gunfire. Workers and customers, some bloodied, fled out the doors. Others huddled in the aisles or on the ground.

The authorities identified the gunman as Patrick Crusius, 21, from a Dallas suburb. He was taken into custody after he surrendered to the police outside the Walmart. The authorities said they were investigating a manifesto Mr. Crusius, who is white, may have posted before the shooting, which described an attack in response to “the Hispanic invasion of Texas.”

The manifesto the chief appeared to be referring to was an anti-immigrant online screed titled “The Inconvenient Truth.” The post declares support for the gunman who killed 51 people in Christchurch, New Zealand; outlines fears about Hispanic people gaining power in the United States; and appears to discuss specific details about elements of the attack, including weapons. The four-page manifesto was posted on 8chan, an online forum where the Christchurch gunman also announced his attack. It appeared to have been published at 10:20 a.m., 19 minutes before the first 911 call, according to an archived version of the website.

The shooting (in El Paso) came six days after a gunman killed three people at a garlic festival in Gilroy, California. In that shooting, the gunman shot and killed himself after exchanging gunfire with the police.

Gilroy, California

August 6, 2019 NY Times

The gunman who killed three at a garlic festival in Gilroy had been exploring violent ideologies and had a target list that included religious institutions, federal buildings and organizations tied to both major political parties, the F.B.I. said.

The gunman, Santino William Legan, 19, fired 39 rounds in the shooting at the garlic festival on July 28, Scot Smithee, the Gilroy police chief, said Tuesday. Police found a 75-round drum magazine and five 40-round magazines near the gunman, who killed himself after being shot multiple times by the police, Chief Smithee said.

The gunman who killed three people and injured 13 in Gilroy, California, had a “target list” of religious institutions, Democratic and Republican political organizations, and federal buildings, the F.B.I. said Tuesday, announcing that it had opened a domestic terrorism investigation.

The suspect had been exploring several “competing” violent ideologies, said John F. Bennett, the F.B.I. special agent in charge in San Francisco, at a news conference.

Mr. Bennett said investigators had not yet uncovered a motive and were trying to determine which ideology, if any, the gunman had ultimately subscribed to, and if anyone had helped him prepare for the shooting. The list also included courthouses and the garlic festival, Mr. Bennett said.

He said no people were named on the list, and that all the organizations operated nationally. The F.B.I. was in the process of notifying the targeted groups. Mr. Bennett said the shooter did not have a manifesto.

Mr. Legan’s parents said they were “deeply shocked and horrified” by what their son had done.

Filling out the profile 

Our society struggles to understand and heal the complex motivations and conditions that drive individuals to engage in gun violence, implement horrific mass shootings, or commit suicide when least expected.

As I have stated, there are many types of individuals that may fall into our compromised mental health vacuum: students in high school and college who are under severe distress and become alienated and isolated in their pain; adults who live on the margins who feel misunderstood and powerless and have access to guns; individuals of all ages, economic and social levels who feel desperately unable to cope, who contemplate or commit suicide. On the extreme, there are what The Southern Poverty Law Center refers to as “online male supremacist ecosystem” made up of “hate groups” such as Neo-Nazi, White separatists/nationalists, “incels,”, Neo-confederates, Racist skinheads and others who band together to find a sense of belonging through attacking an entire class of people. Some advocate violence against others.

There are others who feel compromised due to lack of social connectedness: the “hollowing out of the economy and loss of middle class supports, like unions, have contributed to a broad increase in self-reported pain…” (Times 6-9-18) 

Social Media 

Social media plays an outsized role in current society. There are positive effects as individuals feel connected to friends and family and have access to information that facilitates increased knowledge and engagement.

There are dark sides of social media that influence vulnerable individuals looking desperately for models of influence as an antidote to a sense of powerlessness and worthlessness. For example, students become copycat killers as they view the Colombine High School shootings and mimic the shooter’s clothing and other aspects of the massacre.

Shadow groups flourish on social media as they try to influence our society in detrimental ways. These shadow groups troll, preying on vulnerable minds, and co-opt individuals that explore these types of sites. Becoming a member of marginalized groups creates a sense of belonging.

Online Groups Capitalize on White Male Resentment

Online groups speak to sectors of white men who experience a sense of powerlessness personally and in Western society, due to economic and social changes including the move from manufacturing to technology, loss of small thriving communities leading to rural isolation and loss of a recognized, respected role and identity within our country.

Powerless feelings are also harnessed into the rage that can be expressed in far-right extremist groups that proudly defy social norms in favor of overt racism, anti-democratic platforms, and alt-right nationalism. These individuals may start as libertarian and move to fascist activism as their sense of frustration accelerates and is fueled by online rhetoric and racist vernacular. The sense of white male loss of position and status in our society has increased.

Another example of a hidden, seething underbelly of white male resentment harnessed in an online community is the group known as “incels”; men who are “involuntarily” celibate as they have personal challenges accessing women of their choice. They feel they are “owed” hierarchical status and the incel movement “tells its adherents that society’s rules are engineered to unfairly deprive them of sex.” (“Incels” Aren’t Alone in Online Harvesting of Men’s Sense of Loss, NY Times, 5-11-18) They become identified as victims, “…made lonely by a vast conspiracy, and as superior for their unique understanding of the truth.” An incel activist killed 10 people (8 out of 10 were women) in a Toronto mass killing in 2018.

The combination of social changes (viewed as threatening by some white males) and the spread of fringe groups on social media with their enticing forms of appeal to these resentments, are bringing to the surface extremist activists that tout hate and calls for a different social order founded on their hatred. The once privileged male status that controlled women is changing. The ideological bent breeds conspiracy theories and paranoia that condones violence within these groups spread by social media. Calls for violence against women, blacks, Jews, and immigrants are fueled by a “trusted group” that legitimizes the message of violence and irrational ideology founded on paranoia and conspiracy theories. (excerpts from Frisch, The Psychotherapy Solution: Creating a Better Life Now)

(c) 2019 Patricia Frisch