Why Mental Health Assessment Does Not Predict the Next Shooter

Each time we see a news report about a shooting at a school or place of business, the issue of mental health assessments comes up. Inevitably, the newscaster uses words such as "sick", "disturbed", and "crazy/insane" to describe the shooter. And indeed, in some cases the shooter does suffer from mental illness. We often hear calls for more mental health screenings, claiming that these atrocities could have been prevented had these screenings occurred.

However, mental health assessments are ineffective at predicting violence, much less identifying the next active shooter. In fact, following the horrific shooting at Virginia Tech the “Report to the President on Issues Raised by the Virginia Tech Tragedy, June 13, 2007 clearly stated, “Most people who are violent do not have a mental illness, and most people who have mental illness are not violent.”  They found the individuals with mental illness tended to be the victims of violence behavior, not the perpetrators of it.

Consider also the poor track record of mental health assessments conducted on future active shooters and how these assessments failed to predict, much less prevent, their heinous acts:

• Seung-Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech shooter who killed 32 people and wounded 17 more, was given a mental health evaluation on three separate occasions and was found to be "anxious and depressed, but not at risk of hurting himself or others".

• Elliot Rodger, the Isla Vista, CA shooter who killed 6 people and injured 14 others, was under psychiatric treatment from the time he was 8 years old until just a few weeks before he actually went out on his shooting rampage at age 22. The Santa Barbara Sheriff's department also conducted a wellness check on him just 3 weeks before his killing spree and determined he "did not meet the criteria for an involuntary hold."  We see how useless these “wellness check” are in determining next shooters.
  
  
• Adam Lanza, who perpetrated the second deadliest mass shooting by a single person in U.S. history (26 killed) at Sandy Hook Elementary School at Newtown, Connecticut, was diagnosed with sensory processing disorder, Asperger syndrome and obsessive-compulsive disorder long before his shooting spree. Nothing was done to stop him from his rampage.
  
  
• James Holmes, who killed 12 people and injured 70 others at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado had been under psychiatric care for years. One of his psychiatrists considered him dangerous. A month before the shooting, his psychiatrists contacted campus police to tell them that Holmes had made homicidal threats. Campus police did nothing to stop him from his rampage, which is understandable when considering how often mental health assessments have missed the mark.
  
  
• Jared Lee Loughner, who pleaded guilty to 19 charges, of murder and attempted murder, in connection with the shooting in Tucson, Arizona, clearly had a Thought Disorder and may be Schizophrenic (one of the scariest of mental illnesses), but less than 1% of those with Schizophrenia have ever murdered others. How do you get from less than 1% to this person is your next shooter?  You can’t!  The use of mental health assessments is not a good predictor of who the next shooter will be!

As you can see, mental health assessments have proven inadequate as to the purpose of predicting and preventing mass shootings. The only way to predict and therefore prevent such acts of violence is to identify a person on the path to a violent attack. That was the conclusion arrived at in the Safe School Initiative Study, a joint collaboration conducted by the US Secret Service, the National Institute of Justice, and the US Dept. of Education. Their Study has been further affirmed by the Chief of the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit's Threat Assessment Center (Andre Simmons) who stated that the FBI's ability to prevent violence is predicated on the ability to identify a person who is on a pathway to violence.

So how do we identify someone on a path to violence? By using the scientifically-validated Meter of Emerging Aggression, a key component of the Critical Aggression Prevention System or CAPS. The Meter of Emerging Aggression allows us to chart the progression of aggressive behavior from its outset (someone who is beginning is losing their ability to cope) through and including the most lethal of all aggressors, the perpetrator of murder/suicide, like Seung-Hui Cho and Adam Lanza. Each of these progressive observables are precursors to the next stage/level of aggression offering us the opportunity to prevent the next level of aggression.  As an example: the Meter of Emerging Aggression has nine stages/levels of aggressive behavior; if you prevent someone from reaching the 4th Stage/level on the Meter of Emerging Aggression, aren’t you also preventing any subsequent escalation? 

Further, the observer can chronicle clearly defined and culturally neutral sets of objective measurable observables that occur as a person escalates along the path to violence. Critical is the fact that CAPS uses only “aggressive behavior” and judges it on its merits; because CAPS uses no mental health assessments, it falls outside of HIPAA regulations and because it used no cultural differences, it falls within virtually all privacy regulations. Where Mental Health Professionals cannot discuss a person’s state of mental health, they can discuss “aggressive behavior!”

CAPS offers intuitive, objective and measurable observables of a person as he or she escalates up the Meter of Emerging Aggression’s continuum of aggression and more importantly we can detect this aggressive behavior at a very low initial level. This allows us to intervene in a timely manner long before that person reaches the upper more lethal Crisis Phase of the Meter of Emerging Aggression, where acts of violence occur. CAPS is therefore both predictive and reliably preventative.  To learn about CAPS, watch as the Center for Aggression Management’s Founder and CEO presents CAPS at Safety Day 2015.

CAPS is the new standard for creating a workplace or school that is as safe as humanly possible, the highest form of Evidence-based Best Practices. For more information about how CAPS can help you achieve the goal of having the safest possible work or school environment, the highest form of Evidence-based Best Practices, please contact Ambassador Robert D. Paluch, C.P.S, C.A.M.A., Chicago Area, (773) 587-1464 or [email protected].

Author: Ambassadors Robert D. Paluch is an Honors Graduate of Executive Security International, having earned his Certified Protection Specialist (C.P.S.) certification in 2012. Mr. Paluch has also held a State of Illinois Armed Security Officer license since 1982 and is currently working on earning his Certified Security Specialist (C.S.S.) certification through Executive Security International. He is a Medical First Responder and has an extensive background in clinical nutrition and alternative medicine. He recently earned his certification and is credentialed as a Center for Aggression Management Ambassador (C.A.M.A.), which authorizes him under the agreement to conduct all training for the Center’s Critical Aggression Prevention System (CAPS). His calling is to create safe work and school environments for everyone.