Secret Service issues guide on school shooting prevention
Report based on research showing that in many attacks, others knew of perpetrators’ plans
WASHINGTON — Mockshooting drills. Metal detectors. Bulletproof classroom shelters.
As deadly school shootings continue to be a fixture in headlines, schools across the country have resorted to “hardening” their campuses.
But a federal report released Thursday backs another model that school safety experts have for years supported as a way to save lives: the formation of “threat assessment teams” that employ mental health, law enforcement and education professionals to help identify and support troubled youths.
The report, an eight-step guide prepared by the Secret Service’s National Threat Assessment Center, is one of the most explicit pieces of literature to come out of the Trump administration on how to prevent targeted attacks. It stems from decades of research showing that in a majority of school attacks, students knew of the perpetrators’ plans or had concerns about their behavior, said the center’s chief, Lina Alathari.
The guide encourages schools to not only build out reporting mechanisms like an online tip form, a dedicated hotline or even a smartphone app, but also promote a positive campus climate so students can share concerns.
There is no one-size-fits-all descriptor for a student attacker, Alathari said, but there are certain things schools can be on alert for. When a student sees a disturbing post on social media by a classmate, for example, or a teacher sees a student suddenly withdrawing from schoolwork, those behaviors can be reported to a threat assessment team.
If it is a transient threat, something said out of anger without the weapons to act on it, it can be handled with informal counseling or light disciplinary action, such as a notice to parents, said Amanda Nickerson, the director of the Alberti Center for Bullying Abuse Prevention at the University at Buffalo.
For more serious cases, the report said, students can be directed to therapy, academic tutoring or life-skills classes. In instances where the threat assessment team deems a threat credible or imminent, law enforcement personnel can step in.
It is a system that has been successful since it was put in place in Los Angeles County in 2009, said Tony Beliz, who developed the School Threat Assessment Response Team there.
“When we focus on the fact that we’re trying to help them get on with their life versus drilling them every day about whether you have a weapon, are you going to shoot somebody today, and we talk about the issues beneath that, they get better, they see some hope,” Beliz said.
Work on the school safety blueprint comes as the national conversation over the role of the government in protecting students from violence continues to play out in federal hearings and on city streets. Alathari said the threat assessment center began compiling the guide after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., that left 17 dead in February.
Nikolas Cruz, the 19-year-old charged in the shooting, had an affinity for violence and bragged about killing animals. One student said that others would joke that if someone were to open fire on campus, it would be Cruz. Although his behavior was reported to the FBI, no investigation was opened.
“Everybody knew he had problems, but no one picked up those pieces and connected those dots, and that’s the sad part,” Beliz said.