Project aims to stop attacks

The University of Colorado is launching a two-year project to tackle violence prevention and education as a public health issue through a $1.2 million grant from the Department of Homeland Security.

CU’S Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence will work alongside students and campus officials as well as local, state and federal groups to educate the public on how to identify and report behavior that could precede violent attacks, such as the loss of 10 lives March 22 at a King Soopers grocery store in Boulder.

Warning signs for people who plan to carry out violent attacks are similar to the warning signs for radicalization and terrorism, said Sarah Goodrum, a senior research associate in violence prevention at the center.

A Secret Service study of 41 school attacks showed that 100% of attackers engaged in concerning behavior, 89% communicated concerning messages to other people and 49% had previous contact with law enforcement.

“All of those give us an opportunity to see that there’s a problem and try to provide help to address the problem,” Goodrum said. “The idea is that if we can, as a community, be more aware of what those warning signs are and better equipped to share concerns about an individual, we can get them the help that they need.”

Warning signs preceding violent attacks include making threats on a target, noticeable changes in behavior or appearance, an unusual interest in violence or other attacks, talk of being bullied, harassing others or an unusual interest in weapons.

Through working with a marketing agency and social media subject matter experts, the goal is to educate the public on what those warning signs are without creating or escalating biases or fear, Goodrum said.

The program also plans to pilot an anonymous reporting app for college campuses similar to Safe2tell, which is available for K-12 schools.

The project will aim to craft messages carefully and work with focus groups to determine how those messages are received so they don’t inadvertently make people more afraid, Goodrum said.

“We don’t improve safety when we escalate fear, we actually often end up creating other problems when we escalate fear,” she said. “Our belief is that an informed community is a safe community, so we’re going to try to work hard to convey information in a way that’s educating people and giving them an opportunity to help a citizen who is in trouble or in crisis.”

Similarly, the project’s focus groups will work with people of different religions, ethnicities, races and ages to look at the most effective way to discuss violence prevention.

The project also will work with campus police to enhance threat assessment, bystander reporting and response systems.

Social media and video messaging for the initiative is set to launch next fall at the earliest, according to a campus news release.