Abstract
Situations involving active shooters in schools have increased in recent years. We define an “active shooter incident” as an occurrence where one or more individuals participate in an ongoing, random, or systematic shooting spree with the objective of multiple or mass murders. Attempts to build a profile of active school shooters have been unsuccessful to date, although there is some evidence to suggest that mental instability, social isolation, a self-perception of catastrophic loss, and access to weapons play a role in the identification of the shooter in a school shooting incident. This article details theories and after-the-fact findings of investigations on previous school shooters, and we offer an application of Levin and Madfis’s Five Stage Sequential Model to Adam Lanza, the perpetrator of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December, 2012. Prevention strategies, suggestions for positive school climates, school security for the physical plants, and threat assessments are discussed, and implications for future research are offered.
Highlights
Situations involving active shooters in schools have increased in recent years, with each of the past several decades having one significant school shooting resulting in death and psychological traumatization, not just to the involved school and community and across the United States
Lankford concluded that law enforcement investigators should not be focused on a particular characteristic but should pay close attention to individuals who are struggling with significant personal issues, and Lankford’s hypothesis should be studied further as well as viewed as a possible beginning point for teachers and administrators when attempting to identify those who may be at risk of violent incidents in schools
Instead of a history of feeling bullied or persecuted, like active shooters in high schools, older graduate students seem to turn to violence as a response to what they perceive to be intolerable pressure to be successful or the inability to face the reality of failure (Fox & Savage, 2009)
Summary
Situations involving active shooters in schools have increased in recent years, with each of the past several decades having one significant school shooting resulting in death and psychological traumatization, not just to the involved school and community and across the United States. More than 250 people have been killed in the United States during active shooter and mass casualty incidents since the Columbine High School shootings in 1999 (Mitchell, 2013).
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