It's a vicious circle.Why do people commit mass shootings?

[Frame Dragger]

A "warning sign" that's only useful in hindsight is NOT a warning sign. You can't do an experiment, explain it with a hypothesis, and say that the experiment supports the hypothesis; you have to actually predict something. If a hypothesis (or a "warning sign") cannot be used for predictions, it's garbage.

That said, there are legitimate warning signs for spree killings. Poverty, childhood abuse, a history of crime, drug abuse, and even race are all statistically correlated with a person's risk of going on a spree killing. These indicators are sensitive but very non-selective, so they can't possibly be used to predict whether a specific person will commit murder to any degree of certainty.



Completely agreed.



I was of course only talking about the MASK, not the actual person. The MASK is what Bishop's students saw.



Again, warnings are not even worth considering unless they can be used to make predictions.

Oh... as for the childhood factors, I don't count them. Poverty and abuse etc... tend to be in the past of a LOT of people, sane and otherwise. We're nowhere near understanding how genes and the environment interact to produce those rarest events (or freaks in the case of someone like Dahmer, and oddly enough, Bishop).

Of course, your point and any point against predictive modeling is made by the simple fact that no model would have a woman as a likely spree killer. Add a gun, and the odds go down even further.

Then again, the fact that predictions cannot be made NOW, doesn't mean that warning signs don't exist. The reality is that they tend to be proximal to the event, and people tend to write them off. Of course, given the rarity of these events, the rarity of them being prevented by a wary bystander is even lower. People DO predict and stop these events, but 1.) that doesn't make for great news and 2.) you can't PROVE that they would have 'done it' except in the most extreme cases of a failed attempt. Often a single case of attempted murder is the result.

Finally, in some situations these are VERY predictive factors. Fly El Al and you'll be made safe in part by the use of extensive profiling of your behaviour which has proven useful in protecting an extremely high value target. Of course, as with the man-trap scenario above, you can't screen the whole world, and what's the point? You're still FAR more likely to die at the hands of friend or family, and die in a traffic accident near your home. Such is life. That doesn't invalidate the point, anymore than predicting black ice prevents all accidents on the road.

Now, if the behaviours are not catalogued they cannot be studied, and progress towards what you consider a meaningful warning cannot be made, then no science or art can progress. Obviously we're not 'there' yet, but that's not going to happen without study in the interim.

Edit: I should add... Ms. Bishop's students seemed to have cause to complain on three occasions to faculty about her in-class demeanor and teaching style. The IHOP incident. Her Brother. The Pipe Bomb... That strikes me as a mask that is wearing thin.

 

[Proton Soup]

regarding the student petition, the whole time i was in Uni before, i never once heard of a group of students petitioning a department chair regarding an instructor. we all had teachers we complained about, some odder than others. but a petition to remove an instructor from a classroom seems extremely unusual to me. and considering the replies others have made to me here that not granting tenure is roughly equivalent to firing, it appears that the faculty may have been granting the students' request, using the least confrontational (and perhaps litigation-inducing) method at their disposal.

 

[Frame Dragger]

regarding the student petition, the whole time i was in Uni before, i never once heard of a group of students petitioning a department chair regarding an instructor. we all had teachers we complained about, some odder than others. but a petition to remove an instructor from a classroom seems extremely unusual to me. and considering the replies others have made to me here that not granting tenure is roughly equivalent to firing, it appears that the faculty may have been granting the students' request, using the least confrontational (and perhaps litigation-inducing) method at their disposal.

She seems to have understood their message and reciprocated in a more direct fashion. Thus is academia undone by cowardice? *shrug*

What strikes me is that the notion of students in her class, complaining as a group to faculty on 3 occasions (where no secrets are kept of this type) is EXTREME. That said, this is so unusual. The stastics vary, but on point the trend is overwhelmingly clear: women tend not to shoot people as a means of murder, tend not to commit mass killings, and when they do indirect means such as poison are often used.

A woman blasting away with a gun... is at least as unusual as a woman comitting suicide by handgun (unsual). I'm glad this woman is alive and I hope that the state of Alabama (which is not known for mercy or subtelty) er for every bit of information useful to the psychological and medical profession before they commit their own act of murder on all of our behalfs. *sigh*. What a world.

 

[drankin]

She seems to have understood their message and reciprocated in a more direct fashion. Thus is academia undone by cowardice? *shrug*

What strikes me is that the notion of students in her class, complaining as a group to faculty on 3 occasions (where no secrets are kept of this type) is EXTREME. That said, this is so unusual. The stastics vary, but on point the trend is overwhelmingly clear: women tend not to shoot people as a means of murder, tend not to commit mass killings, and when they do indirect means such as poison are often used.

A woman blasting away with a gun... is at least as unusual as a woman comitting suicide by handgun (unsual). I'm glad this woman is alive and I hope that the state of Alabama (which is not known for mercy or subtelty) er for every bit of information useful to the psychological and medical profession before they commit their own act of murder on all of our behalfs. *sigh*. What a world.

The death penalty, or murder as you call it, has it's place. I just wish it didn't take a decade to carry it out.

 

[Frame Dragger]

The death penalty, or murder as you call it, has it's place. I just wish it didn't take a decade to carry it out.

I agree actually, but in practice as you point out it's absurd. If we have laws and principles which exclude a rapid end to a death penalty case, and we do... we're stuck. What about that 94 year old man who died on death row recently... from NATURAL CAUSES?! Hint: he wasn't in his 80's when he was convicted...

If the system is broken, biased, racist, delayed and expensive, we should probably put aside its dubious benefits in favour of an effective regime, morality aside. If you could make the death penalty work in our (usa) legal framework, start a thread and I'd love to listen.

In this case however, Amy Bishop will be more valuble as on object of study (never know when a currently invasive technique will become passive and legal without consent), than she would be as a corpse. It's the untreatable sexual predators and sociopaths (Anti-Social Personality Disorder) which we have to admit is untreatable under current methods.

 

[billiards]

Seeing as we're all putting out wild speculation. Perhaps the accidental shooting of her brother messed her up in such a way that made it possible for her to commit these recent murders. This would shift the emphasis that the shooting of her brother was more a trigger of her mental instability rather than a warning sign.

 

[Frame Dragger]

Seeing as we're all putting out wild speculation. Perhaps the accidental shooting of her brother messed her up in such a way that made it possible for her to commit these recent murders. This would shift the emphasis that the shooting of her brother was more a trigger of her mental instability rather than a warning sign.

There are people who would argue that point! I think that's why the question of whether or not that death was truly accidental is so key in understanding if this is a demented individual, or someone traumatized and made unable to cope with stress.

Given the IHOP incident, the DOUBLE shot from the shotgun (re: her brother), the pipe-bomb... she sounds more like someone who probably killed her brother intentionally.

All wild speculation, true, and you could be right... although the kind of trauma from killing a sibling rarely leads to this kind of grandiose behaviour, a family, and finally a spree killing. That's... how many times have I said 'atypical' in this thread?!

At least she's alive so that the families of victims and society as a whole can get some answers and maybe use her to help others.

 

[lisab]

The defense attorney appointed to represent an Alabama professor accused of shooting her colleagues said Friday he regrets describing her as "wacko."

Well, I don't know about this. In high-profile cases, lawyers rarely say things unintentionally.

The article goes on to quote more of what her lawyer said:

Discussing his client's mind, he said that doctors of biology "have got, in my estimation, high IQs -- and the high IQ in my opinion is sometimes not good for people."

Ah, insanity caused by high intelligence...riiiiight .

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/02/19/alabama.shooting.lawyer/index.html?hpt=T1"

 

[Frame Dragger]

Well, I don't know about this. In high-profile cases, lawyers rarely say things unintentionally.

The article goes on to quote more of what her lawyer said:



Ah, insanity caused by high intelligence...riiiiight .

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/02/19/alabama.shooting.lawyer/index.html?hpt=T1"

"Now, I'm just a country lawyer, but this here lady is clearly WHACK-A-DOODLE! Yes, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I ask you to find her innocent, by reason of *makes unintelligable animal noises* and of course we expect she has an excess of phlegmatic humours. Keep in your minds, oh gentle ladies and kind fellows of the jury, that this here woman did learnin' stuff! She was too smart for her own good; we all remember when Einstein had to be forgiven his spree of gang-related killings in the late 1910's..."

Seriously. This is the country that brought us 'The Twinkie Defense'.

EDIT: Oh lord... http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/02/19/alabama.shooting.lawyer/index.html?hpt=Sbin

"Y'all, you know bettah than to listen to these here words 'ah comin, ah say ah comin' out this here mouth! Hell I been drinkin' rye all night, and you expect me tuh be crisp in the Ay-Em?" Ok... not a direct quote, but I think having this lawyer is the first step in Bishop's punishment. It must be fabulous to be have a doctorate and be in the hands of someone who tries to established a Diminshed Capacity defense with the 'country lawyer' jive.

 

[PhaseShifter]

He's a court-appointed attorney, not being paid by her.

There's a bit of controversy about that as well.

 

[Frame Dragger]

He's a court-appointed attorney, not being paid by her.

There's a bit of controversy about that as well.

Frankly her only hope is to accumulate as many of these controversies as she can to avoid the death penalty. This is Alabama after all, and I doubt the court will accept a non compus mentis please or a a defense of diminished capacity. By it's nature this is a premeditated act by a bright woman. That's all a jury is going to care about, and they won't buy 'insanity' unless she is CLEARLY demented... and she's not.

As for the attorney, he's a hack.

 

[Vanadium 50]

There's a bit of controversy about that as well.

I think the last thing she is worried about is perjury. Not with a trip to the Yellow Mama potentially in her future.

Indeed with that possibility, I'm surprised she's cheaping out on a lawyer. If I were on trial for multiple counts of capital murder, I'd be trying to get F. Lee Bailey, not Jimmy Bob's Lawyers for Less.

 

[cronxeh]

I think a better defense would be to come up with a microbiology excuse. Suppose she got infected by Borrelia burgdorferi, or a vitamin B-12 deficiency, or perhaps some funky syphilis. You can even throw in some prion disease argument. You may never know unless you dissect her delicious brain Whos got dibs ?

 

[Frame Dragger]

I think the last thing she is worried about is perjury. Not with a trip to the Yellow Mama potentially in her future.

Indeed with that possibility, I'm surprised she's cheaping out on a lawyer. If I were on trial for multiple counts of capital murder, I'd be trying to get F. Lee Bailey, not Jimmy Bob's Lawyers for Less.

All of which shows that you're a person who cares if they live or die. I don't think that's the case with Bishop. I doubt that this is a woman who expected to survive the initial event. People like her usually take quite a bit of time for the reality of their changed situation to set in. That assumes of course, that the IHOP incident was rage and grandiosity, and not a sign of a major personality disorder.

I think she's just a nasty, bitter woman who wanted to take people with her before the police took her out. Her lack of planning shoudl now land her in the ultimate nightmare for someone like her; a total lack of personal control, for the rest of her (probably short) life.

EDIT: cronxeh: I call dibs. It's my field after all!

 

[rewebster]

My high school required that we walk through metal detectors, there were armed police staffed at every entrance to stop and search anyone that tripped the detectors. Of course this was after several stabbings, a kid being thrown out of a third floor window, and serious death threats on the Vice -principle. We had a police helicopter circle the school during lunch hours.

Where I work you cannot get in or out of the building without getting stopped inside a "mantrap" first. You use your badge to access a little space, similar to a circular door. It stops with you trapped inside while you gain admitance to the building, you are scanned, weighed, and detected for questioanble objects. If you don't pass, you are stuck until security comes for you. Thousands of people enter and leave these buildings daily, so I don't see why they can't be installed on campuses.

too many buildings usually--between the dorms and class buildings + all the entrances to each---cost too much versus the safety of escape for fire codes

 

[Frame Dragger]

too many buildings usually--between the dorms and class buildings + all the entrances to each---cost too much versus the safety of escape for fire codes

Besides, if you think back to Starkweather, not one metal detector would have helped. These crimes are rare enough that changing our culture to prevent them ever occurring (which might not work either) is pointless.

 

[zoobyshoe]

That assumes of course, that the IHOP incident was rage and grandiosity, and not a sign of a major personality disorder.

Behaviors like that are exactly what get people taken to psychiatrists, and they are the basis for the consequent diagnosis. In other words, rage and grandiosity aren't considered to occur in sane people. It got her arrested and charged: it's dysfunctional behavior.

It would be discounted as a sign of mental illness only if it were discovered it was triggered by drugs, say she was on pcp, or, innocently, an unforeseen adverse reaction to a medication. That sort of thing.

 

[Proton Soup]

Behaviors like that are exactly what get people taken to psychiatrists, and they are the basis for the consequent diagnosis. In other words, rage and grandiosity aren't considered to occur in sane people. It got her arrested and charged: it's dysfunctional behavior.

It would be discounted as a sign of mental illness only if it were discovered it was triggered by drugs, say she was on pcp, or, innocently, an unforeseen adverse reaction to a medication. That sort of thing.

not exactly a charge of grandiosity, but maybe related

Sammie Lee Davis said his wife had mentioned Bishop before and said that she was described as "not being able to deal with reality" and "not as good as she thought she was".

 

[zoobyshoe]

not exactly a charge of grandiosity, but maybe related

Sammie Lee Davis said his wife had mentioned Bishop before and said that she was described as "not being able to deal with reality" and "not as good as she thought she was".

There was also the novel she was writing about the girl who accidentally shot her brother and was going to redeem herself by becoming a great scientist. This was uncovered during the investigation following the Harvard pipe bombs.

 

[Frame Dragger]

There was also the novel she was writing about the girl who accidentally shot her brother and was going to redeem herself by becoming a great scientist. This was uncovered during the investigation following the Harvard pipe bombs.

As I said early in this thread, Amy Bishop gave people warning signs (and I guessed at others). This isn't always the case, and one could argue if she never committed this crime that she was eccentric, or suffered from PTSD as a result of the incident with her brother. It's only in hindsight that some of these things become signals of dangerous behaviour.

As for getting help, as I understand she was charged, and has to attend anger management classes. The reality is that in this country you are not going to be compelled to seek psychological treatment except in EXTREMES. The streets are packed with schizophrenics and other lost souls who are 'harmless' by the legal definition, both to themselves and others. This is a woman who could keep a mask on at least SOME of the time.

Is she insane? Well, she fits plenty of diagnostic criteria, but none that would be workable as plea in court. The legal definition vs. every other definition of insanity is separated by a vast gulf of ignorance. Yes, we understand that in a better world Bishop would have been singled out early in life and helped or sequestered. Alas, we live in this, "the best of all possible worlds".

 

[Evo]

If she has a court appointed lawyer that has made public statements about his prejudiced opinion of her, won't this allow her to claim a mistrial based upon predjudiced legal representation if she loses?

If he's court appointed, shouldn't they yank him off her case immediately to avoid potential problems?

 

[zoobyshoe]

As I said early in this thread, Amy Bishop gave people warning signs (and I guessed at others). This isn't always the case, and one could argue if she never committed this crime that she was eccentric, or suffered from PTSD as a result of the incident with her brother. It's only in hindsight that some of these things become signals of dangerous behaviour.

If the killing of her brother was completely accidental I think you and I would agree that a case of PTSD was practically inevitable, and that she ought to have been scheduled for periodic monitoring sessions with a therapist. That would have probably applied to her mother, who witnessed it, as well. There was, unfortunately, no one to suggest or enforce this. The father didn't witness it, but I'm sure he was bewildered and shocked to the point he never sat down and straightened his mind out about the best way to salvage his family.

As for getting help, as I understand she was charged, and has to attend anger management classes.

You mean after the IHOP incident? I hadn't read this. 'Preciate a link if you got one.

The reality is that in this country you are not going to be compelled to seek psychological treatment except in EXTREMES. The streets are packed with schizophrenics and other lost souls who are 'harmless' by the legal definition, both to themselves and others. This is a woman who could keep a mask on at least SOME of the time.

True.

Is she insane? Well, she fits plenty of diagnostic criteria, but none that would be workable as plea in court. The legal definition vs. every other definition of insanity is separated by a vast gulf of ignorance. Yes, we understand that in a better world Bishop would have been singled out early in life and helped or sequestered. Alas, we live in this, "the best of all possible worlds".

True.

That said, here's a mass of new info collected from people who knew her in the past:

Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, neighbors and colleagues shared revealing recollections about Bishop during her days living in Braintree, Newton, and Ipswich and studying at Northeastern and Harvard universities. They described her as someone who was obviously bright, but also difficult or odd.

In Newton, neighbor Johnny Henk said he remembered Bishop as a "wacky" woman who was often seen yelling at her husband and children, but who also would play the violin in her home and invite neighborhood children to sit and listen.

"One minute she's fine, the other minutes hollering and screaming, " Henk said.

In Ipswich, police said that Bishop called 911 so many times to complain about the noise of children riding dirt bikes or playing basketball that police referred to her and her husband as "regular customers."

"There was never enough we could do for them," Officer Michael Thomas said. "When someone calls the police a lot about their neighbors, it says either they are not able to cooperate enough with them or that they are just unable to adapt to a neighborhood."

And in Hamilton, where Bishop joined a writing group, other aspiring authors recalled that the biologist-writer was talented but awkward. Bishop had penned three dramatic novels - a suspense thriller about an IRA operative; a tale about a virus that made all women barren and ended mankind; and a book she titled "Martians in Belfast," which recounted the life of a girl growing up during the Troubles of Ireland, according to Rob Dinsmoor, a member of the Hamilton Writers Group, which Bishop attended in the late 1990s.

"She really had a knack for writing character, dread, and suspense, "Dinsmoor said. But, he said, she sometimes felt ill at ease in the academic world. "She didn't know how to interact with them. She would just say what's on her mind, and that would get her in trouble."

The shootings in Alabama dredged up some powerful memories for a former mechanic in Braintree, who was at work on the day in 1986 that Bishop shot her brother and then ran from the family home.

Tom Pettigrew said a wild-eyed Bishop burst into the dealership where he was working, pointed a shotgun at employees, and said that she had had a fight with her husband and he was going to come after her, so she needed a getaway car.

"I yelled, 'What are you doing' and she screamed at me to put my hands up. So I put my hands up, " recalled Pettigrew, 45, in an interview at his home in Quincy yesterday.

Pettigrew said Braintree police briefly questioned him and several other employees, but authorities never contacted him again. Now, after the deaths in Alabama, Pettigrew wonders why authorities didn't follow up more aggressively.

"It was almost like they wanted to put it on the shelf and forget about it,"said Pettigrew, whose encounter with Bishop was first reported by the Boston Herald. 'I think if that happened to me I'd be wrapping up a long prison sentence. But with this, it seems like they just wanted it to go away."

Polio, the Braintree police chief at the time, said yesterday that he knew Bishop had to be apprehended at gunpoint, but he said he did not know she had pointed the shotgun at Pettigrew.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/02/some_question_q.html

 

[zoobyshoe]

She was a Betty, back in the day:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/edited%20Amy_Bishop.jpg
Amy Bishop in 1988

Sweet Doe eyes.

 

[zoobyshoe]

More interesting back history from people who knew her:

http://www.startribune.com/nation/84855632.html?elr=KArks:DCiUMEaPc:UiacyKUUr

Amy Bishop's intelligence was never debatable. Even as a child, she didn't hesitate to tell people when they were wrong. As she grew older, earned a Harvard Ph.D and claimed a genius IQ of 180, her brilliance could come with a bluntness, condescension and volatile self-righteousness.

 

[zoobyshoe]

"It's unusual":

Amy Bishop, husband listed teens on research paper

Amy Bishop and her husband gave top billing to their three teenage daughters in the author credits of a paper they published last May in the International Journal of General Medicine on the impact of antidepressants on motor function.

The youngest of the teens is 14. The oldest, 18-year-old Lily Bishop Anderson, is a genetics student at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, where Bishop, a $63,000-per-year biology professor three months from being canned, is alleged to have slaughtered three colleagues and wounded three others in a rampage shooting one week ago today.

Bishop’s court-appointed attorney, Roy Miller, was expected to hold his first press conference on the case this morning.

UAH spokesman Ray Garner said yesterday the school was unaware Bishop and James Anderson Jr., both 45, had put their kids’ names to a research project for which the paper also credits the school and the couple’s home-based science research company Cherokee Lab Systems.

“It’s unusual,” Garner said.

Tim Hill, publisher of Dove Medical Press in New Zealand, would not respond to whether Bishop and Anderson revealed their collaborators were kids.

“Dr. Amy Bishop was the corresponding author of this paper. Her paper . . . was peer-reviewed by three experts and revised by Dr. Bishop prior to an editorial decision to accept the revised paper for publication,” Hill said.

Bishop’s father-in-law, Jimmy Anderson Sr., 71, said, “They’re very bright little kids.”

More at:

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1233888

http://multimedia.heraldinteractive.com/images/20100218/2d912f_Bishops_02192010.jpg

 

[Frame Dragger]

If she has a court appointed lawyer that has made public statements about his prejudiced opinion of her, won't this allow her to claim a mistrial based upon predjudiced legal representation if she loses?

If he's court appointed, shouldn't they yank him off her case immediately to avoid potential problems?

Nope. That's why Voire Dire exists, and the entire jury selection process. If we can try a terrorist such as Timothy McVeigh who had PLENTY of press... we can try one frumpy narcissist who snapped when the weight of her failures collided with the impossiblity of her dreams.

Zoobyshoe Thanks for the information... interesting and disturbign. Here's a link, although I was wrong. http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/02/amy_bishop_was.html

She was RECOMMNENDED to anger management... no one knows if she ever was forced to attend.

If the killing of her brother was completely accidental I think you and I would agree that a case of PTSD was practically inevitable, and that she ought to have been scheduled for periodic monitoring sessions with a therapist. That would have probably applied to her mother, who witnessed it, as well. There was, unfortunately, no one to suggest or enforce this."

Well we have to remember that this occurred 24 years ago when widespread knowledge of PTSD among law enforcement and the lay public was MAYBE just beginning. In '86 you'd still have the concept of what happened to Vietnam veterans in the fore, and while medical/psycholgical 'stuff' hadn't yet become 'cool' and accessible at the touch of a button.

It's reasonable to assume one of two scenarios:

1.) Bishop (for reasons unknown) shoots her brother twice with a shotgun. The mother witnesses it, and having just lost one child refuses to lose another to prison. Her testimony that it was an accident can't be underplayed. In that scenario she's either a psychopath or has some other galaxy of disorders, and the rest of her life follows.

2.) Bishop accidentally shoots her brother twice (not impossible depending on the type of shotgun) and she and her mother are absolutely traumatized. The grandiosity and other apparent disorders are manifestions of defense mechanisms and genuinely altered neurbiology (trauma will do that) in this scenario. Eventually in a state of depression and hopelessness, channeled into rage... she commits her crime.

Now, Bishop is claiming not to remember the event, and various other statements that are inconsistant with #2. She has four children, and a long career even if it wasn't all it could have been. She is essentially arguing that she entered some kind of fictional psychotic fugue to distance herself from having to publicly aknowledge the crime. After all, she was stopped before she finished her 'rampage'. I don't believe she expected to survive the entire event, and people like that tend to cope poorly in the aftermath of a failed suicide attempt in which all you've accomplished is murder.

She is being seen in a light she probably can't accept, and was never prepared for. Hope she enjoys it before she rides old sparky, or whatever they use in Alabama. (Blue-collar comedy?)

 

[PhaseShifter]

too many buildings usually--between the dorms and class buildings + all the entrances to each---cost too much versus the safety of escape for fire codes

Agreed. If chemistry labs are in the same building, the last thing you want is to hold people up at the doors when someone drops some phosphorus pentachloride.

 

[Frame Dragger]

Agreed. If chemistry labs are in the same building, the last thing you want is to hold people up at the doors when someone drops some phosphorus pentachloride.

Not to mention that anyone who has EVER seen The Godfather, read a spy novel, or had an original thought would consider hiding weapons and ammunition in the building off-hours, or through a window. The focus on security is at choke-points for travel... it's not as though this would be an embassy patrolled by marines.

Given that, given the chem-lab example; the answer is both that this is something that will happen again in some form, and that we need to pursue ways of profiling an individual with biometrics and human intelligence to screen for odd behavioural patterns. It's that, or accept unwelcome and unecessary (in the grander scheme) encroachments of personal freedoms and privacy. The way I see it, careful or not, some small subset will do terrible things, much in the way that bacteria become drug resistant. It's just a matter of keeping the pace of our adaptation as a society in line with real crime statistics, in which spree killings and workplace killings are a TINY TINY minority (even discounting all property crimes).

The fellow at Fort Hood was clearly a risk, or at least someone who should have been given closer observation for a number of reasons (disinterest and incompetence being first among them), but most people who 'snap' do so BECAUSE they're 'internalizing their anger' and other feelings. Outside of the occasional rant while drunk, sudden mood swing, etc... discounted as 'unlike that person', these individuals often skirt trouble or failure, but keep to themselves. It's their withdrawn nature and hermetic emotional world that causes such a violent and sudden eruption.

Furthermore, as this anger usually leads to a variety of secondary issues: paranoid delusions, depression, derealization, suicidality and the desire to regain control by any means... a person's likely target is not always easy to determine. Unlike a killer motivated by money or ideology, this person is lashing out and self-destructing. It may often be triggered by a firing, or some similar event (the pilot who just crashed into the IRS offices in Austin), but those are events we all live through (usually) and since the anger is misdirected and previously hidden... boom.

The best we can do as individuals is to realize that workplace violence = high profile = security contracts = $$$ at stake = truth is distorted to induce irrational fear. The amount spent on worthless security measures (the bomb 'sniffer' would be a recent one); even those considered above reproach such as x-raying baggage at the airport (many screeners have failed routine testing, and some really obvious tests) are often just for peace of mind. Of course, if people appreciated the low level of risk then they wouldn't be terrified in the first place, the workplace needn't be so stressful and people who are considered 'odd', but are no more violent than anyone else don't have to pretend to like the sport du jour.

 

[edpell]

"Pettigrew said Braintree police briefly questioned him and several other employees, but authorities never contacted him again. Now, after the deaths in Alabama, Pettigrew wonders why authorities didn't follow up more aggressively.

"It was almost like they wanted to put it on the shelf and forget about it,"said Pettigrew, whose encounter with Bishop was first reported by the Boston Herald. 'I think if that happened to me I'd be wrapping up a long prison sentence. But with this, it seems like they just wanted it to go away.""

I still want to know how much money do Amy's mother and father have.

 

[Frame Dragger]

"Pettigrew said Braintree police briefly questioned him and several other employees, but authorities never contacted him again. Now, after the deaths in Alabama, Pettigrew wonders why authorities didn't follow up more aggressively.

"It was almost like they wanted to put it on the shelf and forget about it,"said Pettigrew, whose encounter with Bishop was first reported by the Boston Herald. 'I think if that happened to me I'd be wrapping up a long prison sentence. But with this, it seems like they just wanted it to go away.""

I still want to know how much money do Amy's mother and father have.

Not a matter of money if they were living in Braintree. Think of it however... the police show up and the mother insists from the first that this was accidental. Amy does the same. It's not entirely outside of the realm of human nature or police investigations (especially given the ease of some forensic procedures in 1986 vs now) that ruling it as accidental wouldn't be impossible.

Remember, the District Attorney has to file charges (they are not compelled to do so), and this would have been a losing case! A jury is going to probably listen to the mother of the dead son, who witnessed the event.

If you needed money to subvert justice, we'd live in a better and cleaner world. Sadly, human nature is all that's needed in MOST cases. M.I.C.E. people... MICE.