Teacher and Peer Responses to Warning Behavior in 11 School Shooting Cases in Germany

Warning behavior prior to an act of severe targeted school violence was often not recognized by peers and school staff. With regard to preventive efforts, we attempted to identify barriers to information exchange in German schools and understand mechanisms that influenced the recognition, evaluation, and reporting of warning behavior through a teacher or peer. Our analysis is based on inquiry files from 11 cases of German school shootings that were obtained during the 3-year research project "Incident and case analysis of highly expressive targeted violence (TARGET)." We conducted a qualitative retrospective case study to analyze witness reports from school staff and peers. Our results point to subjective explanations used by teachers and peers toward conspicuous behavior (e.g., situational framing and typical adolescent behavior), as well as reassuring factors that indicated harmlessness (e.g., no access to a weapon). Additionally, we found organizational barriers similar to those described in US-American case studies (e.g., organizational deviance)

Violence is rare in autism : when it does occur, is it sometimes extreme?

A small body of literature has suggested that, rather than being more likely to engage in offending or violent behaviour, individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may actually have an increased risk of being the victim rather than the perpetrator of violence (Sobsey et al., 1995). There is no evidence that people with ASD are more violent than those without ASD (Im, 2016). There is nevertheless a small subgroup of individuals with ASD who exhibit violent offending behaviours and our previous work has suggested that other factors, such as adverse childhood experiences, might be important in this subgroup (Allely et al., 2014). Fitzgerald (2015) highlights that school shootings and mass killings are not uncommonly carried out by individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders, with frequent evidence of warning indicators. The aim of the present review is to investigate this in more detail using the 73 mass shooting cases identified by Mother Jones (motherjones.com) in their database for potential ASD features. This exercise tentatively suggests evidence of ASD in six of 73 included cases (8%) which is ten times higher when compared to the prevalence of ASD found in the general population worldwide (motherjones.com). The 8% figure for individuals with ASD involved mass killings is a conservative estimate. In addition to the six cases which provide the 8% figure, there were 15 other cases with some indication of ASD. Crucially, ASD may influence, but does not cause, an individual to commit extreme violent acts such as a mass shooting episode

Safe School Initiative: An Interim Report on the Prevention of Targeted Violence in Schools

Personnel from the Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) studied 37 school shootings, involving 41 attackers who were current or recent students at the schools. Shootings clearly related to gang or involved with a relationship dispute that just happened to occur at school were not included. This report presents the preliminary findings from analysis of the behavior and thinking of these school shooters. It determined that most incidents of targeted violence are rarely impulsive. Attacks are typically the results of an understandable and discernable process of thinking and behavior. Prior to the incident, the attacker told someone about his idea, although there is not an accurate profile of the school shooter. Most attackers had access to guns. In many cases, other students were involved in some capacity, and bullying played a key role in the attack. Most attackers engaged in some kind of behavior prior to the incident that caused others concern or indicated a need for help. The report suggests that a significant step in prevention is not only to identify students who are plotting an attack, but determine how best to respond to students who are already known to be in trouble