FBI expert: school killers hard to identify in advance

A lecture hall full of Finnish officials, researchers, and representatives of local authorities and educational institutions listened attentively on Thursday to a lecture by visiting US expert Mary Ellen O’Toole of the FBI on identifying potential school killers.
     The seminar, organised by the Ministry of Education and Helsingin Sanomat, focussed on school safety.
     The same topic is being discussed today, Friday, at a seminar of the Finnish Save the Children organisation, where professionals working with children and young people will hear lectures by experts from the United States.
     
O’Toole’s message was that it is impossible to draw up a reliable profile to identify a killer in advance.
     However, there are things that would need attention. School killers tend to prepare their actions well in advance, dropping hints to friends, and even to their families that something is afoot.
     After a school shooting has taken place, people who have been in contact with the perpetrator have been interviewed extensively, including school bus drivers, for instance. Much information has been gleaned that parents or teachers had never noticed or understood.
     Mary Ellen O’Toole emphasised that kids can say that they hate school and the whole world, and that nobody understands them. It is hard to recognise how serious such comments are.
     Many school pupils can do very crazy things without being up to perpetrating a massacre.
     Mary Ellen O’Toole says that a police officer, who has been in extensive contact with criminals, might be able to recognise the danger signs better than teachers.
     
School shootings do not happen at whim. A pupil might behave normally at school, and even give the impression of enjoying it.
     Mary Ellen O’Toole also advised experts dealing with the media frenzy that follows a school killing to keep in mind that the message will go out to tens, or hundreds of millions of viewers, including new potential perpetrators.
     
The same issue was taken up by Helsingin Sanomat editor Reetta Meriläinen at a press conference held in connection with the seminar.
     She said that he school killings in Kauhajoki last year and Jokela in 2007 were the most difficult events to report on in her career.
     The task of the press is to disseminate information to the people on the school killings, but it has to happen in style that does not encourage new acts of violence.
      Stewart W. Twemlow, a professor of psychiatry in Texas, says that risks of school violence can be exacerbated by factors in the home such as drug and alcohol use by the parents, a lack of interest by the parents in the children’s interests, and marital problems.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Police officer in Kauhajoki shooting case to be charged with negligence (27.1.2009)
  No indication that police action prompted Saari to move up Kauhajoki attack (29.9.2008)
  Eleven die in shooting bloodbath (24.9.2008)
  Auvinen sought to inflict maximum damage in Jokela shootings (18.4.2008)
  Jokela gunman spent months planning massacre (17.4.2008)
  Gunman and eight others die in school shooting spree (8.11.2007)