When it comes to mass shootings at school, there is one thing that most have in common, said Lisa Rapp-McCall, a professor in the graduate social work program at Saint Leo University.
“The vast majority end in the shooter’s suicide,” the professor told a crowd at a conference for social workers at Saint Leo University on March 11.
Rapp-McCall’s presentation, “Mass Shootings: What are we doing wrong? Where to we go from here,” provided conference-goers a deep look at the issue, using information the professor gleaned from FBI reports, Secret Service reports, other researchers’ information and studies.
(B.C. Manion/Staff Photo)
The professor also drew on knowledge attained through her own experience when she worked with juvenile offenders and youth with mental health issues while she was a practicing social worker in Buffalo, N.Y.
The truth is that it’s difficult to research mass shooting cases that occur at school because they are rare events, and because the shooter is typically dead, Rapp-McCall said, beginning her presentation with the FBI’s definition of a mass shooting at school.
“The FBI defines a school mass shooting as a first-degree multiple homicide involving four or more victims,” she said. By that definition, there have been nine school mass shootings in the past 20 years.
But, that doesn’t count the events where multiple people are shot, but fewer than four die, she said. By that broader definition, the number of mass shooting incidents would double.
Rapp-McCall also went over some myths about mass shootings at schools:
- School violence is an epidemic
- All school shooters are loners and alike
- These are impulsive acts
- Easy access to guns is the No. 1 contributor
- School shooters are easy to identify
While not an epidemic, the incidents are serious and work needs to be done to reduce the potential for these occurrences, Rapp-McCall said. And, while some may think they’re impulsive acts, they tend to be carefully planned and scripted, she added.
While much more research is needed, there are some clues, including the risk factors for school shooters. Those include:
- Seventy-five percent have attempted suicide
- They have been rejected by peers; or, if they have friends, they’re engaged in unhealthy behaviors
- They are disconnected from school and are withdrawn
- They have been bullied, humiliated, gay-baited
- They collect injustices, feel victimized, may be paranoid
- They have access to weapons
- They’re fascinated by weapons
There are also risk factors in families, Rapp-McCall said. There tends to be a lack of intimacy and cohesion in the home. The youth is allowed to be withdrawn. There’s access to weapons. And, the family often appears to be afraid of the youth.
There is no easy fix for the problem, Rapp-McCall said, noting it will take concerted and sustained efforts to address this complex issue.
Better coordination of services and more communication between providers would help, she said. In some cases, a problem could be spotted and addressed much earlier, if people were talking to each other, she said.
She’d like to see more social workers hired to coordinate multiple services.
“Parents shouldn’t be case managers. They don’t know how to be case managers,” she said.
“All of these families, at one point or another, sought help,” Rapp-McCall said. “They weren’t really given a lot of help.”
She also thinks parents need more guidance about what to do when their child is withdrawn.
“It is OK to get them out of their room?
“Yes. Please do.
“Is it OK to go looking in their room, when they’re not there?
“Yes. Please do,” she said.
She also said schools must do more to reduce the potential for incidents.
There are also risk factors at schools, she said. Those include a pecking order, where certain groups of students are favored; a code of silence, where kids know what’s going on but won’t tell anyone; and, a culture that allows bullying to occur.
To address those issues, schools must ensure that activities are inclusive, she said. The pecking order must be abolished. And, codes of silence must be broken.
Schools need ongoing teams to maintain a healthy climate and culture, she said. That team should meet regularly, and it should include students, teachers, staff, coaches, parents, guidance counselors, school nurses and social workers, she said.
Students must be taught that they can’t be bystanders when bullying occurs.
“With our technology, there certainly could be an anonymous number that you could text to say, ‘Someone is getting bullied behind the cafeteria right now’,” she said.
More research is needed, Rapp-McCall said, particularly in the arena of young male depression.
“Where is the data? Where is the research? Who’s studying this? Who’s talking about this?
“Little, very little, has been written or researched about male depression and male suicide,” Rapp-McCall said.
Published March 16, 2016
