U. S. Secret Service

In response to the Virginia Tech incident on April 16, 2007, former cabinet Secretaries Michael Leavitt and Margaret Spellings, and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales submitted the Report to the President on Issues Raised by the Virginia Tech Tragedy dated June 13, 2007. The report included a recommendation that the U. S. Secret Service (Secret Service), the U. S. Department of Education, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) explore the issue of violence at institutions of higher education (IHEs). Accordingly, we initiated a collaborative effort to understand the nature of this violence and identify ways of preventing future attacks that would affect our nation's colleges and universities.

Threat assessment or protective intelligence is the process of gathering and assessing information about persons who may have the interest, motive, intention, and capability of mounting attacks against public officials and figures. Gauging the potential threat to and vulnerability of a targeted individual is key to preventing violence. Among criminal justice functions, threat assessmentholds great promise for determining vulnerability and guiding interventions in potentially lethal situations. The primary goal of every protective intelligence investigation is to prevent an attack on a potential target. By using a combination of investigative skill, corroboration, and common sense, a protective intelligence investigator can gather the information and evidence to make a thoughtful assessment of the threat an individual may pose to a target. Once an assessment is made, a plancan be developed and implemented to monitor the individual and to intervene, as appropriate, to prevent an attack. Attention to the individual's motives and attack-related behaviors and to thesystems (family, work, community, criminal justice, mental health, and social services) that the individual is involved with are key to assessing and managing a potential threat.

Littleton, CO; Springfield, OR; West Paducah, KY; Jonesboro, AR. These communities have become familiar to many Americans as among the locations of those schools where shootings have occurred nationwide in recent years. In the aftermath of these tragic events, educators, law enforcement officials, mental health professionals and parents have pressed for answers to two central questions: "Could we have known that these attacks were being planned?" and, if so, "What could we have done to prevent these attacks from occurring?" This publication, The Final Report and Findings of the Safe School Initiative: Implications for the Prevention of School Attacks in the United States, is a recent product of an ongoing collaboration between the U. S. Secret Service and the U. S. Department of Education to begin to answer these questions. It is the culmination of an extensive examination of 37 incidents of targeted school violence that occurred in the United States from December 1974 through May 2000. The findings of the Safe School Initiative suggest that there are productive actions that educators, law enforcement officials, and others can pursue in response to the problem of targeted school violence. Specifically, Initiative findings suggest that these officials may wish to consider focusing their efforts to formulate strategies for preventing these attacks in two principal areas: - developing the capacity to pick up on and evaluate available or knowable information that might indicate that there is a risk of a targeted school attack; and, - employing the results of these risk evaluations or "threat assessments" in developing strategies to prevent potential school attacks from occurring. Support for these suggestions is found in 10 key findings of the Safe School Initiative study. These findings are as follows: - Incidents of targeted violence at school rarely were sudden, impulsive acts. - Prior to most incidents, other people knew about the attacker's idea and/or plan to attack. - Most attackers did not threaten their targets directly prior to advancing the attack. - There is no accurate or useful "profile" of students who engaged in targeted school violence. - Most attackers engaged in some behavior prior to the incident that caused others concern or indicated a need for help. - Most attackers had difficulty coping with significant losses or personal failures. Moreover, many had considered or attempted suicide. - Many attackers felt bullied, persecuted, or injured by others prior to the attack. - Most attackers had access to and had used weapons prior to the attack. - In many cases, other students were involved in some capacity. - Despite prompt law enforcement responses, most shooting incidents were stopped by means other than law enforcement intervention.