Transcripts For CSPAN2 Secret Service News Conference On 201

CSPAN2 Secret Service News Conference On 2018 Mass Attacks In Public Spaces Report July 14, 2024

Especially those of us in Law Enforcement thank you for joining us here today showing support and helping the secret Service Continue to bring attention to this critically important subject. Back in the 1990s the secret service have been involved in Threat Management embarked on a comprehensive study as to the thinking and behavior of persons who engage in violence against Public Officials and public figures. The results of the study said the foundation for how the agency currently conducts its own threat assessment and moreover in the wake of the report that followed back then it was too more broadly conduct research and deliver training and provide consultation and areas of threat assessment and whether they are endemic to the secret service mission. Since its inception, theyve conducted numerous studies on how to prevent mass attacks in public spaces, schoolbased violence, attacks on government buildings and highprofile targets. In a moment, im going to invite the chief up to provide further on this years report and the effort, but before i did i want to cover some highlights that are worthy of noting and bear repeating it focuses on 27 incidences of Mass Violence. We talk about incidents in which three or more people were killed or injured and incidents that were carried out in public spaces between january and december of 2018 and among the incidents we are talking about events that took place at workplace and houses of worship. In addition, the report goes on to identify common theme in the background and behavior of the attackers. For example, half of the attackers were motivated by the grievance and two thirds of thea history of Mental Health challenges. Nearly all had recently experienced a second stressor in their lives and likewise nearly all had made alarming communications directed toward somebody were made in the presence of others. While there is no single profile of the person that has violence, this report what others published aims to assist partners in Law Enforcement, education and arenas into so many other broad stakeholders in the community and how to better understand the motivations behind the attacks as well as the factors. I think them for their hard work and im proud of what theyve accomplished and i encourage everyone to take advantage of the resources theyve created, the training they deliver and consultation they provide. All that being said, id like to ask the chief to come up and provide some further information. I know you just received the report and some of the talking point so i will take you through some of the findings of the report and as to why the secret service in this space and to some of the other reports we published. All the information is available on the secret service. Gov website. In the first slide of these are very poor the secret service has been analyzing from the beginning of the case study project sets the standard to doe threat and and claimed the term violence. He conducted research on numerous other types for the department of education to study School Attacks based on the same methodology the secret service uses two and instigate and stuy cases and individuals that targets Public Officials. The findings of the study for the initiative sets the standard for conducting threat assessments in school. Since then weve continued at the Center Advanced its Resource Mission to study other forms of targeted violence including attacks against government and against public spaces such as the report of todays presentation. Enhancing school safetenhances t assessment model the guide produced 80,000 copies and distributed to 40,000 schools nationwide and set the standard for this at threat assessment for the particles to keep their communities safe. If we go to the next slide, today we are going to be talking about the report including the 2018 and 2018 these attacks occurred in 18 different states. Some of them are high profile incidents suchighprofileincidef parkland and santa fe but others are lesserknown incidents that may not have garnered as much Media Attention but no less tragic. These are the sites, the most common thacommon that were targe places of work, so that doesnt include just corporations were retail, it also includes hospital, clinic, any place we were for the government agency. Some of the target som target le open spaces, for those occurred in the sidewalks and other common spaces in last years report we also had some Elementary Schools into this year we have three high schools in the house of worship which is the tree of synagogue attack. Next slide. So, this is why we highlight the focus of the training on the threat assessment and preventi prevention. We know studying these incidents that these attacks and very rapidly. As you can see over half the attacks there were some that did end any longer. No of time and those are an aberration. We know that Law Enforcement response and active shooter drills but even more, we want to be able to identify these individuals before they embark on the path that gets them to think violence is an action. You can see some of the resolution how they ended over half the subjects departed on their own or committed suicide. The living became an operable and that includes a few gold attacks because there were some vehicle attacks in the time frame and they were the result of the bystander intervention. When was the waffle house shooting which an unarmed bystanders restrained the individual and then in the last attack the attackers off on his own and tried to blend in that he was discovered. Lets talk a little bit about the background of the perpetrators every report that we produce not only looks at incidents and tactics but most importantly, the individuals that carry out these attacks to understand why and what behavior indicators they make. In this report, the majority were male, lost all of them except for two. Last year they were all male. The average age of easy as 15, a sophomore that carry out an attack against the school. The age range varies. About half have histories of criminal history and that included violent and nonviolent crime and also over a third had historhistory of domestic violed when we tagged the cases that had this history, this wasnt just emotional abuse, it was actually physically violent behavior brandishing a weapon so they had seriou syrias extensie histories of domestic violence. In terms of Mental Illness, we handed the majorithad the majors of seasonal were paranoid, delusion, hallucinations. Those were sometimes we see as an agency in terms of people who become fixated on the issue they have Mental Health systems that deeply impacted relationships whether they elicited concerns, and for some of them and contributed to the mode of why they carried out the attack. In terms of the motives, only half coming inthalftime and we t years report we are retaliating for the wrong that they felt was done to them related to domestic issues so it was a grievance with a spouse or intimate partner. It was related to workplace issues such as being fired, passed over for promotion or other issues related to the work environment. Were it was personal issues whereas losing a videogame competition because there was one attacker that targeted that you can see the motives very and in only two incidents at an actual ideological component and that was antiabortion at a pair into the clinic and also the synagogue stemming from white supremacist beliefs do ea pulleys to be so. We work closely with Community Partners to do so in terms of the National Threat Assessment Center as the director mentioned we have a congressional authorization to the mission, not only to enhance our own agencys security and protective mission but also the communities in terms of preventing attacks against schools and workplaces the key is identifying individuals early on before they get that idea to carry out. If you move through this, the threat assessment model for the last 20 years has been refined to adapted other attacks in the community. The first step of the model is we want to be able to identify individuals. Similar to how we identify individuals, we want to be able to identify these individuals in the community. Moving on. Okay so this is how they come to our attention. How do people raise concern about someone who might be afterwards engaging in an attack or someone who might just be eliciting the concerning behavior, either self identified where they bring attention to themselves, the email, for us they would show up at a protected site with the white house or we get it from our partners. Our partners in the communities at the news article somebody may be making a threat or displaying a significant and appropriate interest in one of our agencies and that is what would cause the investigation a lot of communities in the states are putting threat assessment programs and protocols in place so that people can report the concerning individuals so that person can get the help they need before they come to think violence is an option. Now that weve identified the individuals it is to be able to gather information from articles forces to assist of a pose a risk of harm and would do they pose. Our investigations are proactive. Its our number one Investigative Missions within minutes we find out about somebody, we want to be out there gathering information. For the first part, the individuals could be the person we interviewed because we want to find out why didnt they engage in the behavior of elicited concerns and what are they trying to achieve and then we contact the individuals around them into a whole holistic approach. We are talking to families, coworkers. We want to be able to understand what is the situation in life that caused the person concerns and the same in the School Threat assessment environment, same in a company that has a Workplace Violence Prevention Program you want to be gathering information from multiple sources to get a clear picture of whats going on in their life. Because we know some people may act differently at work or in the home so you want to be able to gather a perspective on that person and corroborate that information from multiple sources. When they get someone in the community, what should they be looking for . These key themes of investigation have been part of our investigative protocols for 20 years since a case study project was first initiated by the agency in the 1990s. Since the number of reports and the number of attacks that we studied from out there doing training for the communities, from identifying best practices, we identify the number that our park now our investigative protocols so that includes behavior changes in the environment. Behavior changes, whether that person is engaged in behavior changes because we are seeing the behaviors in the new incident of attacks. Are they having difficulties with coworkers, Family Members, schools, other students and so e salon at the schools. Are they having failed aspirations, have there been a Significant Impact having to feel aspirational life weve seen up quite significantly in terms of perceived failures and for this individual was going through is there a lack of consequences to some of the behaviors. Some of these individuals have elicited concern for behavior that was quite concerning, but they may not have elicited the consequences to reprimand them. Maybe they did not com not, then didnt want to press charges against them or maybe in a Workplace Environment theyve been causing him of conflicts, coworkers threatening them withe manager isnt acting, so these are the kind of things we seen lately in these incidents having hindsight in 2020 for us to understand these and then, this is why we are out there training on us to provide the community with whats behaviors might elicit concerns. Maybe they are accessing sites that are more violent proud. Before it gets to the obvious concern and behavioral planning we want to identify individuals early to deter them off that path. Our investigation may uncover the risks of disclosing the tv they are making comments or disgruntled list or comments about their manager and workplace, so we want to make sure that we are communicating our concern to the local police department. Our field office agent t had carried out the assessment work closely with our Law Enforcement partners. We want to find out what can we do to create a situation less prone to violence and what can we do to lessen the impact of whats going on in that persons life and what do we do to take away the motives that they may have for engaging in a harmful act each case is different and is individualized sweeney to make sure we are garnering the resources which is why we work so closely with families and those around the individuals. Advance to the next slide, please. These are some of the management strategies. Our field Office Agents are working closely and closely with local Law Enforcement they are working to address the persons needs. The number one thing that is important those are the people we are concerned about and we want to make sure their families are also getting the support they need. There are a lot of considerations that we put in terms of the findings of the report. Not every person was experiencing Mental Health symptoms and it isnt a barometer of danger but if someone is mentally ill and having all these other issues going on in their lives, we want to make sure that they are getting the care they need. Some individuals may not have a psychiatric disorder but may be experiencing emotional issues and they have anger issues. They may have been an ability to handle stress and conflict in the salon we want to make sure we are providing the resources they need as well. The number one important thing we would like to encourage the community to share their concerns about individuals whether it is a loved one, classmate, someone they are working with because we want to make sure that person is getting help but if they are sharing their concern, then it is incumbent on the authority to act on those concerns whether it is Law Enforcement, workplace manager, school administrator, we want to make sure if we are encouraging them to share concerns that we are being proactive about acting on those and getting the help they need, using that Key Secret Service system approach to gather information and manage the risk. That is all i have in terms of reports. Thank you for being here and if you have any questions. What is striking about this similarity, what kind of intervention there are challenges of course i have to say that even in these cases once we delve into backgrounds there are incidences where they have their concerns and thats where we have encouraged the communities so they act on that concerns the Law Enforcement is getting a report about an individual to make sure they are considering it from a threat assessment perspective, if a School Manager is getting a reports from other coworkers or employees about their concerns for that individual that they are acting on it but the communities need those resources and training to not only recognize the behavior but what to do to followup on that assessment piece and that is what the secret service does. We are doing the training and encouraging information sharing and people to understand what are the warning signs and what can they do about it. I wondered if you could elaborate a little bit more about the perpetrators spinnaker there were three high schools targeted in this report. We are also currently right now as a part of our response to the redoubling our efforts after the tragedy of parkland and also in support of the federal commission on safety we are doing annual research right now. There are three incident incidee report and some of the commonalities that we have seen some of the problems in their lives and its still a big thing we are seeing is still a perception its about the perception of what they are going through. Its maybe not necessarily a direct threat indicating they may have an interest in School Shooters and interest and other incidents of Mass Violence comes with that is the common themes particularly in the use of tax. [inaudible] speaking in terms of the research or the actual investigation to School Attack study that we are doing there was no social media back then it was released in 2002 so right now the big component we are looking at the social media. For the agency and investigating cases obviously we get a lot of information from citizens online. Sometimes its a frightening interest and sometimes it is an appropriate interest and for the people that are shoving fixation, we have seen this in the report, they are fixated on the calls and issue a person and that behavior escalates over time so some of the things to look out for if you are monitoring social behavior and getting the reports of us to loothis tolook at the context oe postings but also the Systems Approach to be able to gather information from multiple sources to see is this an aberration or a theme throughout their life, because if they are writing about it online, they are talking about it to people as well. How have you worked with the fbi streamlining their own efforts and any tests with them moving forward. We have been working on following the tragedy. There was a Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing that i justified along with the Deputy Director of the fbi and one of the things we discussed following the hearing as having been trained to operators on how to identify

© 2025 Vimarsana