This may seem totally out of place but I just randomly found you from a comment like and I think our areas of interest are strongly aligned. Care to email me? I just subscribed.
This makes some things more clear, since not everything written has been correct and much has come out in dribs and drabs. Unfortunately, every school district needs to take a forceful stance on plans for this type of occurrence. Picking this situation apart will give other schools a better idea of what is needed. Thanks for the effort and information.
I strongly disagree with NOT naming shooters or other criminals. The public has a RIGHT to know about these crimes including details of identity. Many people undoubtedly had various interactions with the criminals which may provide significant information. People not in law enforcement have frequently found or heard public statements or posts by these criminals that provide more information into what happened. Some people may also know about activities that the criminal or his associates engaged in that the police are unaware of that may still be a threat in their neighborhoods.
Additionally hiding identification can fuel racial or other rumors about the incident that may not be true or not fully true causing a distortion in the picture.
Maybe some want to get their name in the paper, but that doesn't trump the community's right to know about them.
- The public’s right to know is always balanced by public harm. We have *emphatic* evidence that gaining notoriety is a central goal of mass shooters. And the harm of each shooting is obviously immense.
- Can you provide an example or two of a school shooter’s name being made public surfacing useful info *that was not trivially available to investigators through normal means*? I’m not aware of any.
- I’m similarly unaware of any cases of school shooters having “associates” that were identified by their naming (or just in general). By type, school shooters are notorious loners. Like we had the Columbine guys, but they acted together in an obvious way.
- The racism part may be true to a point. But (a) that specific bit of info, if deemed highly relevant, could be selectively released without naming or identifying the shooter, and (b) it is generally bad policy to fail to act on real/known/severe harms out of fear of possible harms that, if they prove to be real, can be trivially remedied.
That whole 'public good' argument is based on the highly questionable premise (not at all proven) that putting a name in the paper is causing a real threat to others. Taken to its logical conclusion, than the entire crime should be covered up because even an unnamed attacker can be considered a 'model' and inspiration for a future incident. Do you think that censorship of the name of a bomber or shooter would make people less likely to emulate it? Is there any real science behind that?
The truth is, these guys come from a neighborhood. They often went to that school. Many people may even have had arguments with them. You are arguing that they don't have the right to know? If people start trying to guess who used to be around and now 'hasn't been seen in a while', will people not try to guess, and perhaps wrongly? Could it also fuel some peoples' racism by assuming the race/nationality of the offender? If a shooter from the school killed people in my kids school, I would absolutely want to know who that was. I think you would too.
If the police have not captured the offender should the withhold his name? And if that is the case, should the capture or death of the shooter change how things are handled?
How about other crimes? Gang executions, for example. Should we withhold their names for fear of copycats?
- We have *excellent* evidence that notoriety is a powerful motivator: many of the shooters are explicit on that point in their writing! As this one was! Just look at all his texts! Otherwise extrapolation to absurdity. And lastly the best way to know with scientific certainty is to run a test! Let’s try it and see what happens, not judge it as futile in advance *in direct opposition to the preponderance of evidence that these people all talk at length about their desire to be infamous*.
- Locals will often know. It would be impossible for word not to spread within the community. That’s fine. But to the metapoint: no, I don’t think the community has a right to know that outweighs the larger harms. Social curiosity, however common and powerful, is not a matter of civic urgency!
- Racism thing already addressed.
- If there’s a live manhunt involving an active shooter, of course that changes things! The public right to know skyrockets! But there have been very few of those involving school shooters, or indeed mass shooters of any kind. It’s no harm to the general theory to allow for extremely pragmatic exceptions!
Chiming in as someone who was in the vacinity of the Christchurch Terrorist attack, and lived with the consequences of a horrible shooting in a devestated country - We absolutely should not name these ego maniacs - a big part of their motivation is to achive notoriety. By and large and by defination, they are social outcasts and a shooting is, in their mind, the most fame the could ever claim.
By never naming them, except as a "white male deranged terrorist", we rob them of a huge part of their motivation for a shooting spree.
It made me so angry when I saw other countries allowing their press to name our terrorist and give him the notoriety he sought.
This may seem totally out of place but I just randomly found you from a comment like and I think our areas of interest are strongly aligned. Care to email me? I just subscribed.
Feel free to shoot an email to jeremiahmarnold at gmail
You use "breech" when you meant "breach" in lots of spots, might want to fix that.
Facepalm. Thanks for flagging!
This makes some things more clear, since not everything written has been correct and much has come out in dribs and drabs. Unfortunately, every school district needs to take a forceful stance on plans for this type of occurrence. Picking this situation apart will give other schools a better idea of what is needed. Thanks for the effort and information.
I strongly disagree with NOT naming shooters or other criminals. The public has a RIGHT to know about these crimes including details of identity. Many people undoubtedly had various interactions with the criminals which may provide significant information. People not in law enforcement have frequently found or heard public statements or posts by these criminals that provide more information into what happened. Some people may also know about activities that the criminal or his associates engaged in that the police are unaware of that may still be a threat in their neighborhoods.
Additionally hiding identification can fuel racial or other rumors about the incident that may not be true or not fully true causing a distortion in the picture.
Maybe some want to get their name in the paper, but that doesn't trump the community's right to know about them.
Appreciate the comment.
In some order:
- The public’s right to know is always balanced by public harm. We have *emphatic* evidence that gaining notoriety is a central goal of mass shooters. And the harm of each shooting is obviously immense.
- Can you provide an example or two of a school shooter’s name being made public surfacing useful info *that was not trivially available to investigators through normal means*? I’m not aware of any.
- I’m similarly unaware of any cases of school shooters having “associates” that were identified by their naming (or just in general). By type, school shooters are notorious loners. Like we had the Columbine guys, but they acted together in an obvious way.
- The racism part may be true to a point. But (a) that specific bit of info, if deemed highly relevant, could be selectively released without naming or identifying the shooter, and (b) it is generally bad policy to fail to act on real/known/severe harms out of fear of possible harms that, if they prove to be real, can be trivially remedied.
That whole 'public good' argument is based on the highly questionable premise (not at all proven) that putting a name in the paper is causing a real threat to others. Taken to its logical conclusion, than the entire crime should be covered up because even an unnamed attacker can be considered a 'model' and inspiration for a future incident. Do you think that censorship of the name of a bomber or shooter would make people less likely to emulate it? Is there any real science behind that?
The truth is, these guys come from a neighborhood. They often went to that school. Many people may even have had arguments with them. You are arguing that they don't have the right to know? If people start trying to guess who used to be around and now 'hasn't been seen in a while', will people not try to guess, and perhaps wrongly? Could it also fuel some peoples' racism by assuming the race/nationality of the offender? If a shooter from the school killed people in my kids school, I would absolutely want to know who that was. I think you would too.
If the police have not captured the offender should the withhold his name? And if that is the case, should the capture or death of the shooter change how things are handled?
How about other crimes? Gang executions, for example. Should we withhold their names for fear of copycats?
- We have *excellent* evidence that notoriety is a powerful motivator: many of the shooters are explicit on that point in their writing! As this one was! Just look at all his texts! Otherwise extrapolation to absurdity. And lastly the best way to know with scientific certainty is to run a test! Let’s try it and see what happens, not judge it as futile in advance *in direct opposition to the preponderance of evidence that these people all talk at length about their desire to be infamous*.
- Locals will often know. It would be impossible for word not to spread within the community. That’s fine. But to the metapoint: no, I don’t think the community has a right to know that outweighs the larger harms. Social curiosity, however common and powerful, is not a matter of civic urgency!
- Racism thing already addressed.
- If there’s a live manhunt involving an active shooter, of course that changes things! The public right to know skyrockets! But there have been very few of those involving school shooters, or indeed mass shooters of any kind. It’s no harm to the general theory to allow for extremely pragmatic exceptions!
- Other crimes are sui generis.
Chiming in as someone who was in the vacinity of the Christchurch Terrorist attack, and lived with the consequences of a horrible shooting in a devestated country - We absolutely should not name these ego maniacs - a big part of their motivation is to achive notoriety. By and large and by defination, they are social outcasts and a shooting is, in their mind, the most fame the could ever claim.
By never naming them, except as a "white male deranged terrorist", we rob them of a huge part of their motivation for a shooting spree.
It made me so angry when I saw other countries allowing their press to name our terrorist and give him the notoriety he sought.