"An urgent read that illuminates real possibility for change." --John
Carreyrou, New York Times bestselling author of Bad Blood
For the first time, a story about the specialized teams of forensic
psychologists, FBI agents, and other experts who are successfully
stopping mass shootings--a hopeful, myth-busting narrative built on new
details of infamous attacks, never-before-told accounts from
perpetrators and survivors, and real-time immersion in confidential
threat cases, casting a whole new light on how to solve an ongoing
national crisis.
It's time to go beyond all the thoughts and prayers, misguided blame on
mental illness, and dug-in disputes over the Second Amendment. Through
meticulous reporting and panoramic storytelling, award-winning
journalist Mark Follman chronicles the decades-long search for
identifiable profiles of mass shooters and brings readers inside a
groundbreaking method for preventing devastating attacks. The emerging
field of behavioral threat assessment, with its synergy of mental health
and law enforcement expertise, focuses on circumstances and behaviors
leading up to planned acts of violence--warning signs that offer a
chance for constructive intervention before it's too late.
Beginning with the pioneering study in the late 1970s of "criminally
insane" assassins and the stalking behaviors discovered after the murder
of John Lennon and the shooting of Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s,
Follman traces how the field of behavioral threat assessment first grew
out of Secret Service investigations and FBI serial-killer hunting. Soon
to be revolutionized after the tragedies at Columbine and Virginia Tech,
and expanded further after Sandy Hook and Parkland, the method is used
increasingly today to thwart attacks brewing within American
communities.
As Follman examines threat-assessment work throughout the country, he
goes inside the FBI's elite Behavioral Analysis Unit and immerses in an
Oregon school district's innovative violence-prevention program, the
first such comprehensive system to prioritize helping kids and avoid
relying on punitive measures. With its focus squarely on progress, the
story delves into consequential tragedies and others averted, revealing
the dangers of cultural misunderstanding and media sensationalism along
the way. Ultimately, Follman shows how the nation could adopt the
techniques of behavioral threat assessment more broadly, with powerful
potential to save lives.
Eight years in the making, Trigger Points illuminates a way forward at
a time when the failure to prevent mass shootings has never been more
costly--and the prospects for stopping them never more promising.
