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Researchers Claim They Can ‘Catch’ Mass Shooters Before They Carry Out Acts Of Violence

Screenshot/Twitter/FaceTheNation

Kay Smythe News and Commentary Writer
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Dr. Jillian Peterson, co-founder of The Violence Project, told “Face The Nation” host John Dickerson that her research suggests that they can “catch people” before they commit mass shootings.

In a clip shared on Twitter, Dickerson asked Peterson, “one of the things you’ve written is that to change the mindset about the way we think about the shooters, that they are us, so how does that help in these moments of crisis? Where for example, would you seek a policy intervention? If you change that mindset, if that’s the first step?”

“Yeah, I think we tend to think of the perpetrators who do this as just these evil monsters kind of lurking out there. And of course, what they do is monstrous. But before they do it, they are our classmates, our nieces or nephews, our neighbors, they’re children going to the school,” Peterson replied, before noting that, “These tend to be insiders, not outsiders.”

Peterson argued that her research shows that “the most likely perpetrator of a school shooting is in the classroom,” before noting that there are “signs of a crisis, to notice when people are leaking their plans or talking about this kind of violence or talking about suicide.” A recent example of such information could be the texts reportedly tied to the Uvalde, Texas mass shooter who recently murdered 21 people, including 19 children.

Multiple outlets shared screenshots of the direct messages sent by the shooter to another social media user in which he shared images of guns, ABC reported. (RELATED: 10 Killed In Buffalo Supermarket Mass Shooting)

“And so our research really points to things like suicide prevention and crisis intervention training, building crisis response teams in schools and workplaces and having some of those systems in place to catch people before they do this,” Peterson concluded in the clip. Peterson’s colleague, Dr. James Densley, noted that the “measures that we would take to prevent mass shootings” also have a number of benefits, and can help any student struggling in the classroom, according to CBS News.