A note to the reader. I started this blog on an airplane heading home to San Diego from school safety speaking engagement on a Friday evening. Before I could finish the blog, another school Active Assailant killing culminating in a teen suicide occurred the following Monday morning, December 16, 2024, in Madison Wisconsin. We can all predict there will be more teen suicides and more school Active Assailant attacks in the U.S. and elsewhere. This is the reason for the title and content of this blog.

Lessons from Music and Prevention

A singer named Marvin Lee Aday released a song in 1994 titled “Objects In The Rearview Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are.” He later changed his first name to Michael, but he’s better known as Meat Loaf. I love that song.

That same year, as a Sergeant with the Reno Police Department, I attended a training seminar put on by California Highway Patrol Captain Gordon Graham. The title of his presentation was “What’s Predictable Is Preventable.” I love that concept.

Fast forward 30 years, and I’ve combined the song and the concept in order to address school killings. First, we have to stop looking in the rearview mirror, because we know we’re being tailgated by the next shooting or mass casualty incident. If we keep looking backward at the last one to see what we missed instead of looking forward to see what we can do to prevent the next one, we’ll always be looking in the rearview mirror instead of through the windshield.

The Pathway to Violence and Its Warning Signs

Most school killings can be prevented through early intervention into at-risk behavior. And guess what. If we’re intervening early into at-risk teen behavior, we’re also intervening into teen suicide and school killings. The answer is there. We just have to take what’s in the rearview mirror and use it to steer us in the right direction to start looking forward. That’s how we’ll beat this.

I started working with my friends and colleagues at Safer Schools Together Inc. (www.SaferSchoolsTogether.com) when I was with my school district in 2010. They taught me there is a “Pathway To Violence” for at-risk youths that starts at an early age and progresses over a period of time. This told me that the at-risk behavior is predictable, so based on what Gordon Graham taught me, I knew the fluidity from suicidal ideation to homicidal acts was preventable. So, putting everything I learned from Meat Loaf, Gordon Graham, and founder of Safer Schools Together Theresa Campbell into one concept, I came up with a way to move forward with school safety and safe school culture and climate. And possibly avert school killings along the way

I’m a big believer in visualization, so I’ll use that here. Think of the Pathway To Violence as the main road leading through your town. It’s a two-lane road with turn lanes at every intersection. You’re driving down the road in an SUV with six passengers in your car. The first intersection is with a street called Risk Enhancer Rd. There is a flashing yellow sign saying “Caution, Dangerous Curves Ahead. This a 4-way stop sign intersection, but you’re in a hurry so you roll through it and continue down the road without paying much attention to what’s to the left or the right. Your front seat passenger asks if you should slow down and get ready for any dangerous situations, but you tell them you’re in a hurry so don’t worry about it. In your haste, you speed by the flashing sign that reads “Perceived Grievances and Injustices” without paying attention to it.

The next intersection is at a street called Suicidal Ideation Way. There is a red light at the intersection with a flashing yellow sign advising you to turn back and take a detour, because there are hazards ahead. But you’re in a hurry, so you continue driving forward to make your final destination. You pass by the intersection of Planning St., then drive through Preparation Valley without slowing or stopping. There are multiple flashing caution signs along the way and plenty of opportunities to turn off the Pathway To Violence, but you’re in a hurry to get to your destination, so you pay no attention to all the warning signs on the Pathway to Violence and just keep driving forward.

All the signs were there to tell you to slow down, be cautious, and steer off the Pathway to Violence, but you didn’t see them because you were focused on your final destination. Everyone in your car saw the signs and were worried about your behavior as the driver, but they chose not to intervene. Unfortunately, there is a brick wall at the end of the Pathway to Violence with the words “Violent Act” painted on it. Since you ignored all the warning signs on the Pathway to Violence, and your passengers chose not to intervene into your behavior, you slam into the wall at 100 miles per hour because no one saw it coming. There are no survivors from your car, but after the accident, everyone who knew you said they always knew you’d end up like this, but they just didn’t do anything to get you help.

This visual is in no way intended to trivialize suicidal or homicidal behavior. The opposite is true. It is meant to illustrate there are indicators of at-risk behavior that are there if we just take the time to look for them. We see this in every case of school killings. To quote my colleague Theresa Campbell, “The data is always there, and data doesn’t lie.” There are multiple steps to the Pathway to Violence, but specialized training is needed in order to identify them. Once identified, a plan has to be in place for assessing the behavior and taking steps for intervention prior to escalation to suicide or violent acts.

The steps on the Pathway to Violence start with Risk Enhancers, to include perceived grievances and injustices. This then moves to suicidal ideation, planning, and preparation for the suicide or violent act. The final outcome, if there is no intervention, is the actual violent act. With school killings, we often see the homicidal acts culminating in suicide either by the suspect themselves, or in what we call “Suicide by Cop.”

Intervention Saves Lives

Teen suicide intervention was a priority project for me during the nine years I was with my school district. I can vividly recall the face of every teen suicide victim I saw during my 25 years in law enforcement. There were a lot of them, and they still haunt me. When I got into education safety in 2007, I realized I was in a position to finally do something proactive about teen suicide instead of just responding to the scene and waiting for the coroner to arrive. I brought the Digital and Behavioral Threat Assessment programs and training offered by Safer Schools Together into my school district. It took us a couple of years to get good at it, but our team got very good at early identification of at-risk behavior and intervention. In 2014 we were awarded the California School Superintendent’s Association Golden Bell Award for safe school culture and climate for our work in suicide intervention. The award meant nothing to me and still doesn’t. It was a nice gesture by the association, but the teen lives we were able to save was the real reward. We were also able to intervene in two planned school killings in my district through the Behavioral Threat Assessment program, but those are stories for another blog.

Looking Forward

We can impact school violence by looking at teen suicide intervention. It takes hard work, specialized training, and listening to experts on teen suicide like Emma White, president and founder of the Life is Worth It Foundation (www.LifeIsWorthIt.org). Emma gets the importance of teen suicide intervention and its impact on safe school culture and climate. She and her foundation are doing some amazing work. In our schools, and her site is worth checking out. At-risk teen behavior manifests itself in schools, so that’s where we need to identify it.

Thanks for your time. Be good out there, and if you can’t be good, at least be careful…

 

Jeff Kaye, President

School Safety Operations Inc.