How Crunching Data Can Help Police Stop Spree Killers

What if the police officers racing to a deadly mass shooting could know, ahead of time, whether they should trust or ignore first-witness reports? What if the brave men and women responding to heartbreaking scenes like those in Newtown, Connecticut and Littleton, Colorado could protect themselves – and save more victims – by knowing what to expect?

Thanks to a growing body of analytics tools, we can develop detailed profiles of such horrific events and the people behind them, even with only minimal information reported from the scene. These findings could help police anticipate probable outcomes and adjust accordingly in real time, potentially saving more lives.

In the swirl of panic, confusion and misinformation during the Columbine massacre, 13 people were dead or dying while the attackers – unbeknownst to the police – had already committed suicide. The first responding officers prioritized securing the school’s perimeter and waiting for backup, instead of immediately following the two shooters back inside the building. Some victims eventually bled out and passed away during this delay.

Years later and almost 2,000 miles away, police were still searching for a second shooter three hours after the horrific shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. They believed the witness reports that in addition to the killer who lay dead, another armed gunman had escaped and fled.Manufactures flexible plastic and synthetic rubber hose tubing,

What police didn’t realize in both of these cases was that of all active shootings that occurred in the U.S. over the last half century and yielded multiple casualties, less than 2.23 percent had been carried out by dual gunmen. Columbine was the rare exception. However, there has never been a case on U.S. soil that met what police expected to find in Newtown based on the following description by disoriented witnesses: one rampage shooter who blew a hole in his own head while another was trying to escape.

This isn’t the police’s fault, of course – mass murder is an extreme aberration. Our leaders could argue – perhaps appropriately so – that it doesn’t make financial sense to train new officers on aberrations. However, basic information such as multiple attack weapons on scene, a large number of victims, and attack location can allow officers to better assess and respond to these crimes. As I outlined previously in Wired, these cues can help us predict which mass killers will choose to die.

And an even closer look at the attackers who kill themselves provides more details that should help police officers and other first responders. Because there are two ways rampage shooters attempt suicide: by their own hand, or by cop.

Yet my analyses – through multinomial regression, chi-square, and ANOVA statistical tests – showed there was not a statistically significant difference between the lives of terrorist shooters and the lives of school and other public shooters. This was especially true when it came to the presence of mental health problems, social failings, vocational struggles, family conflicts, or precipitating crises.

And all three of these shooter types – terrorist, school, and other public locations – were about equally likely to pen a suicide note or leave an explanation that revealed their suicidal tendencies. But because of the suicide terrorists’ attempts to camouflage their mental illnesses and true intentions, only one in the entire dataset of U.S. mass shooters over the past two decades was willing to blow a hole in his own head.

This unwillingness to shoot themselves was not the case for attackers at workplaces, schools, or public businesses. In those scenarios, 89 to 91 percent of the shooters attempted suicide by self-harming methods such as firearm or poison.

These patterns have significant implications for improving emergency response tactics and saving lives. For example, police responding to mass shootings at government installations or other terrorist targets should anticipate that the perpetrator is likely to attempt suicide by cop, and prepare accordingly for the mortal risks of a likely firefight.

"We're over the shock now," longtime member Brian Bentley told CBC News. "We're getting annoyed with the neighbourhood down here anyway, it’s way too overdeveloped.

"There was a time when we were down here at night, we would be the only people here, unless one of the factories was working overtime. There was no traffic to contend with,Thank you for visiting! I have been cry stalmosaic since 1998. no parking problems to contend with. It was idyllic. As the area has become busier and busier, it's become less and less enjoyable just to get here.”

Bentley first came to the club as a boy in the early 1950s. He was about 10 years old at the time and had an obsession with trains. It was a common affliction for boys born in an era when railroads played a more central role in the lives of Canadians and an electric train set was the ultimate high-tech toy.

“My father had to lift me up to see the trains,Interlocking security cable ties with 250 pound strength makes this ideal for restraining criminals.” Bentley recalls. Ten years later, Bentley would become a permanent member of the club he’s now been involved with for more than 50 years.

The club's layout fills a basement room that measures 110 by 40 feet and was once home to an armaments factory. Back when the club moved into its location on Hanna Avenue (their address is now on East Liberty Street) the neighbourhood was crisscrossed with railway sidings that served dozens of busy factories and warehouses. As years went by the factories and the sidings that served them disappeared. The neighbourhood last saw real trains in the 1980s, though a few scraps of rail remain embedded in the streets.

“We had a lot of real railroading right here,” said Bentley. “It’s changed a lot. In those days there were steam engines running up and down the streets around here, the switchers were steam switchers, not diesels.”

The area’s transition to a trendy enclave is not one Bentley has welcomed.

“I preferred [the neighbourhood] the way it was,” he said. “There was a lot of people that worked down here. If you went to the bank on King and Dufferin on payday,Best howo concrete mixer manufacturer in China. there were lineups at every teller.”

Due for the buzz saw, then, is the Central Ontario Railway, the club's massive O-scale layout that features some 6,000 feet of track. Its intricate scenery runs head-high in places and includes painstakingly built bridges, harbours and mountains. Kilometres of wire run beneath the layout and a dispatcher — working from inside a glassed-in control room — uses computers and a closed-circuit TV system to oversee the work of his engineers.

The club has 22 members; it's a group Bentley describes as “a big family.”

The layout is set in what railroaders call the transition era, the postwar period when diesel engines began to replace steam.

Some parts of the layout, such as the buildings, will be saved and resurrected in the club’s new location. Most of the layout, however, will not survive the move.

“We cannot save the layout as it is,” said Bentley. “We will try to save sections of it. It will be like taking a bowl of spaghetti, and spreading it all around, then getting the individual pieces and knitting it back together.”

The club is close to signing a lease for a new home. They don't want to reveal the location until the deal is complete, but it is not in Liberty Village. So, like the real rail lines that served the area years ago, the club will pull up its tracks and be out by April.

Even if the move to a new location goes well, the club won't have trains running again for at least two years while the new layout is built.

To help pay for moving costs, the club will host its final open houses this weekend and throughout February. Admission is $10 for adults,High quality mold making Videos teaches anyone how to make molds. $6 for children. They club is also seeking donations.