With its latest report, Mass Attacks in Public Spaces – 2018, the Secret Service offers further analysis and operational considerations to its partners in public safety. The agency’s Threat Assessment Model offered law enforcement and others with public safety responsibilities a systematic investigative approach to identify individuals who exhibit threatening or concerning behavior, gather information to assess whether they pose a risk of harm, and identify the appropriate interventions, resources, and supports to manage that risk.Īs a result of its threat assessment profiling data bank, the Secret Service has begun to share its research on mass shootings starting in 2017 when the NTAC’s first Mass Attacks in Public Spaces – 2017 was released.
In the 1990s, the Secret Service pioneered the field of threat assessment by conducting research on the targeting of public officials and public figures. In all three incidents, law enforcement worked with federal agencies conducting threat assessments that paid off. Las Vegas police arrested a suspected neo-Nazi who was looking to attack a gay bar and synagogue, while another white nationalist in Youngstown, Ohio was arrested when anti-Semitic threats were found on his Instagram account and a stash of automatic weapons in his home. Police later discovered that he had an arsenal of weapons and ammunition in his home. There was the Marriott employee in Long Beach, California that was fingered as a threat by a fellow worker. It is no coincidence that within the last month or so more than 24 suspects have been arrested across the country linked to implied or direct plans and threats to additional mass shootings. Its mission is to “provide guidance on threat assessment both within the Secret Service and to its law enforcement and public safety partners.” To support these investigative and preventative efforts, the Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) was established in 1998 and is tasked with delivering research, training, consultation, and information sharing on threat assessment and the prevention of targeted violence, including targeted attacks directed at workplaces, houses of worship, schools, and other public spaces. However, there is one branch of the federal government that has assumed a proactive role in not only investigating the growing number of mass shootings in the country but also researching incidents in the hopes of understanding the root causes. In the aftermath, families grieve, law enforcement seeks motive, and right on cue, politicians offer thoughts and prayers – and little else. With mass shootings in Gilroy, Calif., El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, more than 30 people were murdered and nearly 70 others injured. In the last two months, the United States has been the epicenter of gun violence once again.