“What you see in the video is the shooter talking about how he’s going to get to the school in an Uber, what time he’s going leave, then what’s going to happen when he gets to the school, what type of weapon he’s going to have, and then he actually mimics the sound of his shooting at the end of the video.” “He comes off as very callous and pleased with himself. He’s also using violence to enhance his sense of self by becoming famous and this is something that we’ve seen in other school shooters as well.” “It’s becoming very common for these individuals to publicize their event. We refer to it as leakage, which is communication to a third party of intent to attack, wanting it to typically be discovered within hours or days of the event itself.” “The way in which school shooters broadcast their plans beforehand differs: for some it’s video, for some it’s social media posts, for some it’s one-on-one conversation with a friend or someone they know online, for some they indicate their plans or intentions through homework assignments and through poetry that they hand in to an English teacher, for example.” “When I first did the F.B.I.’s research on the first 18 shootings, which included shootings in the 1980s and the 1990s and included Columbine, the only one where I recalled where there was a manifesto video was Columbine. My recommendation was that those videotapes never be released to the public, ever. And they never were, because they were so chilling and so matter of fact, and so compelling that it could cause someone else to consider carrying out that act. People never got a hold of those tapes, but so much other information was released on that shooting that it has taken on a folk hero status, unfortunately.” “Not all school shooters have role models, but when they do have a role model it is most commonly the perpetrators of the attack at Columbine.” “Many school shooters have researched how Columbine was carried out, researched the motivations, and we see that intense media coverage of any one of these school shootings adds to that research base for future school shooters.” “There have been over 80 events since Columbine in 1999 in the United States that have been inspired by that particular event. And these individuals will typically study previous attackers. They want to do two things: They want to imitate those attackers, and then also they want to do them one better. We have data going back now 20 years that shows in about 60% of these cases, these individuals will leak their intent.” “The theme of these videos tends to remain the same: This is who I am. This is what I’m going to do. This is how I’m going to do it. And here are the reasons that I’m going to do it. So it’s almost a script that they all follow.” “And the manifesto may serve several purposes. In some cases, it is to let themselves be known to go down in history. In other cases, it may be used to justify the attack by focusing on how they’ve been victimized by various injustices. Some shooters use it as an opportunity to engage in some sort of social critique.” “This video like so many others, whether it’s in video form or social media post or direct conversation or communication, to me it often signals what we see in a suicide note. And the reason why it’s important to think about it from a suicide note perspective is that we have so many tools and resources available to help someone who is suicidal and we often don’t think to use them when we’re worried about a school threat. And so many cases, it’s exactly the type of intervention or resource that can make a critical difference and prevent harm.”