Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Among the
Speaker 1: most read on the Bloomberg today is a story in
Speaker 1: the New York Times about and I'm reading from the
Speaker 1: story parents of students who are trapped inside rob Elementary
Speaker 1: School furiously argued with the police for not storming the
Speaker 1: school sooner, according to interviews with witnesses who was there
Speaker 1: on the day of the shooting. And so, of course
Speaker 1: we're talking about what happened earlier this week. We're trying
Speaker 1: not just to make sense of the tragedy but also
Speaker 1: understand where the United States can go from here. We've
Speaker 1: got a great voice on this. Dr Marissa Randazzo is
Speaker 1: executive director of Threat Management at on Tick. She joins
Speaker 1: us this afternoon from Washington, d C. She's got a
Speaker 1: great background serving with the U. S. Secret Service for
Speaker 1: a decade. She was the agency's chief Research psychologist assigned
Speaker 1: to the National Threat Assessment Center. Also co directed the
Speaker 1: Safe School Initiative, conducted jointly by the U. S. Secret
Speaker 1: Service in the US Department of Education. Dr Randazzo, it's
Speaker 1: good to have you with us. I wish it were
Speaker 1: under different circumstances. Um, we we're trying to understand how
Speaker 1: this type of thing can can be prevented. And we
Speaker 1: know what is happening politically right now. That's not what
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about. But what we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about is is real solutions here. And and you say
Speaker 1: it's possible to prevent school shootings, how well, it's absolutely
Speaker 1: possible to prevent school shootings. That I was part of
Speaker 1: a team that has been studying school shootings since the
Speaker 1: Columbine attack happened, and we actually went back twenty five
Speaker 1: years and the Secret Service has continued this research. And
Speaker 1: I just want to emphasize school shootings are preventable. We
Speaker 1: can prevent them because they are sought out and plan
Speaker 1: out in advance, and because the person who engages in
Speaker 1: that violence typically tells other people beforehand, so we stand
Speaker 1: a chance at hearing about someone who's planning for this
Speaker 1: type of horrific violence before they actually get to that point.
Speaker 1: And one other important pieces that people who carry out
Speaker 1: and students who carry out school shootings in particular, typically
Speaker 1: do it when they're at a point of feeling desperation.
Speaker 1: There at the end of their rope, that they may
Speaker 1: even be actively suicidal and they see no other way
Speaker 1: out of their problems. Um and and maybe really just
Speaker 1: looking to violence as the last solution or the best
Speaker 1: solution to to to solve their problems and commit suicide
Speaker 1: at the same time. Often is the case. So the
Speaker 1: way we prevent this is typically by setting up threat
Speaker 1: assessment teams and training lawn personal personnel, school personnel, and
Speaker 1: mental health professionals. In This process, known as behavioral threat assessment,
Speaker 1: was first of all by the Secret Service. It's been
Speaker 1: adapted for K twelve, it's been adapted for higher ED
Speaker 1: and and even the Department of Defense is concluded this
Speaker 1: is exactly the tool that works best. It's our best
Speaker 1: hope going forward. I mean this else like being kind
Speaker 1: of an offensive offensive like being on the offense right
Speaker 1: looking for the problem areas are problem individuals. Why aren't
Speaker 1: we set up better? Is it just we still are
Speaker 1: in a society, even though in the pandemic we talk
Speaker 1: so much about well being, in mental wellness and you know,
Speaker 1: employers being more sympathetic the whole world kind of getting
Speaker 1: a better understanding of how it can impact everybody, or
Speaker 1: anyone um is it's just still society's lack of expertise
Speaker 1: and knowledge when it comes to mental well being and
Speaker 1: willing to kind of identify it, like, what is it
Speaker 1: that we're not better about this? Well? I think I
Speaker 1: think that that's a big piece of it. And I
Speaker 1: think the other thing that distracts us is that depression
Speaker 1: in in girls and women look different than a typically
Speaker 1: dozen boys and men were used to kind of a
Speaker 1: Hollywood script of you're just withdrawing from activities, you're sleeping
Speaker 1: all day, you're eating a tub of ice cream. For
Speaker 1: boys and for men, clinical depression actually looks very active anger,
Speaker 1: it's trigger temper, it's rage, and we miss that. We
Speaker 1: miss it a school personnel, as law enforcement, pediatricians missed
Speaker 1: that as a possible symptom of clinical depression. It's part
Speaker 1: of what attracts some people to extremist ideas in the
Speaker 1: first place is feeling like the only legitimate expression of
Speaker 1: their emotions is hatred. If they were to cry that
Speaker 1: we made fun of, But if they are angry and
Speaker 1: seizing and full of hate, then they're not made fun of.
Speaker 1: So part of it is we have an opportunity if
Speaker 1: we know what to look for, especially employed young men.
Speaker 1: Miss I can't help but think that if these kids
Speaker 1: did not have access to guns, these things wouldn't happen.
Speaker 1: Because we have mental health issues in countries outside of
Speaker 1: the United States where it is harder to get a gun,
Speaker 1: and we do not see mass shootings like this. That's
Speaker 1: absolutely the case. We can't deny the fact that the
Speaker 1: US has really cornered the market on mass shootings. We
Speaker 1: have so many more than any other similar country with
Speaker 1: similar mental health problems, stressors, etcetera. Um. But I will
Speaker 1: tell you, at the same time, I have been working
Speaker 1: in the field of threat assessment for over twenty five years.
Speaker 1: I've been doing research in different types of gun control
Speaker 1: for even longer than that, and and the sides haven't changed,
Speaker 1: and the and the divisionness has has only worsened. So
Speaker 1: what I want us to look at it what can
Speaker 1: we do right now? And what one thing we can
Speaker 1: do is state legislatures can actually enact these extreme risk
Speaker 1: protection orders. So I can't remember nineteen or twenty three
Speaker 1: states have them. It's a temporary order, a temporary restraining order,
Speaker 1: separating someone who is planning violence or maybe a risk
Speaker 1: to themselves from their weapons until they can be stabilized.
Speaker 1: So that's something we could actually take action on. Right
Speaker 1: we're talking about these red flag right um types of
Speaker 1: legislations or moves if you will, Hey, um, Dr Randaza
Speaker 1: will come back to you just a mount We're gonna
Speaker 1: do a little bit of news, but we're going to
Speaker 1: come back to Dr Marissa Randazzo. She's executive director of
Speaker 1: Threat Management at on Tick, joining us on the phone
Speaker 1: from Washington, d C. You are listening to Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week Carl Master, Tim Stanovic, and this is Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: We're talking with Dr Marissa Randazzo. She is executive director
Speaker 1: of Threat Management and on Tick. They are a threat
Speaker 1: assessment and management services company. She also served with the U. S.
Speaker 1: Secret Service for a decade, most recently as the agency's
Speaker 1: chief Research Psychologist assigned to the National Threat Assessment Center.
Speaker 1: She's still with us on the phone from Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: Dr Randazzo, I am curious, first of all, after this
Speaker 1: shooting that we just got this week, and we've had
Speaker 1: a couple of shootings right in just a short time. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I am curious. Is your phone ringing off
Speaker 1: the hook? Are people calling saying how do we deal
Speaker 1: with this? What do we do? What's our first step? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and actually, for anyone that has a threatening situation that
Speaker 1: there are a number of things that you can do.
Speaker 1: First and foremost, go ahead and call local law enforcement.
Speaker 1: Let them be aware of it. UM, if it is
Speaker 1: occurring in a school, from a student, from a parent,
Speaker 1: wherever it's occurring, you can find out if that school
Speaker 1: has a threat assessment team. If your workplace may well
Speaker 1: have a threat assessment team or a workplace violence prevention team.
Speaker 1: These are teams that are trained to handle these situations
Speaker 1: or to call in outside experts who have the ability
Speaker 1: to handle those situations. But something that's important to know
Speaker 1: is when we get a series of these news grabbing,
Speaker 1: high profile events, these horrific acts, it oftentimes prompts an
Speaker 1: influx of more more threats coming in. For for a
Speaker 1: couple of different reasons. One, sometimes hearing something like this
Speaker 1: news about it destabilizes people who are kind of barely
Speaker 1: keeping things together and may feel like, well, now that's
Speaker 1: a way out for me. I'm also suicidal and I
Speaker 1: could I could get some variety at the same time.
Speaker 1: For example, UM, it also tends to lower people's threshold
Speaker 1: for reporting. So a coworker who may have been worried
Speaker 1: about some behavior they've seen in the workplace may now
Speaker 1: be much more inclined to bring that forward to their
Speaker 1: HR department, to their corporate security department to let them
Speaker 1: know about their concerns. So people on the receiving end
Speaker 1: THREAD Assessment team security law enforcement are likely going to
Speaker 1: see an uptick in those threats coming in, both because
Speaker 1: maybe more threatening behavior is occurrent, but coast so largely
Speaker 1: because people who are much more inclined. I don't want
Speaker 1: this to happen to me. I've been worried about this
Speaker 1: situation for a while, and now I'm going to tell
Speaker 1: someone the doctor random I'm wondering, what you know. I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people are turning to lawmakers right
Speaker 1: now to see what Congress can do to try to
Speaker 1: create laws that will prevent this. What would you like
Speaker 1: lawmakers to do so? On my wish list, first and foremost,
Speaker 1: I want to get THREAD Assessment training training on how
Speaker 1: to do these threat investigations. Every local police department and
Speaker 1: shariff's office in the country. Federal law enforcement typically gets
Speaker 1: this training, local law enforcement often does not, and yet
Speaker 1: this is where the threats are being reported. We heard
Speaker 1: years after the Sandy Hook shooting, when the FBI finally
Speaker 1: released their full analysis, we heard that the shooter in
Speaker 1: the in the at Sandy Hook Elementary had threatened to
Speaker 1: do exactly what he ends up doing. It was reported
Speaker 1: to local law enforcement, and they didn't think there was
Speaker 1: anything they could do. They didn't have this type of training.
Speaker 1: So first and foremost, I want to start yesterday and
Speaker 1: get threat assessment training, threat investigations training to every police
Speaker 1: department and sheriff's office in the country. Congress can make
Speaker 1: that happen. Just got about a minute or so left here.
Speaker 1: We are curious about the time you spent in the
Speaker 1: Secret Service and what that was like and how that
Speaker 1: kind of makes you think about what threats are, what
Speaker 1: realistic threats are, um how that kind of has affected
Speaker 1: your thinking. And again, just got about a minute or so.
Speaker 1: It was a wonderful experience, in large part because it
Speaker 1: showed me firsthand how much we can prevent acts of violence,
Speaker 1: and often in ways that we don't expect. The Secret
Speaker 1: Service agents handling active threat cases people threatening to assassinate
Speaker 1: often worked more like social workers to connect with that
Speaker 1: would be assassin to find out what the underlying problem is,
Speaker 1: to give them off that pathway to violence and and
Speaker 1: really establish a relationships to get them into care and support.
Speaker 1: Was fascinating to watch an incredible mission that they are
Speaker 1: part of. Well so enlightening to have you joined us
Speaker 1: and talk about what we can do and what can
Speaker 1: be done to really prevent school shooting, something that unfortunately
Speaker 1: just seems to be a lot more frequent, uh than
Speaker 1: we then should be. It shouldn't be happening at all
Speaker 1: in our society, um, Dr Randazzo, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Dr Marissa Randazzo, Executive director of Threat Management and ANTICK.
Speaker 1: As I mentioned, they are a threat assessment and management
Speaker 1: services company and she was joining us on the phone
Speaker 1: from Washington, d C.