Violence Prevention and TATs: A Dissenting Opinion
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48 responses to “Violence Prevention and TATs: A Dissenting Opinion”
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Wow……law and order with Constitution protections on a campus????? Sheer heresy.
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Common sense! Works for me. This whole set up is what happens when the politicians need to prove they’ve done something useful after a senseless tragedy, and the lawyers get involved. Dick and I could write the committee speeches in our sleep. 🙂 Meanwhile, is UVA using the break to search all the dorms for more guns? Do they actually want to know?
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Apparently, after thoughts and prayers the next response is a “committee”.
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Steering committee then we go to full committee.
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“Praise and honors for the nonparticipating”
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I used to volunteer for chair of the steering committee since no one wanted the job. To raise morale, I would often call for an immediate recess until the next scheduled steering committee meeting.
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Rinse, repeat. With doughnuts.
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Rinse, repeat. With doughnuts.
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That’s my kinda steering:)
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Clarity and logic once again from Dick. Nicely put.
The gun violence is not limited to higher education institutions. A broader resolve and vision is necessary to meet the carnage. Rome is burning.
I like it! KISS was the guiding philosophy that served me well for my working career. Dunno that it has ever been much in favor in bureaucracies.
“the current arrangement of two committees comprised of numerous people
with overlapping responsibilities serves to make it difficult to hold anyone accountable.”
The roles of the committees are discrete, not overlapping. The VPC sets policy for the TAT to execute. For the TAT the issue is authorities to act, and for the VPC the obligation is to set policy about who in the TAT acts and how. That may be the important relationship, although UVa’s conflation of the roles into one committee seems guaranteed to magnify problems of overlap, confusion and ineffectiveness.
Two committees worked well with the Comprehensive Services Act. It appears that the GA modeled the threat structure similarly. That does not make it a good idea, but it does mean there is precedent for that structure in areas involving mental health, education, social services and law enforcement.
There can be threats that are not primarily criminal. That makes involvement of mental health folks a virtue. I believe that for ordinary policing too, but not to the extent of defunding the police to fund MH intervention. The idea is this plus that, not this or that.
In Richmond many years ago there was a Crisis Intervention Team that responded to mental health issues. They called the cops if it was needed. Dunno if it is still around, but it was effective way back when.
The potential for swatting in the context of the TAT seems real. Dunno how to deal with it. Perhaps looking to see how law enforcement does it would provide some guidance.
While I like the simplicity of your approach, the issues seem broader than just law enforcement. I’d encourage involving mental health folks too.
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Wasn’t that the liberal idea? Putting mental healthcare ride-alongs on domestic calls?
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Bite your woke tongue.
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Actually the liberal woke idea was to defund the police and replace them with social workers. As I noted above the need is to add MH resources to serve where that is the greater need than criminal where cops expertise lies.
Happy Thanksgiving.
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The amended law that I have drafted and submitted and of which I wrote to Dick above leaves the mental health professional on the TAT but removes everyone else not a sworn law enforcement officer or legal counsel.
Where were the violence interrupters? Surely UVA had an entire squad at the ready.
Agree entirely with Mr. Hall-Sizemore.
Unfortunately Dick, once law enforcement makes the decision that it’s not a law enforcement issue they’re done. No harm, no foul. Encumbering the police with referral responsibility will not be met well.
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The law I drafted and submitted this morning (see my response to Dick) leaves the mental health professional on the TAT but removes everyone else not a sworn law enforcement officer. It gives the TAT authority to deal with other offices on and off campus, but prohibits assigning other that the Chief of campus police, a police detective, a representative of the University Counsel and a representative of campus mental health professionals to the team.
I footnoted the draft to tell readers that one of several enumerated reasons for those limitations is to ensure any person accused and found not to be a threat deserves to have information on any criminal background or gun ownership information kept private.
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See my response to Lefty666.
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That’s Lefty665, across the street from you know who, not living on his property.
See also my response to NN below. In short the answer is to add MH services to law enforcement where appropriate, not defund law enforcement to fund social work.
Good on the draft. Many threats can be better dealt with as MH issues rather than law enforcement. Cho is a prime example.
Cho had severe mental illness. The court ordered the Community Services Board to provide him intensive services. They failed to act as ordered. The CSB “dropped him through the cracks” (the good CSBs are pretty good, the bad ones really suck). The results were horrendous.
We can’t know what would have happened had the CSB done as ordered and provided Cho mental health services. We sure know what happened when all he got was law enforcement attention.
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My draft also mandates temporary suspension and banning from the campus of anyone who refuses to cooperate with a TAT investigation pending closure of the investigation.
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I agree with you that, where there is ongoing evidence of a crime or risk of violence, the proper responders are the police. I’m not troubled when someone trained in mental health care joins the police where there is evidence of a suspect with mental health issues. But the first line of defense when weapons are involved is the police.
Hence, I took strong issue when my clearly bright distant cousin’s Department of Education forced colleges and universities to address allegations of sexual assault with internal investigations and crooked hearings without due process for the alleged offender. Sexual assault is a crime that requires the police. And courts are the place to adjudicate guilt or innocence.
And once again, why the largely silent media on the non-use of Red Flag laws? If Fairfax County has been using Virginia’s with reasonable success, why aren’t other jurisdictions, including Colorado Springs and UVA? It’s seemingly one more example of virtue signaling — pass more and more laws on firearms but don’t use them.
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I am not sure the Red Flag law would have been applicable in the UVa case. It does not seem that the offender had given any indication that he was planning to shoot anyone.
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Ahhhh.. That’s THE problem!
Seriously.
WHEN would Red Flag or a “Tat” decide that someone was ?
WHEN would they decide to actually look at an individual to assess? What would cause them to decide to “look”?
It’s not only the behaviors and acts, it’s who looks at them initially with what justification.
For instance, in some cases, it is said that they had “run-ins” with others and/or they were saying bad stuff on social media.
Normally, this is complaint-driven. If no one files a complaint, can LEO just start looking at social media, for instance, for “signs”?
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Too many people to scan.
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The City of Alexandria’s website states that the following are examples of who may report a need for an Emergency Substantial Risk Order: “Family Members, Guardians, Domestic Partners, Romantic Partners or Dates, Parent of a Child in Common, Roommates, Police Officers and Mental Health Professionals.” In other words, anyone with information that another person presents a risk that harming himself or others.
The law requires corroboration by a law enforcement official, who, along with a Commonweath Attorney, can petition a state judge to issue an ESRO, which, in turn is followed by a hearing where the subject of the order can challenge the restrictions.
Some people are making claims that another is a threat. Law enforcement agencies are investigating and, in some instances, finding enough corroborating evidence to go to court. Judges are finding sufficient evidence in some instances to issue ESROs. And some of them are being extended.
If no one had any probative evidence that another presented a risk and if no law enforcement agency was corroborating the evidence, there would be no ESROs issued. But that’s not true.
So, I don’t see this as a problem. The problem is apparently that, in some parts of state, no one cares enough to take any action. It’s much simpler to just to ask for more laws and ways to prevent law-abiding people from exercising their rights protected by the Second Amendment.
UVA has blood on its hands.
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but can LEO proceed if there are no complaints filed?
That seems to be an issue with some of these mass killers who supposedly had “signs” out the wazoo… but no one reported them..
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That, my friend, is the problem. There seem to be many signs preceding a mass shooting. But everyone ignores them. Why? We are told that Red Flag laws will work but many of the people who support those laws don’t take action. Why not?
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Dick, the way I read the various statutes is the trigger is related to behavior such that there is sufficient evidence that the individual could use a firearm to harm himself or others. He had a prior weapons charge that he failed to report as required by University rules and was under investigation by the University. And he apparently made other threats.
It’s my understanding that the attorney for one of the victims has already raised the issue of whether the University took all appropriate steps.
One of the key provisions in the law reads, ” In determining whether probable cause for the issuance of an order exists, the judge or magistrate shall consider any relevant evidence, including any recent act of violence, force, or threat as defined in § 19.2-152.7:1 by such person directed toward another person or toward himself.”
Anyone at the University could have raised this issue with law enforcement, which, in turn, after an investigation to confirm the allegations, can take the matter before a state judge.
According to the WRIC TV story I linked earlier, Fairfax County has obtained substantial risk orders 177 times through the end of March 2022. C’ville and Albemarle County — ZERO.
Instead of using the laws that were proclaimed to stop many bad situations before they occur, we see elected officials and the anti-2nd Amendment crowd chant for more laws. Disgusting.
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Exactly.
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I object only to the title of your piece. You are not in dissent.
I created and submitted to the appropriate state officials in the administration, in the AG’s office and select members of the General Assembly a draft (strike throughs and additions) overhaul of the current law that will accomplish everything you suggest.
The amended law that I have drafted leaves the mental health professional on the TAT but removes everyone else not a sworn law enforcement officer.
I labeled the emails and texts “Urgent Change to § 23.1-805” to signal that bills must be submitted by December 1.
I posted them this morning. We’ll see what happens.
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A visit from the TAT is a possibility.
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Apparently, the objection is self-sustained.
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I would be surprised if you get any takers. I could go along with your proposal. Although I would prefer to eliminate the TAT, I understand the argument about giving mental health an official presence. Basically, you have gutted the TAT, but kept the label. Keeping the name but reorganizing it into something different sometimes quells some of the opposition that would arise to getting rid of it altogether.
I think Dick got it right and I wonder if the TATs were created in response to the Va Tech shootings , good intentions, unnecessarily (and badly) recreated the wheel and actually damaging the existing law enforcement structure.
The timing of other shooting/killing events brought some needed context to the issue IMO accompanied by the usual “thoughts and prayers” along with talk that mental health and Red Flag laws are in play – again.
There is sentiment that we need to find and stop these killers BEFORE they kill, i.e. – the quintessential “threat detection” idea but we cannot agree or bring ourselves to the point where
we would have law enforcement/govt intervene in their lives because of their words and behaviors.
I also concur with TMT’s thinking that we treat things like sexual assaults and “threats” somewhat differently on college campuses than not and it leads to problems.
I thank Dick for his even-keeled perspective!
I also think the timing of advocating changes to the TAT is problematic politically right now unless a clear case can be made that it will actually function better than current.
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Yes, the law was written after the Virginia Teach shootings. And pretty much anything will function better than the current law.
I’d be interested to know if Violence Prevention Committees and Threat Assessment Teams have ever prevented any violence or short-circuited any threats. We know that the system failed at UVa. But has it ever worked? Anywhere?
Dick may have a point — the more committees/teams that exist, and the more laborious the bureaucratic hoops they must go through, the less effective they are likely to be.
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That’s the kind of information a JLARC review would develop – totally independent of the schools or anyone who had an existing role or relationship.
IMO, it really does get to some similar things the Red Flag laws are supposed to do.
And if there is no complaint filed or no incident reported – then what justification does LEO or TAT have in pursuing an investigation – and what legal authority to they have to do that?
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Sworn LEOs are the sole judges of what they investigate.
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ln theory. Reality introduces restrictions.
I’m not a lawyer or LEO and won’t pretend to be one….
suffice to say, others on a Tat probably don’t have the legal underpinnings to do what a LEO can do.
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I know that more than 200 people are banned from the Tech campus. I don’t know about the rest.
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TATs actually cut through buearacracy. Of course proving a negative is difficult outside of base rates etc. However, there is a lot of anecdotal data. Here are two websites that provide some evidence. https://www.avertedschoolviolence.org https://www.policechiefmagazine.org/applying-counterterrorism-tools-to-prevent-acts-of-targeted-violence/
Except, law enforcement doesn’t typically investigate situations where a crime hasn’t been committed. As a law enforcement professional and a behavioral threat assessment SME, this is why we need TATs. I’ve dealt with multiple cases where a person-of-concern was clearly on a pathway to violence but because they hadn’t committed a crime “yet” we couldn’t get the local law enforcement agencies to do anything. Additionally, law enforcement has very few tools to manage threats of violence whereas a multi-disciplinary TAT has lots of tools (example, earlier mental health intervention, counseling, help with homelessness, identifying social support systems, social services etc. etc.) Multi-disciplinary teams look at all the factors that are contributing to violence risk and try to bring interventions to prevent that risk while simultaneously protecting an individual’s Constitutional and procedural rights. TATs are not punitive, they are caretaking. But don’t take my word for it, here’s the single best description of behavioral threat assessment teams/programs out there. https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/making-prevention-a-reality.pdf/view
Except, law enforcement doesn’t typically investigate situations where a crime hasn’t been committed. As a law enforcement professional and a behavioral threat assessment SME, this is why we need TATs. I’ve dealt with multiple cases where a person-of-concern was clearly on a pathway to violence but because they hadn’t committed a crime “yet” we couldn’t get the local law enforcement agencies to do anything. Additionally, law enforcement has very few tools to manage threats of violence whereas a multi-disciplinary TAT has lots of tools (example, earlier mental health intervention, counseling, help with homelessness, identifying social support systems, social services etc. etc.) Multi-disciplinary teams look at all the factors that are contributing to violence risk and try to bring interventions to prevent that risk. TATs are not punitive, they are caretaking. But don’t take my word for it, here’s the single best description of behavioral threat assessment teams/programs out there. https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/making-prevention-a-reality.pdf/view
Putting TAT responsibility primarily under law enforcement doesn’t eliminate the bureaucracy, but rather shifts responsibility from a multi-disciplinary group to law enforcement. Two big issues with that: first, you’re creating additional burden for LEOs; and more importantly, you’re seeking to expand the scope of LEO responsibility from investigating offenses to evaluating the possibility of future offense, for which they then have no authority to act on. Should someone fall through the cracks, it’s the LEO and not the system that gets the blame.
The benefits of a TAT are:
1. It’s multi-disciplinary. It provides a wholistic approach to evaluating a situation from a variety of perspectives–not just LEO/has a law been broken
2. From information provided by an evaluation, it’s meant to provide intervention when necessary, before an event occurs
3. In many (most?) cases, TAT reports are entirely anonymous. As I understand it, an individual can be reported to a TAT and never know it if it’s deemed they’re not a threat and no further investigation is warranted. This helps mitigate abuse. But a report to an LEO triggers an investigation and a public record.
As far as having teeth for ensuring compliance, I believe ensuring TATs exist are part of whatever safety audit exists (DCJS? DOED for K-12?). Creating a more robust evaluation of an IHE’s TAT might be a path forward. But I’m not sure we should completely rework the system until we know what part of the system failed and needs reworking.
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