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On June 12, 2016, 29-year-old Omar Mateen opened fire at a popular gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, killing 49 people and wounding 53 others. He was killed at the scene after police responded. In a call to 911 during the attack, Mateen claimed allegiance to an Islamic jihadi group and alleged that he had been inspired by an acquaintance who later became a suicide bomber linked to al-Qaeda. While the FBI had investigated Mateen in 2013 and 2014, no evidence that he posed a threat to public safety had been found and he was released.
On July 14, 2016, 31-year-old Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel deliberately drove a lorry through crowds of people gathered to celebrate Bastille Day in Nice, France. Bouhlel was killed by police at the scene. Along with 84 fatalities, hundreds of others were injured, some severely. Though police already knew Bouhlel as a career criminal, he had apparently become radicalized in the months leading up the massacre. Despite evidence retrieved from his phone suggesting that he had collaborated with several other fellow radicals, the investigation is still ongoing.
On August 9, 2016, police in Strathroy, Ontario, alerted by U.S. agencies and the RCMP, confronted 24-year-old Aaron Driver in a taxi outside his home. Believing arrest to be imminent, Driver detonated a homemade explosive device that he had been carrying. While the taxi driver managed to exit the car, Driver died at the scene. In a "martyrdom video" he had prepared beforehand, Driver announced that he was planning to detonate the bomb in an urban center during rush hour.Though police had investigated him repeatedly for his open support of ISIS, Driver had been free on a peace bond at the time of his death.
More than ever before, the focus of police and security forces around the world has shifted away from shadowy terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and ISIS and towards "lone wolf" terrorists who apparently act completely on their own to carry out graphic acts of extreme violence. Not that the threat comes exclusively from those allied with jihadist groups. In the United States alone, there have been twice as many attacks from the extreme right as from extreme Islamic groups and an equal number of murders.
But can these "lone wolves" be identified before they can commit violent acts? In the examples I have provided above, all of the perpetrators had been investigated previously but were released due to lack of evidence against them. Despite the perception that many of these potential threats are "walking time bombs," there is little that can be done legally to detain them until it is too late. In many cases, even their own families might not be aware of what they are planning and are often taken by surprise along with everybody else.
Over the past forty years, researchers and police forces have been attempting to find ways to identify individual terrorists. While numerous coding tools have been developed and are currently in use by police and security agencies, actual research to test their validity remains scarce. In some cases, the coding tools remain classified due to concerns about security and legal objections such as racial profiling. Actual data concerning the inevitable problem of "false positives," i.e., people identified as terrorists when they aren't, doesn't seem to be available either.
One of the main problems with identifying potential lone wolf terrorists is that they tend not to share most of the characteristics associated with overall criminal violence. While most measures of violence risk tend to focus on factors such as actual criminal history, psychopathic and criminal attitudes, an irresponsible lifestyle, and substance abuse, most lone wolf terrorists don't present any of these characteristics. These lone actors also don't show any of the other risk factors that have been linked to criminal violence in the past. For the most part, there are no obvious psychiatric problems or suicidal tendencies (though these may become evident after the fact). Even personality traits often seen in violent offenders (such as psychopathy and impulsivity), are rarely evident.
To help identify potential lone wolf terrorists, a new screening tool has been developed which is currently being evaluated for effectiveness. The Terrorist Radicalization Assessment Profile (TRAP-18) is based on the extensive work of Dr. Reid Meloy and his colleagues in the investigation of lone wolf terrorism. A former chief of the San Diego County Forensic Mental Health Division, a professor at two San Diego universities, and the author of more than 170 papers and numerous books, Dr. Meloy has developed a stellar reputation in forensic circles for his work on identifying people at high risk for violence.
The TRAP-18 is made up of two sets of indicators: the first set consists of eight warning behaviors that suggest that an attack is imminent (proximal risk factors) and ten predisposing characteristics that make people vulnerable to extremist influences (proximal risk factors). These indicators are derived from Reid Meloy's decades of experience as a forensic psychologist assessing foreign and domestic lone terrorists.
The eight warning signs suggesting violence is imminent are:
- Pathway warning behavior such as signs of researching, planning, or preparing for an attack. People planning attacks are often caught at this stage through their attempts at acquiring explosives, seeking information on how to construct a bomb, etc. Setting up a workshop in which explosives can be constructed can also be a pathway behavior.
- Fixation warning behavior indicates an increasingly pathological preoccupation with a specific cause or target of violence. This is usually accompanied by a deteriorating social life or ability to hold down a job due to obsessive behavior or thinking.
- Identification warning behavior involves signs that someone is identifying with other lone wolf terrorists or showing a desire to be a pseudocommando. They may also show signs of a "warrior mentality," collect guns or military equipment, or proclaim themselves to be an agent of an extremist group. Though many people may express support for groups such as this, making the transition to being a self-proclaimed "soldier" for a specific cause should be viewed with particular concern.
- Novel aggression is violence that seems to be occurring for the first time and appears out of character. In many cases, this may represent someone testing their limits regarding how much violence they feel capable of inflicting.
- Energy burst warning behavior involves a sharp increase in activities relating to their target. Even if this increased activity seems innocent, it can suggest a "ramping up" of whatever is being planned. This can also be associated with a sharp drop in regular activities such as spending time on social media. Some lone wolves may even go "dark" by starting to use encryption to conceal what they are doing online or otherwise hiding their activities from friends or family.
- Leakage involves relaying information to a third party, whether family, friend, or news media outlet, about imminent harm being planned against a target. This leakage is usually done as covertly as possible such as with delayed videos, etc. This ensures that the lone wolf can't be stopped ahead of time.
- Last resort warning usually occurs as a sign of desperation or distress. This warning indicates that something big is about to happen and often occurs as the result of a loss or fear of an impending loss.
- Directly communicated threats are the most visible warning sign and the only one that law enforcement agencies can respond to in many cases. This is why threats are taken so seriously considering that is may be the final stage in a long pattern of escalation.
As for the ten distal characteristics most often seen in lone-wolf terrorists and how well the TRAP-18 works when compared against real-life cases, more on that next week.
