The killing spree in Moncton that took the lives of three young Mounties torments us all. Why did this happen? And why was nothing done to prevent it?
It sometimes appears that mass murders of this kind are random and unpredictable. The perpetrator just 鈥渟napped,鈥� and caught everyone off guard. But that鈥檚 not how it is.
The people who commit these acts spend months, sometimes years, planning their attacks. Most are bitter and consumed with fury. They hold nothing but contempt for the society they live in, and mean to take revenge. And they鈥檙e often open about it.
Justin Bourque, accused of being the shooter in the Moncton killings, maintained a Facebook page where he wrote about his hatred of the police. He posted photos of himself laden with guns. A co-worker reported: 鈥淗e said he wanted to go out with a bang and bring people with him.鈥�
Elliot Roger, the 22-year-old who killed six people in California last month, had posted numerous videos and blog entries making violent threats and promising 鈥渞etribution.鈥�
Eric Harris, one of two young men who shot 13 people at Columbine High School in Colorado, published a list of the students he meant to kill on his website.
Seventeen-year-old Thomas Lane, who murdered three students at an Ohio school in 2012, described an imaginary massacre on his Facebook page, ending the note: 鈥淒ie, all of you.鈥�
Among angry young men like these, early warning signs are frequently visible. A study by the U.S. Secret Service found that 81 per cent of similar shooters had previously voiced their violent intentions, usually on the Internet.
And after the event, acquaintances often testify that they thought trouble lay ahead. Adam Lanza, the 17-year-old who killed 20 first graders and six adults at a school in sa国际传媒icut, wrote essays so frightening they could not be shared with other students. But this only came to light later. Nothing was said, or done, at the time.
With such a parade of warnings, it would seem we should be more successful in preventing at least some of these bloodbaths. The perpetrators practically invite an intervention.
However, this is where the torments start. Bourque鈥檚 parents asked the police to step in, when they saw how troubled their son had become. So did Elliot Roger鈥檚 family.
But the authorities were powerless to act. Both young men were interviewed, and kept a calm demeanour. All the police had to go on were YouTube rants and Facebook snarls, and those aren鈥檛 evidence of a crime.
The Internet is awash with angry screeds. How many of the authors go on to commit a crime? One in 10,000? One in 10 million?
And how are the genuinely ominous cases to be identified?
People like Bourque are not hiding in plain sight. They are hiding amongst a vast crowd of troubled individuals, the great majority of whom are harmless.
It might be possible to design an automated search engine to troll through social media sites looking for key words or phrases. But even if it could be done, do we really want this?
How much of our privacy would remain intact if we authorized it? There is already far too much state-sponsored snooping as it is.
That doesn鈥檛 mean we鈥檙e stuck. More could be done to educate teachers, high school kids and parents about the warning signs. The Internet provides a window into troubled minds that did not exist before.
And there are ways of interceding short of calling in the police.
But the power to predict human actions with any certainty remains beyond our scope. That is the reality that torments us when a peaceful community is shattered.
