For over three years, James Densley has studied the life histories of mass shooters in the United States for an initiative funded by the National Institute of Justice, known as The Violence Project. He’s built a database dating back to 1966 of every shooter who killed four or more people in a public place and has interviewed incarcerated mass shooters and their families and friends; people who planned a shooting but changed their minds; shooting survivors, and first responders. The findings point to new data-driven pathways to violence prevention like crisis intervention and suicide prevention, (social)media literacy and accountability, and sensible firearms regulation, which are especially important at the time of a global pandemic. Upon completion of this presentation, participants will be able to:
1) Assess the impact of COVID-19 on mass violence and how some of our current interventions might be doing more harm than good; and,
2) Apply crisis intervention and de escalation to mass violence prevention.”
