University Of Texas Tower, From The Top Deck, Charles Whitman Killed 14 People on August 1, 1966
In April of 1865, Charles J. Colchester, a shady character of a man, met Abraham Lincoln and warned him that his life was in danger. A few days later Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States was shot in the head. Charles J. Colchester was a friend of John Wilkes Booth.
Lincoln’s Secretaries, John G. Nicolay and John Hay commented on the incident; “But he had himself so sane a mind and a heart so kindly, even to his enemies, that it was hard for him to believe in a political hatred so deadly as to lead to murder.”
“When a man threatens your life, listen & remove him.”
Recognizing the Presence of a Threat in the Workplace
Revised from a 2019 Post
A recent discussion with a friend prompted me to revisit and update a post I originally wrote in 2019 on mass shootings, specifically focusing on threat recognition inside a business.
1. The Core Concepts: Patterned Behavior & Patterns of Life
The concepts of “Patterned Behavior” and “Patterns of Life” have been used by the military, law enforcement, and intelligence agencies as far back as World War I. These frameworks help identify active threats—whether it’s criminals targeting victims in a specific neighborhood or terrorists planning an attack whose daily routines expose their intent.
While these two terms are closely related, searching for them online often leaves you overwhelmed by paid training ads and recycled buzzwords that do very little to help everyday people recognize real danger. To keep things practical, here is how I define them:
Patterned Behavior
The manner in which we repeatedly react as individuals—or as a group—to stimuli in a specific environment.
To understand patterned behavior, it helps to define what a stimulus is:
"A stimulus is any object, event, or factor that influences human behavior. It can be something we see, hear, or feel, affecting our decisions and actions." — Noldus
"A stimulus is anything that can trigger a physical or behavioral change." — MedlinePlus
"One of the more striking findings in environmental psychology is that human responses to certain physical settings remain remarkably consistent across different situations and over time. People tend to behave in predictable ways within specific types of environments, regardless of individual personality differences." — Psychology Town
When a threat enters a room, it introduces new stimuli and alters the normal rhythm of that environment. Nobody knows your workplace environment better than you do—nobody. Surviving an attack often comes down to whether you notice those subtle changes right away. You don't necessarily need advanced tactical training to spot threat stimuli; you simply need to pay closer attention to your immediate surroundings.
Patterns of Life
The long-term, systematic study of patterned behavior used to predict future actions and spot anomalies.
Intelligence agencies use pattern-of-life analysis to detect deviations that signal an impending threat. A classic example is the analysis that led to the location and elimination of Osama bin Laden. Eyewitnesses never saw him at his compound, yet the daily pattern of life inside that compound differed drastically from every other home in the town—drawing the attention of analysts and leading directly to his downfall.
Almost every mass shooter in my lifetime displayed troubling patterned behavior and an alarming pattern of life long before committing violence—red flags that family members or friends often noticed. The challenge we face as a society is figuring out how to act on those warning signs before tragedy strikes.
2. Threat Recognition Inside a Business
Why is workplace violence so prevalent and so often successful for the attacker? Because management and staff are preoccupied with daily operations, customer service, and administrative tasks. When an attacker walks through the door, he counts on the staff being distracted.
Most businesses cannot afford airport-style security perimeters or full-time armed guards. When budgets are limited, surviving a violent encounter comes down to controlling two critical factors: identifying a potential threat early and controlling the distance between you and the threat.
Control Points of Entry
Every building is laid out differently, so your team must have a deliberate system for monitoring who enters and exits—even if it is a shared responsibility.
The Power of a Simple Greeting: A receptionist or front-desk employee can often spot a person of concern simply by saying hello. Threats frequently ignore a greeting and avoid eye contact because they want uninterrupted time to scan your security measures and gauge how attentive your staff is.
Look for Missing Behaviors: Discuss with your team what kind of behavior warrants a second look. Keep in mind that concerning behavior isn't always overt anger or aggression—it is often the absence of normal behavior.
Know Your Customer Profile: While an armed intruder rushing through the door leaves no doubt about his intent, many attacks are preceded by reconnaissance minutes, hours, or even days earlier under false pretenses. Knowing your business's products, services, and typical clientele makes it much easier to spot someone who doesn't belong.
"A common ruse of the sociopath is the penetration of a dwelling under false pretenses." — Jeff Cooper
3. Your Response Plan: Action & Distance
Assign a "Point of Contact" Employee
Once a receptionist or staff member flags a person of concern, the team needs an immediate response plan. That starts with a designated Point of Contact Employee trained to step forward, engage the individual, and determine whether they are a legitimate customer or a threat.
Be Ready to Stop the Threat: If an armed attacker enters your business with his mind already made up, no amount of talking will stop the violence coming your way. Your Point of Contact Employee must have both the training and the physical resources on them to stop the threat long enough for employees and customers to get to safety.
Medical Readiness: Every employee should be trained to use basic life-support and trauma equipment, which should already be staged on-site.
Control the Distance
Whether you are in a combative sports match, facing a street mugging, or dealing with an active shooter at work, distance buys survival.
Buffer the Entrance: The physical space between your public entrance and your main occupied workspace gives employees critical seconds to identify and react to a threat. You may not be able to remodel your building, but adding a check-in protocol, counter, or partition between the front door and the main floor creates a vital buffer.
Plan Rapid Evacuation: Review clear evacuation routes and procedures with your team so everyone knows how to immediately put distance—and solid cover—between themselves and an active threat.
Thoughts On Home Security
Survival In Our Daily Routine
Since I first published this post in October of 2019, there have been another “59” fifty-nine mass shootings in America, defined as “3” or more killings in a single event. Britannica
The common denominators that I explained in the 2019 original post , remain the same.
Like many in this country, I have put a lot of thought into the senseless mass shootings that have taken place. My mind drifts back long before Columbine High School in 1999. My limited knowledge on mass shootings starts at the University of Texas.
University of Texas Tower Shooting 1966
On August 1, 1966 Charles Whitman climbed to the top of an observation tower on campus and killed 14 people, wounding another 30 people.
Whitman tried for months to get psychological help prior to the shooting.
McDonalds Shooting in San Ysidro, California, July of 1984
McDonald’s Shooting in San Ysidro, California 1984. Lenny Ignelzi / Associated Press
The first really clear shooting that I remember, was the one at occurred at the McDonalds in San Ysidro, California in July of 1984. James Huberty fatally shot 21 people and wounded another 19. I was a rookie police officer in Miami Beach at the time and for weeks that was all we talked about on the job, “What would we do, How would we respond?”
James Huberty sought unsuccessfully psychological help prior to the shooting.
I’m not going to list all shootings since McDonalds in 1984. Actually this has been successfully done up to the Pulse Nightclub shooting in 2016.
Here is a flowchart for you presented by Maria Esther Hammack of “Behind The Tower.org”. This chart starts with the first one in Parson Hall School in 1891. Behind The Tower.org is a group of students at the University of Texas at Austin who put together a study of the mass shooting carried out by Charles Whitman on August 1st, 1966. This study was conducted in the spring of 2016.
Behind The Tower.org did a great job compiling this study. If more studies on mass shooting were done with this same attention to detail as Behind The Tower.org gave, then maybe we would see a common denominator that we are missing today.
Stopping the Threat Before It Reaches the Field
There is no single issue that, if addressed alone, will prevent future mass shootings. If concerned people become fixated solely on the weapon itself, the larger fight is lost.
A brief look at the weapons used in documented shootings presents a clear picture of what it actually takes to carry out an attack. While several high-profile shootings involved "assault" rifles, they were not the weapon of choice in every incident.
When looking at this dilemma, the political noise can be stripped away to focus on a personal reality:
“Imagine an armed individual bent on doing harm on one end of a field, and a family member standing on the other end. The core question is: How do do we keep them apart?”
Consider the standard solutions often proposed:
Hardening Schools & Campuses: Perimeters can be strengthened and armed threat responders assigned—steps Florida began implementing following the 2018 Parkland tragedy, though many argue it was late in implementation. Meanwhile, most college campuses remain wide open to anyone walking in off the street.
Event Security: Large gatherings, concerts, and festivals can be required to have on-duty or off-duty police present—no police, no permit.
Universal Background Checks: Expanding background checks to all firearm transfers still overlooks the fact that many past shooters passed background checks legally.
Weapon Bans: Banning certain rifles might reduce the casualty count in a given incident, but the fundamental problem remains if lives are still lost.
Even if every single one of those measures were implemented tomorrow, would they truly stop that shooter from crossing the field toward a loved one?
Physical barriers alone have clear limits. This realization points to a critical conclusion:
“The threat must be removed from the equation before the individual ever starts down the field.”
Understanding the Pathway: Commitment and Buildup
Why are perpetrators able to carry out these attacks? Generally, they are not brilliant masterminds, they are not wealthy, and physically they often struggle with life's basic demands.
Perpetrators succeed because they are totally committed.
The level of commitment they reach is beyond what most people can comprehend. Most individuals, regardless of how successful they are in life, will never reach that degree of single-minded resolve. An attacker accepts that life as they know it is over—that death or capture awaits—yet commits fully to the attack anyway. The act itself becomes their entire focus.
The Window of Opportunity: The Buildup
Here is where the window of opportunity awaits.
The level of commitment required to take innocent lives and forfeit one's own does not happen spontaneously. Those thoughts arise and are cultivated over time. Nobody wakes up perfectly content, eats breakfast, and suddenly decides to commit mass murder.
In almost every mass shooting, clear warning signs appeared well before the attack. Secrets were revealed and often shared with others—family members, friends, coworkers, medical professionals, or contacts on social media.
An attacker builds up to the act over days, months, or even years. Along that path, they are searching for two things: resources and justification.
1. The Quest for Resources
To carry out the attack, the individual must obtain weapons and gear. However, because they may already have access to a firearm, trying to intercept them solely during the acquisition phase is often ineffective.
2. The Quest for Justification (Where the Attacker Is Most Vulnerable)
It is during the search for justification that an attacker is most exposed—and where the best opportunity to intervene exists. The shooter is mentally living out the attack long before taking physical action, and often feels compelled to share these thoughts with relatives, friends, coworkers, or online followers.
To commit an act of mass violence is a psychological barrier that must be overcome. To cross that line, the individual often attempts to erase the innocent faces of the victims and replace them with an 'enemy.' This is frequently done by tying targets to an ideology, group, or institution they hate. Once innocent people are grouped together under a single label, the act is no longer personal—it becomes a 'mission' in the individual's mind, and missions are easily justified in a distorted worldview.
Critical Warning Signs on the Path to Violence
When an individual is moving toward an attack, watch closely for these behavioral shifts:
Sudden Hostility or Complete Withdrawal: A noticeable change in attitude toward specific cultures, races, or authority figures—expressed through verbal or physical aggression, or a sudden, total withdrawal from social interactions.
Disregard for Personal Well-Being: Neglecting self-care, appearance, or future responsibilities due to a belief that their remaining time is short.
Openly Identifying an Enemy & Expressing a Plan: Moving from a general dislike of a group or institution to openly identifying them as an enemy and revealing a desire—or a specific plan—to take action. At this stage, the risk of action is imminent.
In the vast majority of mass shootings, it did not take a psychiatric professional to see that the individual was on a destructive path. Everyday people—family, friends, and coworkers—often observe troubling indicators right in front of them.
August of 2019,
'Tragedy Averted': Texas Grandma Praised For Stopping Alleged Planned Mass Shooting
How One Phone Call Averted a Tragedy
In a well-known Texas case, a young man obtained his weapons, put together a simple plan, and then reached out to share his secret. He called his grandmother. In his mind, this was his final step toward justification—the last stop before total commitment.
Instead of ignoring it, his grandmother acted. She reached out for help, and a tragedy was averted.
Why Her Call to Police Worked
When the grandmother called 911, her report gave law enforcement everything they needed to intervene immediately:
She Established Means: She knew her grandson owned firearms and heard what sounded like weapons being handled in the background during their phone call—proving to police that he had the immediate capability to do harm.
She Established Intent & Location: Her grandson explicitly stated his intent to kill, and she knew his exact location. Combined, those facts made the threat imminent and triggered an immediate police response.
Officers intercepted the grandson before he could carry out the attack, placing him in a controlled environment where he could be evaluated by psychiatric professionals.
Why Most Warning Signs Go Unreported
Unfortunately, a success story like this is rare. In the vast majority of cases, concerned parties fail to come forward—a pattern supported by threat-assessment research showing that while most attackers communicate their intent beforehand, bystanders often hesitate to report it.
In the Texas case, the young man’s own parents were afraid of him. They knew he was unstable and owned guns, yet their solution was simply to kick him out of the house. It took a grandmother with an "old-school" sense of right and wrong to step in and do what needed to be done.
When someone spots troubling behavior, three major barriers usually keep them silent:
Fear of the Subject: Family members, friends, or coworkers are often genuinely afraid of how the individual will react if confronted or reported.
Difficulty Articulating the Concern: People often sense that something is deeply wrong, yet struggle to put into words exactly what about the person's behavior alarms them.
Rationalizing the Threat as "Posturing": This is the single biggest reason shooters are not intercepted before an attack. Concerned parties convince themselves that the person is just venting, showing off, or bluffing. Drawing that conclusion gives them a convenient excuse—freeing them from the fear, indecision, and guilt they feel when contemplating turning someone in.
Here lies the main question to be answered, in my opinion.
“Who do we notify if we feel there is an issue with someone on the path to a mass shooting?”
School Threats
If the threat is imminent, call “911”. You do not have to give your name. Give as much detail as you can about the subject and what actions led you to make the call.
If the subject is involved in the school system or has made comments that lead you to believe that he intends action at a school, then contact the school system and the police.
Here in Florida, the Office of the Attorney General, Department of Education and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement created an app that allows someone to immediately report suspicious activity at schools anonymously . The report/tip is immediately sent to the school system and police.
FortifyFL
This app was created after the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Depending on the level of concern, contacting the police directly can also be done anonymously.
If you are not in Florida, take a moment to see if your state has developed a similar app.
Off Campus Threats
Reporting concerns where subjects have yet to identify a target, can be difficult. Difficult in the following ways,
Who do I warn?
Are my concerns rational or am I just a little paranoid due to the recent shooting incidents?
Often the subject uses the internet to build his justification for the act. Most of the time he already has the resources. His display on the internet often showcases his resources. This is the time we report him and the authorities attempt to locate him.
Again, who do we report to? The subject could be in a different state.
I would first “screen capture” what concerns me, make some notes. By the time you make a decision on who to contact, the subject may feel that his identity has been compromised and he deletes his internet account.
If he is using a host such as YouTube, flag him, notify the company.
If you cannot determine where he is; then notify your state law enforcement agency. Their resources are greater than most local agencies. They often have units assigned to nothing but internet investigations.
When reporting to law enforcement agencies, get names of the people you talk to & cases numbers. No one wants to be the person who dropped the ball should the subject turn out to be a mass shooter.
Many states now have what they refer to as “Red Flag Gun Laws”, also referred to as “extreme-risk protection orders”.
The laws vary from state to state, basically a law enforcement officer can petition a judge to temporarily remove weapons from a subject. This temporarily removes the subject’s resources to commit the act and often the subject can be required to get psychological help.
In many states that have Red Flag laws, family, friends and co-workers can petition the court directly. It does not have to be a law enforcement officer.
Follow this link to get a better understanding of Red Flag gun laws.
Going back to my scenario
“If you present yourself as a threat, I’m not wasting time on where you obtained your resources. I’m coming to you before you cross the field to my family.”
Thank You for reading,,,,,,,,,,
