Connecticut state police have formed a team focused on people who may be planning targeted violence such as a mass shooting.
Lt. Anthony Guiliano, a 19-year veteran of the state police, leads three detectives in the Threat Management Program, which launched about a year ago. The team works to divert potential perpetrators to counseling and other help, and if necessary, arrest them before they do harm.
Members have other duties, Guiliano said in an interview Wednesday, but he hopes and expects the team to be dealing full-time with threats throughout the state in the near future.
The team wrapped up a three-day training session, led by officers with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, on Wednesday at the Connecticut Police Academy in Meriden that included mental health professionals, representatives of the State's Attorney's Office and workplace leaders, including representatives of Hartford HealthCare. Threat management, Guiliano stressed, is always a collaboration and members of a wider team will change depending on the circumstances and location.
The goal, he said, is not to arrest people, but to pivot them from the slow-burning grievances that sometimes end in death. The constant question: "How do we fix this so the shooter is not at the door," Guiliano said.
Academics and federal agencies have studied the warning signs of targeted violence. The Violence Prevention Training guide established by the University of Illinois, with funding from the federal government, charts a perpetrator's evolution, or Pathway to Violence:
- Grievance — A person feels wronged due to an imagined or real experience. The feeling may stem from a sense of injustice, victimization or outsider status. Behaviors may include speech, sketches or writing characterized as hostile, sarcastic or bitter.
- Violent Ideation —Thinking about or considering violence related to a grievance. Behaviors may include thoughts or fantasies of murder.
- Research and planning —Thinking about who, when and how to commit a violent act. Specific targets and tactics are researched and the attack is more concretely planned.
- Preparation — May include identifying and acquiring weapons and tools to carry out the plan. Friends also may be warned at this stage.
- Probing and breaching — Looking for vulnerabilities to help carry out the attack, researching the location, how to gain entry and then escape once the attack is done.
- Attack — The final stage, which may end with the attacker dead by suicide or law enforcement response.
Asked for a hypothetical situation, Guiliano said a person overhears a coworker who has been passed up for promotion say something ominous and out of character, like, "You should watch the news tomorrow." The witness reports concerns to superiors and they call police. The state police team, often working with municipal police, would speak to the person who made the comment, coworkers, managers and possibly family and friends.
Sometimes, just that initial conversation with law enforcement will divert the person from any potential violence, Guiliano said. In other cases, police may direct the person to mental health counseling, and sometimes, team members will set what Giuliano called "tripwires," urging friends, family and coworkers to call back if the person makes more threatening comments or buys a firearm, for instance.
Almost always, there are signs that a person is considering or planning targeted violence, experts say, including increasingly erratic, unsafe and aggressive behavior; hostile feelings of injustice or perceived wrongdoing; drug and alcohol abuse; marginalization or distancing from friends and colleagues; changes in work performance; sudden and dramatic changes in home life or in personality; financial difficulties; pending civil or criminal litigation; and observable grievances with threats and plans of retribution.
Florida police have been leaders in threat assessment and management since 2019, an initiative of Gov. Ron DeSantis. The state has been the scene of several of the nation's worst massacres, including the school shooting in Parkland in 2018 that killed 17 and the Pulse nightclub shooting in 2016 that killed 49 people. A state report on targeted violence prevention says a change is necessary "in the cultural fabric of law enforcement throughout the state from a primarily reactive, response-oriented mindset to one that is more proactive and prevention-oriented."
The report defines targeted violence as "intentional, instrumental and proactive violence, as opposed to impulsive, emotional, and reactive violence," and says such acts are rarely spontaneous.
"Persons of concern for targeted violence do not snap; they decide," the report says. "They decide that interpersonal violence is a necessary, justified or acceptable solution to some grievance or overwhelming combination of life stressors."
Contrary to common misperceptions, the report says, research indicates that mental illness is not wholly, or even primarily, responsible for targeted violence.
The report also calls on law enforcement officers to engage with their communities to increase public awareness and encourage reporting of concerning behavior. Giuliano said he is spreading word about the state police team to municipal police leaders and other stakeholders in Connecticut. The work is necessary on the local and state level, he said, because state and municipal police know the territory better than their federal counterparts and have resources not available to the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies.
Guiliano invited those who want to learn more about threat management efforts to email him at [email protected].
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