President Donald J. Trump
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President,
The terrifying and tragic active shooter events of the past few days have us all mourning the loss and asking yet again, why? Your predecessors did little or nothing to prevent them. I’m writing to show you it is possible to change things, but you’ll have to look at the problem differently.
First, mental health assessments are notoriously inaccurate, and if we rely on them to prevent the problem, we’ll all be disappointed.
More training for law enforcement agencies won’t prevent them either. From the moment of commitment (when an assailant decides to pull his weapons and start shooting) to when the first round is discharged is just two seconds. No law enforcement agency, no matter how well trained or equipped, can be on scene in just two seconds. Trained law enforcement response teams are taught to step over those dead, dying and/or wounded victims to get to the shooter. In El Paso, Texas 20 died and 27 were injured before law enforcement could stop this carnage. In Dayton, Ohio nine died and 27 were injured before law enforcement was able to stop the shooter, even though they responded in less than 30 seconds.
’m sure that you, like me, find these outcomes unacceptable.
The “Safe School Initiative” -- a joint study conducted in 2004 by the U.S. Secret Service, the U.S. Department of Education, and the National Institute of Justice -- concluded there is “no accurate or useful profile” for an active shooter and that the only way to predict these tragedies is to identify someone who “is on a path to a violent attack.” Andre Simmons, the Chief of the FBI’s Behavioral Threat Assessment Center/Behavioral Analysis Unit in 2013, supported this conclusion.
The Center for Aggression Management has developed and scientifically validated the Critical Aggression Prevention System (CAPS), which is built on the premise of “identifying someone on the path to violence.” Although no approach is 100% effective, CAPS has proven to be more effective at violence prevention than any other system. Further, because CAPS only detects and evaluates aggressive behavior on its merits, it does not violate or contravene HIPAA, FERPA or the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
CAPS looks at objective, observable behavior and allows us to determine the stage of aggression at which any person may be. All aggressors - whether they are terrorists or active shooters or motivated by politics or mental illness - follow a definite, measurable, forensically defined pathway to violence which we can observe and measure.
CAPS includes First Observers – people trained to accurately recognize objective, observable, aggressive behavior. It involves Aggression Managers – people trained to track behavior and determine the stage of aggression. It involves the CAPS Mobile App Technology, which allows the Aggression Managers to track and record aggressive behavior in a scientifically validated, forensic manner, that does not conflict nor contravene HIPAA, FERPA or privacy regulations. The CAPS Mobile App Technology determines the threat level and formulates the proper response (counseling, mental health assessment, law enforcement intervention, etc.).
The CAPS program has been used by universities, post offices, and business across the country. However, for the most part, government/law enforcement and the general public have been focused on mental health evaluations and other failed reactive approaches mentioned earlier and are unaware of the CAPS program. If you are serious about stopping these horrific public shootings, we must take a preventative approach using CAPS.
I invite you to contact me directly, Mr. President. We have lots of work to do. Let’s make our country safe again.