The ‘serious red flag’ for a potential school shooter? An obsession with other mass shooters

By Eric Levenson, CNN

(CNN) — The Annunciation Catholic Church shooter wrote in a journal they were “morbidly obsessed” with mass shootings and had a “deep fascination” with the Sandy Hook school shooter.

On the firearms and magazines used in the attack, the shooter scrawled the names of other mass killers, ranging from the Unabomber to the Columbine attackers to the Tree of Life synagogue shooter. The goal was to “honor past killers,” the shooter wrote in the journal.

The attack on August 27 killed two schoolchildren – ages 8 and 10 – and wounded 21 others, including students and elderly parishioners.

The writings indicate the shooter had what Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara described as a “deranged fascination with previous mass shootings.” It’s a characteristic that makes the shooter “like so many other mass shooters that we have seen in this country, too often, and around the world,” he added.

Indeed, many mass shooters show a similar fascination or fixation on other mass shooters and their lives, according to experts in the psychology of school shooters.

“For people who want to go down this pathway, they go out of their way to learn about previous attackers, to find role models,” said Peter Langman, a psychologist who has written several books about school shooters. “They’re drawn to that.”

But why that fascination? Experts on the psychology of school shooters in particular say the reasoning is an extremely disturbed version of something altogether human: a need to feel understood, to have role models and to be part of a community.

Understanding that mindset can better help the public spot warnings and concerning behaviors before they turn violent, as potential school shooters often exhibit “leakage,” a term for their specific hints or comments about their violent plans. While journal writings may be viewed too late, other hints may come in the form of a comment at school or in a video game chat online.

“We often say one of the greatest red flags is an unhealthy obsession and fascination with past mass shooters,” said James Densley, a professor of criminology at Metro State University in Minnesota and co-founder of The Violence Prevention Project.

History of fascination with mass shooters

From Columbine to Annunciation, many mass shooters have explicitly said in journals or interviews that they drew inspiration from other mass killers as murderous role models.

The Columbine attackers are a particular source of obsession. A subculture of people online known as “Columbiners” even romanticize and idealize a mythologized version of the shooters as hero outcasts, offering odes in the form of memes, fashion choices and music.

Some school shooters have even been members of online forums that discussed their fascination with other mass shooters. The Sandy Hook shooter, for example, was part of an online community of mass murder enthusiasts for several years before the attack, according to a state report.

Others have copied and adapted other mass shooters’ writings and used them as part of their own.

“This is not a new phenomenon, just in the last year or two, this has a long history,” Langman said. “People find role models to validate their own violent urges.”

Adam Lankford, a professor of criminology at the University of Alabama, said he has found in his studies on school shooters that so-called “copycat shooters” are often personally similar to their role models in terms of age, sex, race and country of origin, as well as in the target of their violence.

The psychology behind this obsession

One key reason for this fascination is their desire to feel understood and to connect with a broader group of people.

“It’s a case of identifying people who are just like them,” Densley said. “It’s almost to a point where they feel like these are the only individuals who are truly like them or would understand them, and they want to feel part of something bigger. It’s that sense of belonging that is often missing from their everyday lives.”

This obsession with other shooters can even make them feel validated and even inspired.

Mass shooters “very often want to follow in the footsteps of a previous attacker,” Langman said. “These are people who feel powerless and insignificant, and they want to feel powerful and significant, and they want to make a name for themselves.”

There is also a desire for infamy and to have their names and faces splashed across the internet and newspapers for a spurt of violence.

“A lot of shooters study other shooters and want the same notoriety,” Langman said.

Lankford likens this fascination with past mass shooters to “celebrity worship,” in which people with problems in their personal lives develop a fixation on certain celebrities.

“The celebrity worship is filling a void for them, and I think it’s clear that it’s the same thing with people who become mass shooters,” he said.

What you can do about it

Given this background, the experts said to be on the lookout for children with a fascination with school shooters or incidents of mass violence.

“That’s a serious red flag. A healthy child should not be fascinated with these things,” Densley said.

The challenge is that many of these online communities discussing these topics are unmoderated and anonymous. He recommended parents try to better track what their children are doing online and learn more about online forums that may discuss mass shooters.

“A lot of this is really just educating parents, teachers, community members to become a little more literate with the way in which the internet works, the way in which these apps work, so that they can better moderate whether their children are using them,” he said.

In addition, experts in recent years have recommended the news media adhere to “No Notoriety” guidelines by avoiding glorifying the mass shooter or featuring their name or image more than is necessary. But with the rise of social media and anonymous forums, that may be trickier on the modern internet.

“We’ve made some progress in that regard, but nowhere near enough,” Lankford said.

Further, many school shooters confide in others or drop hints about their violent plans or interests, the concept known as leakage. This can take the form of conversation with peers, school assignments, online behavior or interaction with parents, according to Langman.

Which brings us back to the Annunciation shooter. Before the attack, the shooter wrote in their journal about several instances in which they “dropped a few warning signs to a few people.”

The journal also details an incident around seventh grade in which the shooter claimed they were suspended from school after discussing school shootings with classmates.

“We don’t know what kind of indications the perpetrator gave in this recent incident, but based on the writings, it sounds like some kind of leakage was disclosed,” Langman said.

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CNN’s Yahya Abou-Ghazala and Nina Subkhanberdina contributed to this report.