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Mass Shootings Can Be Contagious, Research Shows
There were three high-profile shootings across the country in one week: The shooting in Gilroy, Calif., on July 28, and then the back-to-back shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, this past weekend.
That’s no surprise, say scientists who study mass shootings. Research shows that these incidents usually occur in clusters and tend to be contagious. Intensive media coverage seems to drive the contagion, the researchers say.
Back in 2014 and 2015, researchers at Arizona State University analyzed data on cases of mass violence. They included USA Today‘s data on mass killings (defined as four or more people killed using any means, including guns) from 2006 to 2013, data on school shootings between 1998 and 2013, and mass shootings (defined as incidents in which three people were shot, not necessarily killed) between 2005 and 2013 collected by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
The lead researcher, Sherry Towers, a faculty research associate at Arizona State University, had spent most of her career modeling the spread of infectious diseases — like Ebola, influenza and sexually transmitted diseases. She wanted to know whether cases of mass violence spread contagiously, like in a disease outbreak.
So, she plugged each data set into a mathematical model.
“What we found was that for the mass killings — so these are high-profile mass killings where there’s at least four people killed — there was significant evidence of contagion,” says Towers. “We also found significant evidence of contagion in the school shootings.”
In other words, school shootings and other shootings with four or more deaths spread like a contagion — each shooting tends to spark more shootings.
“So one happens and you see another few happen right after that,” says Jillian Peterson, a criminologist at Hamline University in Minnesota and founder of the nonpartisan think tank, The Violence Project. She wasn’t involved in the Arizona State research but has found similar patterns in her own research.
Towers and her colleagues also found that what set apart shootings that were contagious was the amount of media coverage they received. “In the incidences where there were four or more people killed, and even school shootings, those tended to get national and even international media attention,” says Towers.
She also found that there is a window when a shooting is most likely to lead to more incidents — about two weeks. Towers and her team published their results in 2015.
It’s a form of social contagion, says Peterson, somewhat like a suicide contagion — that’s when a high-profile suicide leads to more people to take their own lives. For example, following the suicide of actor Robin Williams, researchers documented a 10% spike in suicides in the months following his death. Vulnerable individuals who are already struggling with suicidal thoughts read or watched news reports of the actor’s death and then took their own lives.
Mass shooting contagion is similar, she says.
Peterson has interviewed living mass shooters in prison and people who knew such perpetrators and has found that these individuals often start out feeling suicidal.
“We can show about 80 percent were actively suicidal prior to the shooting,” she says.
Now, the vast majority of people who are suicidal don’t attack others. And people with any kind of mental health problems aren’t more likely to be violent than others. In fact, they are more likely to be victims of violence than those without mental illness.
But Peterson says that in very rare cases, a tiny minority of people considering suicide go down the path of violence toward others. She has come to think of mass shootings as a form of suicide. “They’re angry, horrible suicides that take a lot of people with them,” she says. “The shooter never intends to live; there’s never a getaway plan. Typically they tend to think of this [as] their kind of last moment.”
Other researchers have documented the same in studies of active shooters.
“About half of the school shooters I’ve studied died by suicide in their attack,” Peter Langman, a clinical psychologist in Allentown, Pa., told NPR earlier this year. “It’s often a mix of severe depression and anguish and desperation driving them to end their own lives.”
Vulnerable individuals who are also angry and already considering violence may read or watch the news of a mass shooting and identify with the shooter and be inspired by them.
“So a mass shooting happens and then vulnerable individuals who are actively suicidal and in crisis and hear about the shooting and see this as kind of a script that they could also follow,” she says.
Access to guns and a venue allows them to follow that script.
“There is this element of wanting notoriety in death that you don’t have in life,” Peterson says. “So when one happens and it makes headlines and the names and pictures are everywhere and the whole world is talking about it, that becomes something that other people see as a possibility for themselves.”
Now it’s hard to know yet whether the shooter in Dayton, Ohio, was consciously influenced by the shooter in El Paso, the one in Gilroy, Calif., or another shooting.
But Sherry Towers notes that there’s clear evidence that the shooter in El Paso, Texas, was inspired by the shooting at a mosque in New Zealand back in March.
“It’s in his manifesto that he published online,” says Towers. “He mentions that he wanted to emulate the Christchurch, New Zealand, shooting.”
Peterson and other researchers who study mass shootings think the media should avoid showing the shooters’ images and dwelling on their life histories and motives. “The fact that we give them that notoriety is problematic,” says Peterson.
Article via NPR
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North Carolina Reaches Settlement In Long Battle Over Bathrooms And Gender Identity
A federal judge in North Carolina has approved a consent decree that enshrines the right of transgender individuals to use bathrooms that match their gender identities in North Carolina public buildings.
The agreement was reached between senior state officials and the plaintiffs, led by a transgender man named Joaquin Carcaño. The judge said the parties agree that nothing in a controversial state law “can be construed by the Executive Branch Defendants to prevent transgender people from lawfully using public facilities in accordance with their gender identity.”
“After so many years of managing the anxiety of HB 2 and fighting so hard, I am relieved that we finally have a court order to protect transgender people from being punished under these laws,” said Carcaño.
The settlement also states that any outstanding legal claims against the state officials by the plaintiffs, including the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina, are now dismissed.
“We are thrilled to obtain some clarity and relief for transgender North Carolinians who have been suffering under HB 2 and HB 142 for years. While this part of the court fight may be ending, so much urgent work remains as long as people who are LGBTQ are denied basic protections from violence and discrimination simply because of who they are,” said Irena Como, acting legal director of the ACLU of North Carolina.
Lawmakers passed the original “bathroom bill,” HB 2, in 2016 under Republican Gov. Pat McCrory. It required that public agencies clearly indicate that multiple occupancy restrooms, showers and changing areas in their buildings must be used according to the sex listed on a person’s birth certificate.
The bill drew intense backlash. That included pullouts from major businesses that, according to an estimate from The Associated Press, could have cost the state some $3.76 billion over the course of 12 years.
In 2017, the newly elected Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper repealed major portions of it with a new bill, HB 142.
However, as NPR has reported, the updated law remained controversial with rights advocates because it left state legislators in charge of policy on public restrooms. And like the preceding bill, it also blocked “local jurisdictions from passing anti-discrimination measures protecting LGBT people — but only until 2020, instead of indefinitely.”
Carcaño, the case’s lead plaintiff, said it “remains devastating” that local jurisdictions can’t implement such measures yet. “The fight for full justice will continue.”
The North Carolina General Assembly, which passed these bills, opposed the consent decree, according to a court filing. Cooper and several other senior state officials were in favor of the settlement, while the University of North Carolina and its president didn’t take a position.
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N.J. Woman Pleads Guilty In Homeless GoFundMe Hoax, Faces 4 Years In State Prison
Article via NPR
A New Jersey woman pleaded guilty Monday to theft by deception for perpetrating what began as a story of redemption that was revealed to be a ruse.
Katelyn McClure appeared in New Jersey Superior Court, admitting to her role in duping thousands of people out of $400,000 through a fictionalized GoFundMe page purporting to benefit a homeless veteran said to have bought her gas.
McClure, 29, will serve a four-year-term in a New Jersey state prison under the plea, according to the Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office. Sentencing is set for June 3.
The homeless man, Johnny Bobbitt, 36, also pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, which comes with a maximum 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000. He has not yet been sentenced.
Bobbitt was admitted last week into a drug treatment program, which could help him avoid prison time.
“However,” the Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement, “if Bobbitt fails to adhere to the tightly-structured regimen of treatment and recovery services, which includes frequent testing for drug use, he could be sentenced to five years in state prison.”
A third person, Mark D’Amico, McClure’s then-boyfriend, is also charged with theft by deception. His case is set to be presented next month to a Burlington County grand jury for possible indictment.
McClure’s lawyer has said D’Amico was the driving force behind the scheme, and prosecutors say that McClure and Bobbitt have agreed to testify against him.
In November 2017, McClure and D’Amico created a GoFundMe Page titled “Paying It Forward.” It said McClure was driving home from Philadelphia on Interstate 95 when she ran out of gas when Bobbitt, a homeless veteran, came to her rescue, spending his last $20 to buy her gas. With a photo of the duo standing by the road, the page solicited donations to help get Bobbitt off the street, with the goal of raising $10,000.
The money came pouring in after the media picked up on the story. Fourteen thousand people donated $400,000 in less than three weeks, according to prosecutors, none the wiser to the fact that McClure had never run out of gas and Bobbitt never spent $20 to help her.
But D’Amico and McClure were quick to spend the money on themselves, prosecutors say, blowing through the bulk of the $400,000 on gambling, a helicopter ride over the Grand Canyon, a BMW, clothing and Louis Vuitton handbags.
But the cover soon began to fall apart.
In December of 2017, the then-couple deposited $25,000 in a bank account they set up for Bobbitt, according to authorities. When Bobbitt realized most of the money had been squandered, he sued them.
Authorities said they found text messages from McClure admitting to the hoax, as NPR’s Vanessa Romo reported in November:
“After scouring more than 67,000 texts on the couple’s phones, officials discovered a text exchange between McClure and a friend written less than an hour after the GoFundMe page went live that appears to confirm it was all a hoax.
” ‘Ok, so wait. The gas part is completely made up but the guy isn’t,’ McClure allegedly texted. ‘I had to make something up to make people feel bad. So shush about the made up stuff.’ “
Burlington County Prosecutor Scott Coffina said that McClure and Bobbitt had known each other for at least a month before setting up the fundraising page. Coffina noted that Bobbitt had previously posted a tale of a stranded woman with an empty gas tank to whom he gave the last of his money in 2012. “I don’t think that’s a coincidence,” he said.
But federal prosecutors allege it was McClure and D’Amico who concocted the story and only informed Bobbitt about it after donations started pouring in.
In December, GoFundMe announced it was refunding donors who had contributed to the campaign.
A Heist, And A Whole Lot More, As Viola Davis Delivers In ‘Widows’
It is one of the oldest and most sexist tropes of all that husbands make messes and wives clean them up. Widows, directed by Steve McQueen (12 Years A Slave) and co-written by McQueen and Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl), spins that idea in a new direction.
Veronica (Viola Davis) is living a high-class, meticulously art-directed Chicago life with her husband Harry (Liam Neeson) and her fluffy little dog. But Harry’s gains are all ill-gotten, and when he pulls one big robbery too many and everything goes sideways, Veronica loses him in a massive van explosion that also takes the lives of the rest of his gang.
The problem? The gang still owes a debt to the man they robbed, and if there’s a debt harder to get rid of than your student loans, it’s the money you owe to an operator as merciless as Jamal Manning (Brian Tyree Henry). Manning is himself a criminal, running for alderman against incumbent Jack Mulligan (Colin Farrell). Politics, of course, takes money. So Jamal both wants and needs his $2 million back, and he expects Veronica — and the widows of the other three men who died in the robbery, if necessary — to make good.
So Veronica goes looking for them: Linda (Michelle Rodriguez), whose husband’s gambling debts were out of control; Alice (Elizabeth Debicki), whose husband was controlling and abusive; and Amanda (Carrie Coon), who wants nothing to do with all this gangster business and won’t talk to Veronica. So she makes do with the team she has, telling Linda and Alice that if they want to live, they only have one option: carry out the heist plans she found in Harry’s notebook. Get that money, use it to pay off Jamal — whose brother Jatemme (Daniel Kaluuya) glowers where Jamal placidly threatens — and get free.
And so Widows is a heist movie. There are plans to make, there are escapes to engineer, there are unexpected challenges to confront. At the same time, Widows is a drama about Veronica — who turns out to have a long and painful history with grief — taking her fate into her own hands. It’s a film doing two very different things, and it’s very good at both.
Part of this success comes from the performance of Viola Davis, who settles into Veronica’s crime-boss phase with ice-cold determination while carrying the character’s deliciously stylish, almost over-the-top panache. She totes around a fluffy little dog that has a story reason to exist but also brings a glamorous aesthetic, together with Davis’ gorgeous and elegant wardrobe, that gives the film a particular flair.
Davis gets strong support from the other women in the group, including Cynthia Erivo as a late addition to the heist team. Debicki, in particular, has a take on the traditional crime-film gorgeous blonde that delivers wit and vulnerability; she has the best chemistry with Davis of any of the widows. And Michelle Rodriguez, it’s fair to remember, is a veteran of the hugely successful Fast and the Furious franchise. She knows her action sequences and her steely glares. Like Neeson, she works this beat regularly — but like him, she’s doing something new within it.
Any crime film is nothing without a good villain. (Anyone who’s seen Die Hard and known that Hans Gruber occasionally had a point knows it’s true.) And Widows, while it most certainly is a story of good and bad guys, has put some thought into the bad guys, too. It’s easy to note the immediacy of Jamal and Jatemme as the people who threaten Veronica; Henry and Kaluuya both know how to play heavies, even though they’ve both played some sweethearts, too. But in the wings is Farrell’s Mulligan, playing out the Chicago-politics machinations of his dying father, played by Robert Duvall. And when Jamal confronts Mulligan about the fact that he doesn’t really know the ward he represents, hasn’t really done anything for it, and barely lives in it, it highlights the difference between immediate and overarching villainy. Who picks up the gun, and who created the situation the gun was picked up to solve? None of this absolves Jamal, but it adds dimensions to his behavior. Evil comes in many forms, and consequences, like everything else, are unequally distributed.
We could certainly end here with a discussion of the dismal representation numbers in Hollywood; how unconscionably rare it is to see strongly supported studio films that offer this kind of role for an actress of Davis’ gender, age, race and shade. The same goes for major releases with a celebrated black director like McQueen, let alone one making a fabulous and fun genre film that doubles as a clever examination of what it means to be a wife and a widow. Seeing Davis, seven years after she played a maid in The Help, heading up a heist team — seeing her take charge of this group, seeing her face down her enemies in perfectly cut clothes and avenge those she loved — it’s thrilling. This is all true.
But let us not lose sight of the fact that this movie is so much fun and so satisfying, so suspenseful and exciting, that all you may want to do at the end is exhale, let your body go limp, crunch your last kernel of popcorn, and buy a ticket to see it again.
Article via NPR