Georgia school shooter police interview: Same failures as Ohio in February
Just like Ohio police didn't take an anonymous report seriously and sent a student who was plotting a school shooting to campus, Georgia police lacked basic knowledge of investigating a threat.
“God forbid if I didn’t do my job and something happened, I’d feel pretty bad about it.”
- Georgia police officer during interview with school shooter in May 2023
Back in February, a student in Ohio was plotting a school shooting with an adult in another state. Other students heard about the plot and reported it to police. When officers showed up at the student’s house, they didn’t take the threat seriously, conducted a sloppy interview, and sent the student to school. Hours later, the student was arrested on campus.
There are systemic failures occurring when the same problems with the Ohio interview also happened in Georgia a year before the school shooting at Apalachee High. At 9:41 into the interview, the officer apologizes to the father and son by telling them “I don’t want to get anyone hemmed up here. I’d hate to, and my boss said, you know I don’t know how old this information is, and we were gonna wait till Monday to follow-up.” This shows a general lack of concern for the severity of the situation.
Here is the bodycam from Georgia police interviewing the school shooter and his father:
Even while conducting a sloppy interview, the teen and his father give away multiple clues about the situation:
Father confirms the student plays a lot of video games which is a clue he is probably on Discord forums (if you don’t know what Discord is, here is my article about it)
Father says “he is going to get all red faced about this” showing the father knows something about the issues and threats
Father says “I’ve been at the school countless times”, mentions that his son is struggling, and tells police “I’m a little pissed off” that someone made a tip
Father says “we do a lot of shooting”, confirms there are guns in the house, and says I try to teach him all about guns
Father says “I’ll be mad as hell if he said something like that” in reference to the school shooting threat
Teen confirms that he used/uses Discord but denies making any threats on it
Teen promises he never made any threats, officer says “I’m not saying you’re lying but lots of people lie to police”. Right then his father says “he’s familiar with that too”.
Teen rocks back and forth during the interview while looking away when officers ask him questions. This is textbook body language for someone who is hiding info.
Teen talks about getting bullied and stress of switching schools six different times. Officer tells him I moved to and downplays the significance of the stress.
Teen says he has talked to school counselors about the stress of bullying.
Officer asks teen for his phone number and teen says he can’t give it (audio breaks up and it’s hard to understand what he said). Officer doesn’t follow up. (This is a huge failure because the information on his phone and linked accounts is critical to investigate a school shooting threat)
Officer says we tracked the IP address on the threat but “if you look me in the eye and tell me it’s the truth, I’ll take it as the truth”. (Officer dismisses digital evidence and decides this short interview was enough)
When the officers walk back to their police car, one officer asks the other what to do next, he says “don’t matter, it will just be an info report and an agency assist. We made contact with these people and they had no idea. Very soft spoken, reserved kid who is getting bullied. We are unable to substantiate anything” (17:20).
Just like in Ohio earlier this year, this police officer is predisposed to think the threat isn't a big deal, he makes no effort to try to figure out what's happening or conduct a serious interview, he doesn't search the student or the home, and he doesn’t follow basic procedures for conducting an interview with a suspect (in the last section of this article).
This is an example of how a single point of failure occurs in the school shooting prevention system. Read more about the seven systemic failures before the school shooting at Apalachee High.
Looking back at Mariemont High interview and plot
"Anytime you hear those two words—'shooting' and 'school'—people go haywire". - Marimont Police Officer
Twelve hours after getting a tip from a parent about a school shooting plot targeting Mariemont High School in the Cincinnati, Ohio suburbs, the real life Barney Fife1 was sent out the next morning to investigate. City of Mariemont has a 10 officer police department (white hat in the video).
After complimenting the father on his choice of handgun (“Any guns in the house? A little snub-nose?" "Nice!"), the officer does a short interview with the 14-year-old student on the front porch, the officer does more talking than listening, and then says to the teenage suspect, "get the heck to school, you aren't in any trouble."
As the teen walks away, the officer remarks to the father “we heard about this last night but didn’t want to send the night shift out and bother you”.
Later that day, the teen was arrested at school for plotting an attack with an adult in Colorado. It turns out, this 14-year-old student had been planning a school shooting for weeks. He planned to disable the school's CCTV, release sedative gases, attack the office first, kill 8 specific students, decide during the attack of there were other students he wants to kill, and then kidnap attractive students to rape. The teen planned to use both his father's gun (same one the officer complimented) and other weapons the adult coconspirator from Colorado would bring.
Best Practices
When a patrol officer, school resource officer, or school official is conducting an interview and investigation about a school shooting threat, here are some best practices to follow:
Conduct the interview in a quiet, private space.
Have at least two adults present during the interview.
Interview one person at a time (if there are multiple students and/or parents present, put them in separate rooms).
If possible, have someone with formal training and experience with conducting interviews (e.g., detective) ask the questions.
Gather information from sources and witnesses before talking to the suspect.
Use the information gathered about the situation to shape the questions for the suspect.
Ask short questions with open ended answers that give the interviewees an opportunity to provide detailed explanations.
Never cut off the responses from the witnesses or suspect, allow them to continue talking and elaborating on an answer.
If details are conflicting, ask follow-up questions to get more information.
Don’t sit on information about a school shooting plot for 12 hours to avoid bothering the night shift.
Don’t send the suspect to school or back to class until you finish the investigation and have all of the information needed to evaluate the threat.
Preventing school shootings requires everyone involved to take the threat seriously, conduct a timely and thorough investigation, involve staff with formal training, and follow best practices for conducting interviews.
David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen to my weekly podcast—Back to School Shootings—or my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Journal of Medicine, and my article on CNN about AI and school security.