For Immediate Release
A Statement from Mary Ellen O'Toole and the Violence and Gender Journal on the Umpqua Community College Shooting
Contact: Kathryn Ryan
914-740-2250
kryan@liebertpub.com
New Rochelle, NY, October 2, 2015—In light of yesterday's tragic events at Umpqua Community College, Violence and Gender Editor-in-Chief Mary Ellen O'Toole, PhD, Director, Forensic Science Program, George Mason University and Senior FBI Profiler/Criminal Investigative Analyst (ret.), has released a statement on acts of mass violence and violence prevention efforts:
"We are now a generation into these mass murders," says Dr. O'Toole. "The year the Umpqua Community College shooter was born, the FBI initiated its research on school shootings. Shooters today are growing up in this culture. It’s what they know. It has become normalized behavior for too many people. When violent behavior becomes 'normalized' people who hear and see the leakage won't call authorities who could stop it, and 'See something say something' hits deaf ears. Mass shootings have morphed beyond a single solution, single motive, and single cause. This is about guns, about mental health, about people not reporting leakage, about families that ignore the warning signs, about young males resorting to this lethal, callous, and extraordinary violence because they hate the world and everyone in it and want to be headline news. It is all of this."
"Now like a 'super strain' virus, mass homicide violence has becomes that much harder to treat and cure than it was 26 years ago," Dr. O'Toole continues. I truly believe we can still do something to stop this behavior. Violence and Gender will work even harder to solicit the best and most groundbreaking research, perspective pieces, and editorials on this topic that we can. We will continue to educate families, schools, mental health, law enforcement, educators and most importantly legislators, until the ground swell will be too much, and change will have to happen. This problem has become everyone's responsibility to fix. Learn the warning behaviors, parent that kid, call law enforcement if you have to... just do something!"
"It is imperative we strive to make serious change," says Mary Ann Liebert, President and CEO of Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. and publisher of the peer-reviewed journal Violence and Gender. "It is time that our legislators get out of the way of sensible gun control. President Obama must take a strong and ongoing stand and force this issue."
In order to promote the understanding of root causes of tragic events such as those at Umpqua Community College, Violence and Gender is providing free access to the following articles:
Mass Murder: A Perspective on Young Male Killers
James Garbarino
The Mission-Oriented Shooter: A New Type of Mass Killer
Mary Ellen O'Toole
Lone Wolf Killers: A Perspective on Overvalued Ideas
Matthew H. Logan
Mass Murder, Mental Illness, and Men
Michael H. Stone
The Seven Myths of Mass Murder
J. Reid Meloy
About the Journal
Violence and Gender is the only peer-reviewed journal focusing on the understanding, prediction, and prevention of acts of violence. Through research papers, roundtable discussions, case studies, and other original content, the Journal critically examines biological, genetic, behavioral, psychological, racial, ethnic, and cultural factors as they relate to the gender of perpetrators of violence. Led by Editor-in-Chief Mary Ellen O'Toole, PhD, Forensic Behavioral Consultant and Senior FBI Profiler/Criminal Investigative Analyst (ret.), Violence and Gender explores the difficult issues that are vital to threat assessment and prevention of the epidemic of violence. Violence and Gender is published quarterly online with Open Access options and in print, and is the official journal of The Avielle Foundation. Tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on the Violence and Gender website.
About the Publisher
Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research, including Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology and Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. Its biotechnology trade magazine, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN), was the first in its field and is today the industry's most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm's 80 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available on the Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers website.