I’m an expert on school shootings. I thought I was unshockable, but the Minneapolis killer’s secret obsession has sickened me to my core

I made a career to investigate the darkest recesses of the mind.

And you might think that I haven’t been able to cook for more than 55 years-as the founding partner of the largest and most comprehensive database of the biographies of a criminal and mass shooters.

However, on Wednesday morning, his savagery, 23 -year -old Robin Westman hit hard when he hit the mass service of the Catholic School in the morning.

I am not in Minneapolis, where I am the head of the Criminology Department of Metro State University, but also a father of an eight -year -old child: the same age as one of the two children killed by Westman. Some critically seventeen people were injured.

After two days and trying to understand them all, the questions are countless. How could he motivate Westman?

The online astonishment that emerged as a kind of ‘manifesto’ shows numerous hatred: anti -Semitism, racism, anti -Israel, anti -Trump, anti -Indian, anti -Indian.

Antisemitism is something that people are locked on, and yes, it is a common feature in the soul of shooters-a frequently referenced hate brand.

But I see it rarely alone – open with Westman. Westman was a hate cocktail about how troubled we were with a person.

Antisemitism is something that people are locked on. But I think this is rarely alone

In fact, the motivation of a shooter by personal complaints is much more common for ‘reasons’ such as antisemitism.

(Of course, the right -wing extremist Robert Bowers killed eleven and seven injured, although there are high profile exceptions such as the 2018 Life of Life Synagogue attack.)

If something happens, the FBI director Kash Patel said that Minneapolis was an anti-Catholic attack-this is something that can be linked to Westman’s internal conflict on gender.

Westman was born and changed sex to 17 years old.

In a Catholic school and the Catholic family, we can imagine that someone who has passed through such an identity crisis has had a hard time and probably struggles in life.

There are certainly some extraordinary elements for this shoot – those who distinguish it from others.

Most importantly, Westman’s obsession with killing children. Westman, who wrote in a magazine, made it clear that they and their lonely – and better better.

Westman, ‘I love when children are shot’ and ‘I love to see the kids’ smashing’ he wrote. It’s hard to repeat them.

I can’t help, but I think it’s part of the cynical desire of this shooter to have a maximum effect. And aiming for children is the way to do this – Sandy Hook in Connecticut and Uvalte in Texas, many children are the disgraceful examples of death.

In Westman, the struck of these events, which focused very clearly on children, could not be lost. This quest for fame was about to ask for a bad fame.

He also betrayed something about Westman’s hatred – their lives were perfect to kill innocent children.

As a mass shooter posed in an outfit before making an attack, and as Westman reported, ‘I look beautiful, smart and humble. I think I want to wear something like this for my shots. ‘

Of course, this is partly that mass shooters are male, so looking ‘beautiful’ is not a priority. However, it is very common for them to plan their clothes in detail.

These events are often aimed at a final action: you go out with an explosion. This is a show, the most terrible performance.

In the same way, if you shoot a rap video, you need all tropics – a sports car, woman, money – you need. Many masses try to ‘look at the piece’.

Two children were killed, and the shooter was injured when the announcement sprayed bullets from the stained glass windows of the Catholic Church (in the picture: embracing a parent’s son).

There are certainly some extraordinary elements for this shoot – it separates it from others. Most importantly, Westman’s obsession with killing children

They refer to the mass shooters before them. They want to ‘measure’.

Last December, Wisconsin, Wisconsin, a 15-year-old girl who opened fire in Life Christian School in Wisconsin, killed Natalie Rupnow-Üçünü and wounded six.

Columbine is a group of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who are fans of enthusiastic fans.

The imitator nature of school shots is really one of the darkest and saddeal parts of the phenomenon.

Indeed, there is much more in the minneapolis attack than those who seem to separate it.

Like many other mass shooters, Westman wrote comprehensive notes on previous attacks.

‘I especially have a deep fan with a man: Adam Lanza,’ Westman wrote on May 23 at a magazine. ‘Sandy Hook is my favorite, I think it was the exposure of school shootings.’

This is incredibly important. Everyone who does this is experiencing an internal and existential self -crisis.

And in the case of this mind, these individuals look online, see that other mass shooters have similar complaints and ‘This is mine’.

They go down the rabbit hole and become obsessed with violence.

Like Lanza, who attacked the Connecticut School in 2012, Westman’s mother worked at school.

Time again depends on the attraction area. They target the people and places they know.

More than 80 percent of school shooters are available or former students. Most of the time, it is about manifesting revenge or complaints.

We immediately tend to fix it to a motivation. Was he a hate crime? Was there a hit list of individual goals?

In this case, we may never find a satisfactory answer to these questions – Westman seemed to hate everyone: black people, Latins, Jews, Christians, everyone.

The deeper issue for me is how someone came there. And how can we catch them before falling and suffer such an unimaginable pain?

James Densley is a professor of criminology and criminal justice at Metro State University and the head of the department and the founding partner of the Violence Prevention Project Research Center (Violence ProjectAt Hamline University. O ‘Violence Project: How to stop a mass epidemic’ is a joint author.