August 10, 2012

Campus Threat-Assessment Teams Face Complex Task of Judging Risk

Campus Threat-Assessment Teams Face Complex Task of Judging Risk 1

Ted S. Warren, AP Images

Members of a hazardous-device unit gathered outside a building at the U. of Colorado at Denver's medical campus last month after responding to reports of suspicious packages there. The suspect in the Aurora, Colo., movie-theater shootings had been a graduate student there but withdrew about six weeks before the shootings.

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close Campus Threat-Assessment Teams Face Complex Task of Judging Risk 1

Ted S. Warren, AP Images

Members of a hazardous-device unit gathered outside a building at the U. of Colorado at Denver's medical campus last month after responding to reports of suspicious packages there. The suspect in the Aurora, Colo., movie-theater shootings had been a graduate student there but withdrew about six weeks before the shootings.

By Beth Mole

In science-fiction movies like Minority Report, psychics could identify future murderers before they ever picked up a weapon. But the task of predicting the future and thwarting violence by identifying students who are likely to do harm is, in reality, complex, difficult, and full of pitfalls.

Many American colleges set up teams after the 2007 shootings at Virginia Tech to monitor campus incidents and, they hope, intervene before a potentially violent member of the community