Page:Protective Intelligence and Threat Assessment Investigations - A Guide for State and Local Law Enforcement Officials.pdf/26

 Violence—especially assassination—is an event in which a person, triggered by an event or change, and operating in a situation that facilitates, permits, or does not prevent violence, takes action against a designated target. These four elements—the potential attacker, event, situation, and target—form the basis for a threat assessment investigation.

The potential attacker. Determining the risk of targeted violence, such as assassinations, begins with gathering information about the potential attacker. In threat investigations and assessments, a key concern is how the person has dealt with unbearable stress in the past.

People have many options for dealing with stress: resting, working, exercising, sleeping, changing activities, seeking family support, making contact with friends, etc. However, what happens when the usual means of dealing with stress are not available, do not work, or are not pursued and a person considers life unbearably stressful? At such a time, four reactions are possible. A person might become:


 * Physically ill.
 * Psychotic or otherwise out of touch with reality.
 * Suicidal or self-destructive.
 * Violent to others or homicidal.

The event. Investigators should also examine past traumatic events in the life of the individual, particularly those that caused life to seem unbearably stressful. These might include major changes such as:

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 * Losses of significant relationships (the end of an intimate relationship, death of a parent, or loss of a child).
 * Changes in financial status (the loss of a job or threatened financial disaster).
 * Changes in living arrangements (being released from an institution, for example).
 * Feeling humiliated or being rejected, especially in public.