In this 90-minute webinar, Dr. Frank Straub and Jeff Allison provide an overview of the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services-funded Averted School Violence (ASV) database and its application to higher education. The database is a free resource for those who play a role in school safety across the country at both the K-12 and higher education levels. The ASV database is used to collect, analyze, and share information on both averted and completed acts of violence in schools that have occurred post-Columbine. Frank discusses key findings from the ASV database and from a National Police Foundation study that compared averted incidents of school violence to completed incidents. Kristina Anderson, a Virginia Tech shooting survivor, shares lessons learned from the Virginia Tech shooting. Her powerful story, including insight about threat assessment and other key areas of violence prevention, are valuable for anyone involved in campus safety.

1. Campus Public Safety Online

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Chief Frank Straub (Ret.), Director of the Center for Mass Violence Response Studies,
National Police Foundation
Jeff Allison, Special Adviser, IACLEA
Kristina Anderson, Executive Director and Founder, Koshka Foundation
The Importance of Learning
from Averted and
Completed School Attacks

3. Objectives
• Provide an overview of the Averted School Violence
(ASV) initiative and its relevance to higher education
• Discuss the ASV database
• Provide select results and key takeaways from two
analyses of data collected through the ASV initiative
• Share lessons learned from the Virginia Tech shooting
and their implications for school safety today
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7. Averted School Violence (ASV) Initiative
and Database
• Funded by the Office of Community Oriented Policing
Services (COPS Office)
• Value in studying averted and completed acts of
violence in schools
– More attacks are prevented than completed
– Contains insight into the effectiveness of school safety
practices, systems, and training
– Common safety practice in other
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8. How the National Police Foundation
Studies Averted School Violence
• National database and resource: asvnearmiss.org
– Contains 100+ incident-level reports on averted and completed
acts of violence in schools
– K-12 through college/university institutions
– 1999-Present
– Freely available to law enforcement, school personnel, mental
health professionals, and others involved in school safety and
attack prevention
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9. ASV Database (asvnearmiss.org)
• Can share
information on
averted attacks
and prevention
strategies
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10. Report Review Process
• Report is reviewed and identifying information is removed
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• Report is published in
“Browse Reports”
section
• Only vetted individuals
can view incident-level
reports

11. What Have We Learned So Far?
• Part 1 Analysis: Averted attacks (n=51)
• Part 2 Analysis: Comparison of completed attacks
(n=51) to averted attacks (n=51)
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12. What Information Did We Study?
• School information
– Safety/security
– Size of student body,
geography, etc.
• Plot discovery and
prevention
– The perpetrator’s plan
– How the attack was
prevented
• Perpetrator information
– Behavioral/personal history
– Reason for the attack, etc.
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13. Plot Discovery
• In averted attacks,
student peers were
most often the first to
discover the plotter’s
plan for violence
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14. Perpetrator Information
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Relationship to School

15. Perpetrator Information
• Completed Attack Sample
– At least 19 perpetrators
were known to the criminal
justice system prior to the
attacks
• Averted Attack Sample
– At least 9 perpetrators
were known to the criminal
justice system prior to their
planned attacks.
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Characteristics

16. Key Takeaways for Schools and
Law Enforcement
• Educate students and teachers about warning sings for
violence, as well as suicide and/or depression
• Develop well-trained threat assessment teams
– Over 80% of averted and completed attacks were
planned/executed by current or former students/school
employees
• Proactively seek to identify student safety concerns
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17. Key Takeaways for Law Enforcement
• Consider making door breaching equipment more
readily available to patrol officers to facilitate entries
when necessary
• Field an anonymous reporting system that is trusted by
students
• Obtain access to school floor plans beforehand and
become personally familiar with the buildings by doing
walk-throughs regularly
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18. Forthcoming Materials
• Forthcoming ASV publications:
– ASV User Guide
– Full report on averted attacks
– Full report comparing averted to
completed attacks
• If you would like to receive any
of these, please email
bcowell@policefoundation.org
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@KoshAnderson | @Koshka4Schools
www.koshkafoundation.org
Safety is Personal:
Lessons Learned as a Survivor of
the Virginia Tech Tragedy

21. Our Mission:
To increase awareness and levels of individual
preparedness for:
• Violence prevention
• Active shooter response
• Crisis recovery
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koshkafoundation.org
Safe School. Safe Future.

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Blacksburg, VA

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Norris Hall

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Second Floor of Norris
Hall

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Second Floor of Norris
Hall

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10:22 am

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Recovery Begins

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Return to Community & Memorials

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35. Characteristics of Perpetrators
• No accurate profile of a perpetrator
• Grievances, injustices, loss
• Lack of resiliency, coping skills
• Concern others, don’t suddenly snap
• Elements of pre-planning
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36. The Safe School
Initiative
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Bryan Vossekuil
Robert Fein
Marisa Randazzo
Randy Borum
William Modzeleski

37. Importance of “The Safe School
Initiative”
• Incidents of targeted violence rarely were sudden,
impulsive acts
• There is no accurate or useful profile of a school shooter
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Source: “Final Report of the SSI Initiative”
Vossekuil, Bryan; Fein, Robert; Randazzo-Reddy, Marisa.
www.secretservice.gov/data/protection/ntac/ssi_final_report.pdf

38. Importance of “The Safe School
Initiative”
• Prior to the attack, others usually knew of attacker’s
plan or idea
• In 81% of incidents, at least one other person had
knowledge of the attacker’s plan
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Source: “Final Report of the SSI Initiative”
Vossekuil, Bryan; Fein, Robert; Randazzo-Reddy, Marisa.
www.secretservice.gov/data/protection/ntac/ssi_final_report.pdf

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Source: OIG Report #140-07: Investigation of the April 16, 2007 Critical Incident at Virginia Tech. Prepared by: Office of the
Inspector General for Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services, Commonwealth of Virginia

40. Threat Management
“Threat Assessment is a process to identify and respond
to those…
who may pose a danger to others, may pose a danger to
themselves,
or who may simply be struggling and in need of assistance
and resources.”
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CARE Team
BIT: Behavioral Intervention Team

41. Community Education & Engagement
• How do we share the successes of prevention and
the threat assessment & management process to
maintain awareness?
– Sharing number of cases; positive success stories;
survivor storytelling
• What is the marketing plan for safety training and
resources? How well does your community know
about reporting options?
– In-person trainings, syllabus mention, website
resources, faculty/staff meetings, video
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42. Threat Assessment and Management Resources
“International Handbook of Threat
Assessment”
(Meloy; Hoffman)
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Association of Threat
Assessment Professionals
ATAP

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livesafemobile.com

47. Takeaways
• In your community, work to increase understanding
that violence is preventable
• Communicate frequently with colleagues and
leadership about safety issues, questions, and
improvements
• Help change the narrative, adopt #NoNotoriety
• Recommended reading: The Gift of Fear: And
Other Survival Signs that Protect Us from Violence,
Gavin de Becker
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Newsletter & More
www.koshkafoundation.org
Social Media
Twitter: @Koshka4Schools
Facebook.com/koshkafoundation

49. Presenter Contact Information
Kristina Anderson – kanderson@koshkafoundation.org
Chief Frank Straub (Ret.) – fstraub@policefoundation.org
Jeff Allison – jallison@iaclea.org
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50. www.bja.gov www.margolishealy.com
www.nccpsafety.org
info@nccpsafety.org
1.866.817.5817