ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we focus on two shooting incidents, both of which were closely related to colleges. Each college seemed incapable of raising the alarm in su´cient time to prevent the tragedies that followed. At Virginia Tech in 2007, silos prevented campus o´cials from seeing the situation in its entirety. At Pima Community College in Tucson in 2011, a bunker mentality spared the campus from violence, but not the community at large. In both incidents, budget shortfalls prevented the mental health system from adequately treating the two shooters, even though both clearly had mental health issues. And in both incidents, myopic threat management strategies fueled the failure to identify, assess, and manage the subjects. We again want to emphasize that we are in no way criticizing the men and women in law enforcement or the respective college administrations who dealt with these situations. We present these cases to illustrate the concepts that we have been discussing and to prompt continued thought and positive changes.
