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News We Should Lose
Due to Circumstances Within Our Control, We're Encouraging the Sniper
By Harvey Goldstein
Sunday, October 13, 2002; Page B01
We don't know much about the sniper who has killed eight people and wounded two others since Oct. 2. But we do know this: If we can't yet solve the crime, we sure should try to avoid making the situation worse. My fear is that we may now be facing a more determined killer, unintentionally emboldened by police, politicians, the media and others whose motives are much better than their judgment. For instance, the sniper's ninth attack occurred at a school; by announcing that our children were being kept safe in locked-down schools, did we provoke him to do it?
But this is not about hindsight or blame. It's about the balance between responsiveness and responsibility, and the prudent vetting of the visual and verbal messages that, for a killer, may carry potent rewards.
I am a psychologist with a 22-year career in law enforcement, training police officers and advising police departments on criminal behavior. But it doesn't take a PhD to know that human behavior depends heavily on reinforcement. Reward a behavior, and that behavior is likely to be repeated. Create the right consequence, and the behavior abates. For our serial sniper, the rewards have been remarkable. In our already tense post-Sept. 11 atmosphere, he has captured the attention of America, from the man and woman in the street all the way up to the president.
Years ago, I was a consultant to the legal defense team of Bernard Goetz, New York City's "subway vigilante," who in 1984 gunned down four unarmed youths on a train because he was afraid they were about to rob him. The resulting publicity made him instantly recognizable; people hailed him on the sidewalk as if he were a celebrity. It wasn't long before Goetz, an unassuming guy whose own attorney described him as a "nerd," underwent a dramatic, aggressive personality change.
I suggest our "serial sniper" is flourishing in much the same kind of environment, as out-of-control publicity makes him feel larger than life and feeds his sense of control. In Goetz's case, the personality change was striking but temporary, and it happened after the shootings had already occurred. Our situation is worse, because we may be feeding a killer before he has abandoned his deadly spree.
Those of us who deal directly with criminals have learned the hard way that they watch television and listen to the radio. When I worked with the Prince George's County Police Department, from 1980 to 1995, my job included responding to hostage and barricade situations. There were situations when the criminals holed up inside buildings would tell us they were watching the whole event unfold on television. They sometimes knew the position of the police teams and all the latest information. There's no doubt in my mind that as we watch the reports about the serial sniper, he's watching, too. The attention makes him feel powerful: He is so important that important people are talking about him.
What's more, they are unintentionally goading him. Make no mistake: These are good people, but they are casting themselves in the wrong role. In one of a steady stream of televised news conferences, Montgomery County Police Chief Charles A. Moose lost his composure and lashed out in anger. "Someone is so mean-spirited that they shot a child," Moose said. "I guess it's getting to be really, really personal now." Others stated the obvious. Maryland Gov. Parris Glendening called the killer "a coward." U.S. Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge labeled the shootings "inhumane." And President Bush called them "cowardly and senseless." This is not a war against terrorists with political axes to grind. It is a life-and-death struggle with a homicidal psychopath. Far from chastening the killer, these challenges to his manhood make him even more determined to show us who's in charge: him. It's all right to discuss the situation dispassionately, even to acknowledge that it is serious, but emotional displays will never help.
The frequent news conferences themselves seem to be a big part of the problem, mostly because they impart so little actual news. At some of these events, politicians seem to dominate. They thank the police, they thank each other and they praise the spirit of teamwork and cooperation. Are they really doing anything constructive? We are treating the sniper to a political rally on his behalf.
The news media contribute to the situation simply by paying it too much attention. Ever since the O.J. Simpson trial, competition among media outlets has created an obsession with finding "experts" to theorize about every facet of a crime. This current crisis features not attorneys but an endless stream of criminal profilers jockeying for attention, further gratifying the killer. Those experts appearing on TV and radio during the crisis, speculating on every aspect of the criminal's life and behavior patterns, need to ask themselves whether there is any utility in bolstering his arrogance.
In these crimes, as in others, the media's judgment about what types of facts to publicize has been questionable. Chief Moose rightly assailed The Washington Post and Channel 9 last week for releasing details about an important clue: a tarot card the killer had left behind. A national telecast explained exactly how police are using geoprofiling, the science of predicting where criminals live based on where they commit crimes. Before publicizing sensitive information, the media must consider its possible effect on the watching killer.
It's time to take the lessons learned from behavioral psychology and apply them to public problems. When TV cameras stopped showing the fans who were disrupting sporting events by rushing onto the floor or field, the behavior subsided. We have all but eliminated graffiti on our subways by keeping damaged cars out of service until they're cleaned, which doesn't allow vandals to display their work. Surely there is room for collaboration between police and media to control what's publicized, thus discouraging the criminals and those who would copy them.
Certainly everything that's being done -- the news conferences, the political posturing, the media overkill -- is part of our very human attempt to manage the situation, to assume some type of control when we actually have very little. But, as we've seen, it can lead to trouble. And to downright absurdity: On the morning news I heard a former police detective advising listeners how to avoid becoming the serial sniper's latest victim. He cautioned us to avoid loitering anywhere, to carry something in front of us as a shield -- even our folded arms would do -- and to walk at a 45-degree angle. The mental image that conjures up is ridiculous.
But the public, apparently, is listening. Another radio show told of service station customers who would not take the time to fill up their gas tanks, but were buying just enough fuel to keep going, afraid to linger at the pump and afford an easy target -- as if a few seconds would discourage the shooter. In fact, we are much more likely to be killed in a car accident than by a sniper, but we don't abandon our cars because of it.
The last thing I want to do is trivialize the loss of so many lives. But there is a point at which the need to provide psychological comfort by "doing something" becomes counterproductive, like the overzealous airport security in place since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks -- another recent event that has shaken our sense of security beyond quick repair, and one that surely has exacerbated our fear about this one.
The issue is further compounded by the public's fascination with the glorified technological tools now being used to address essential human problems. Geoprofiling has become the darling of law enforcement. (Interestingly, it was not technology that led to the innovation: A study of the hunting patterns of the African lion hatched the theory.) Other advances in police tools, such as DNA and fiber testing, have been popularized on television shows such as "CSI." Crimes are real life, not one-hour drama series with scripts and tidy endings. Yet it seems there is a growing expectation for a resolution that proves we have outsmarted the criminal -- or else we are deemed to have failed. Remember: We don't have to outsmart the criminal if we can collaborate on not supporting him. Eventually, he will make his mistakes.
I teach a class in abnormal behavior to Secret Service agents, and I like to tell them about "Cézanne's doubt." As the story goes, the artist painted and repainted his subjects again and again, each time changing his distance or perspective to capture a different slant on reality. That is the essence of good investigative work: studying the situation from every conceivable angle by tracking down leads, enlisting the public, talking to informants and finding wit- nesses until it finally begins to make sense. That -- not the name-calling, not the talking heads, not the voyeuristic exploitation of our tragedies -- is our best hope for solving a crime.
Harvey Goldstein, a psychologist, consults with law enforcement agencies nationwide and internationally. He lives in Potomac. He is president of the Halen Group, a behavioral science consulting firm.
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