The Charles Whitman University of Texas Shooting in 1966 was one of the first major documented active shooter incidents in our history. Yet many of us in society have lost major focus of the common denominator: Mental Illness and Firearms. Once again we have been dealt with yet another shooting which occurred at the Parkland Florida High School and once again the cries for guns and assault weapon bans are the feature headlines. Yet, nothing heavy and hard about the “conversation” or outcry of fixing the mental health issue. For over a decade plus, mental health facilities and treatment centers have been closed in many states pushing those suffering out into the streets with limited care or treatment. This situation alone has grown into an epidemic making police and social worker response methods even harder. Yet, a mass shooting happens and suddenly it is the gun that has pulled its own trigger yes?
Let me take you down the short horrible memory lane known as the “Active Shooter: Understanding Mindset History and the Killer Affect” which is part of our First Responder and Corporate Safety Training and Awareness Programs.
On August 1, 1966, Charles Whitman went up into the tower of the University of Texas and began a rampage of killing 16 and wounding more than 32 others. He used knives in the slaying of his mother and his wife before heading to the University of Texas Tower and immediately killed 3 people . He then made his way to the tower's 28th floor observation deck, where he fired at random people for some 96 minutes, killing an additional eleven people and wounding 31 others before he was finally shot and killed by two Austin Police Officers. His carnage left 16 dead, and the 17th victim died some 35 years later from injuries sustained in the attack.
Did You Know: Charles Whitman had been a former enlisted serviceman of our armed forces? His life began with a happy prosperous career in the United States Marine Corps excelling in many levels to include sharpshooter skills and academics. He was honorably discharged from the service and began his civilian life where things suddenly took a drastic change for the worse. At one point of his life while he was helping his mother move to Austin Texas to get away from her abusive husband (Charle's father) at which time Charles began to use and abuse amphetamines due to the stress the issues his mother was going through and began to experience severe headaches. He later had described the headaches as being “tremendous.”
During the abuse of this drug and his world slowly began crashing before him, he took a knife and killed both his mother and his wife who were in separate homes at the times of the killings. Charles had killed both is mother and wife the night before the shooting. Charles had begun to write a journal beginning from his Marine Corps time when he was facing his court martial hearings. After he killed his wife and mother he continued to write in his journal and on one occasion he requested that upon his death he wanted doctors perform an autopsy on his body and more importantly his brain to find out why he was experiencing the thoughts and pains in his head. He purchased and collected through time, a large arsenal of weapons and ammunition and on that fateful day arrived at the university and began his carnage.
The Point: This event occurred in 1966, and a demand from the killer to have his brain analyzed as to why the brain created these unknown thoughts in his head. Yet here we are today, scratching our heads blaming the guns but doing nothing to fix the mind. The Columbine Shooters also suffered from Mental illness. They activated fire alarms and entered the school as their shooting rampage began. The Virginia Tech shooter suffered from mental illness and walked into a university with two hand guns, NOT RIFLES, chaining some doors and mowed down 32 people before killing himself.
Do you see a pattern here? The majority of these killers suffered from some type of mental interference. In many of these shootings the minds were in an altered state of some sort with the mystery of why and how these shooters chose to do what they did. Other shootings that have occurred in this country such as the San Bernardino and the Pulse night club shootings had shooters who also had some type of mind altering event such as being drawn into a terrorist inspired belief.
At the end of the day, we need to talk about both and not just one thing which is the
gun. A person can use a vehicle, a knife, a bomb to achieve their goals. It just seems that so many experts come out of the ground to preach about their “total correct” theories over really rolling up the sleeves and finding middle ground solutions.
Think about it: 1966 a mass shooting occurred yet Columbine is always the first one to be brought up as you never hear about the Texas Tower shooting. But this has to be brought up now as its relevance is critical now more than ever. What have we been doing since 1966? It continues to happen but at a minimum we must do a better job in the following areas:
Law Enforcement: better training, strategies, planning, communication and strong out reach to other first responder resources, schools and corporate entities as well as operational plans to assist in their response methods.
Additional first responders such as Fire and Ems: better training, strategies, planning, communication and strong out reach to other first responder resources, schools and corporate entities as well as operational plans to assist in their response methods.
Schools: Communication with law enforcement, additional first responders, training and limiting announcements of drills and specific activities as well as operational plans to assist in their response methods. Just don't rely on the governments RIDE, HIDE, FIGHT, concepts. You need to do more
Businesses: Communication with law enforcement, additional first responders, training and limiting announcements of drills and specific activities as well as operational plans to assist in their response methods. Just don't rely on the governments RIDE, HIDE, FIGHT, concepts. You need to do more
Summary: This is just a small segment of the many areas of training that we cover in our active shooter instructor programs for law enforcement, our dispatcher active shooter training as well as our integrated first responder training for active shooter. We also include these concepts and strategy talk in our school and corporate training Active Shooter-Hostile Intruder training and awareness programs. For more information contact us at Info@apc360zone.com
