Changes in Rates of Suicide by Mass Shooters, 1980-2019
Many have watched numerous videos from the mass shooting at the Trump rally in Butler, PA.
Thomas Matthew Crooks was fatally shot by law enforcement counter snipers without a chance of escape. What would have happened if law enforcement came up the ladder or by helicopter and confronted Crooks?
Girgis et al from the New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, NY, performed a review of these events focussing on the shooter. They examined the outcomes in 528 mass shootings.
“A greater proportion of mass shooters from 2000 to 2019 took or attempted to take their own lives (40.5%) compared with those from 1980 to 1999 (23.2%, p < 0.001). More than double the proportion of perpetrators who made a fatal or nonfatal suicide attempt had a history of non-psychotic psychiatric/neurologic symptoms (38.9%), compared with perpetrators who did not make a fatal or nonfatal suicide attempt (18.1%; p < 0.001).
Among mass shooters who made fatal or nonfatal suicide attempts, 77 of 175 (44%) did not have any recorded psychiatric, neurologic, or substance use condition. Of the 98 mass shooters who made fatal or non-fatal suicide attempts and had a psychiatric, substance use, or neurologic condition, 41 had depressive disorders.”
The point of this paper is that suicide is a common outcome even among those without a psychiatric history. It would have taken special efforts to keep Crooks alive as a witness and then later held for trial of murder and other related charges.
See more at Substack
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