The carnage at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shared all of the horror of America’s worst mass shootings. But one scene was unusual — the shooter Nikolas Cruz being led away alive in handcuffs.
Of the 10 deadliest mass shootings in modern U.S. history, 19-year-old Cruz is the only shooter to survive. Gunmen in Orlando, Virginia Tech, Las Vegas and Sandy Hook either killed themselves or were shot dead by police.
Dr. Philip Lazarus, director of our School Psychology Program, said being able to interview a mass murderer can provide useful information. He once asked an Alabama teenager whose rampage was curtailed only by a jammed gun to rate his level of depression before the shooting. He left blank the month when he opened fire and killed one person at his school.
“He said, ‘I had no feeling. I was like a robot. I was numb. There was no feeling going on, so I can’t give you an honest answer to that,’” Dr. Lazarus recalled.
Lazarus said the interview gave him a better understanding of the despair many school shooters feel.
Read the full article to learn more about this growing problem.
