Thomas Crooks: A Behavioral Profile

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This week, we bring you an analysis of one of the most alarming events in recent history: the attempted assassination of Donald Trump by Thomas Crooks. We dive deep into the psychological profile of Crooks, examining how his actions challenge our preconceived notions of what drives someone to commit such violent acts. By comparing his behaviors and planning to those of school shooters, we uncover a chilling quest for notoriety and historical infamy. Our discussion also reveals the procedural and communication lapses that allowed this plan to unfold and highlights missed opportunities for intervention.

Join us as we dissect the critical elements of interagency communication and the human factors that can make or break critical operations. Our conversation sheds light on the complexities of coordination gaps and why maintaining seamless collaboration is paramount. We share real-life anecdotes from combat zones to illustrate how minor mistakes can escalate into significant consequences. By focusing on Crook’s behavior before and during the attack, we bring a nuanced understanding of his intentions, moving beyond speculative opinions to factual evidence.

In the final segments, we emphasize the importance of identifying genuine patterns in criminal behavior without succumbing to confirmation bias. By analyzing specific case studies and psychological motives, we stress the necessity of letting patterns emerge naturally to gain accurate insights. Our conversation covers everything from Crooks' choice in pornography to the type of bomb he used, aiming to piece together a comprehensive profile that can aid in preventing future threats. Tune in for a thought-provoking episode that challenges your understanding of criminal psychology, and the steps needed to ensure such events are not repeated.                                                                       

Thank you so much for tuning in, we hope you enjoy the episode and please check out our Patreon channel where we have a lot more content, as well as subscriber only episodes of the show. If you enjoy the podcast, I would kindly ask that you leave us a review and more importantly, please share it with a friend. Thank you for your time and don’t forget that Training Changes Behavior!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everyone and welcome to the Human Behavior
Podcast.
This week we bring you ananalysis of one of the most
alarming events in recenthistory the attempted
assassination of Donald Trump byThomas Crooks.
We dive deep into thepsychological profile of Crooks,
examining how his actionschallenge our preconceived
notions of what drives someoneto commit such violent acts.
By comparing his behaviors andplanning to those of school
shooters, we uncover a chillingquest for notoriety and

(00:22):
historical infamy.
Our discussion also reveals theprocedural and communication
lapses that allowed this plan tounfold and highlights missed
opportunities for intervention.
Join us as we dissect thecritical elements of interagency
, communication and the humanfactors that can make or break
critical operations.
Our conversation sheds light onthe complexities of
coordination gaps and whymaintaining seamless
collaboration is paramount.
We share real-life anecdotesfrom combat zones to illustrate

(00:45):
how minor mistakes can escalateinto significant consequences.
By focusing on Crook's behaviorbefore and during the attack,
we bring a nuanced understandingof his intentions, moving
beyond speculative opinions tofactual evidence.
In the final segments, weemphasize the importance of
identifying genuine patterns ofcriminal behavior without
succumbing to confirmation bias,by analyzing specific case

(01:06):
studies and psychologicalmotives.
We stress the necessity ofletting patterns emerge
naturally to gain accurateinsights.
Our conversation coverseverything from Crooks' choice
in pornography to the type ofbomb used, aiming to piece
together a comprehensive profilethat can aid in preventing
future threats.
Tune in for a thought-provokingepisode that challenges your
understanding of criminalpsychology and the steps needed

(01:27):
to ensure such events are notrepeated.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
We hope you enjoyed the episode, and please check out our
Patreon channel.
We have a lot more content aswell as subscriber-only episodes
of the show.
If you enjoy the podcast, I'dkindly ask that you leave us a
review and, more importantly,please share it with a friend.
Thank you for your time anddon't forget that training
changes behavior.
All right, hello everyone.
This week we are talking aboutwhat we have been getting a lot

(01:49):
of questions about and what alot of people are talking about
is this gentleman by the name ofThomas Crooks and the Trump
assassination attempt in general.
We're going to do that throughkind of the set of lenses that
we typically use for somethinglike this and kind of approach
it almost as like a kind of akind of a case study based on

(02:11):
what we know now.
We're recording this on July26th, so unless something comes
out between the next few days ofsome evidence that we are
unaware of.
This is kind of what we'regoing on and you know, typically
we wait until you knowinvestigations and reports come
out and everything gets compiledfor us to compare to.
But because of what we know andbecause of what people have

(02:31):
testified to already and beenreported and corroborated like,
we're going to talk about someof the things that we know right
now.
And this is a great case studyfor a number of reasons.
One, obviously, to talk aboutthis shooter, thomas Crooks,
because he fits in with everyother shooter that we've ever
discussed or that we talk aboutin class.

(02:53):
It's also a great one tounderstand sort of security
protocols, planning procedures,especially when it comes to
communications, informationsharing and information flow as
it goes up and down, becausethis is a great one to look at
of how things can can really gowrong even when you have all of
the right information.
I would say, even if you haveenough actionable information to

(03:16):
to intervene in a situation,how certain protocols and
procedures are our own ones canget in the way.
And then, of course, it's agreat case study on just human
perception, on how humans lookat events, how we attribute
value to certain things, what wedecide is important, versus
what actually is important, howpeople kind of can spin off the

(03:40):
rails and go down these weirdrabbit holes of stuff where
you're just like where the helldid this information come from,
or what are you talking about?
Because what this shows is thatone a very simple plan by a
determined opponent can work.
It shows again how a low levelof sophistication, a high level

(04:02):
of organization and access willallow you to pull off something
like this and how, when weanalyze stuff, I see a lot of
experts and some people I knowwho are legitimate experts get a
lot of things wrong becausethey're doing it from their
perspective of what they know ashow things work.
Well, they've never carried outone of these attacks, so so it's

(04:25):
.
It's different, and you can'treally unlearn how you see the
world that way, and so it kindof gets in the way of how you
interpret the events.
I think that's just sort of apersonal opinion.
So there's a lot to get into,greg and we have a lot to go off
of now.
That's been corroborated enoughfor us to at least talk on a
podcast about it.
I think a lot to go off of now.
That's been corroborated enoughfor us to at least talk on a

(04:46):
podcast about it, I think.
But I want to throw to you tokind of get started here this
morning and just and we can jumpinto it from there.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
Yeah, so just briefly , and then I'll, if it's okay,
I'll let you run your agenda.
I mean I love it.
I think we've talked about itenough.
The two reasons I think wewaited this long, where we
wanted to hear from Cheadle andWatts, we wanted to hear from
you know, get their testimony onrecord so then we can actually
go back to something or lack oftestimony.

(05:12):
Well, and I wrote that down,brian, I wrote down.
You can't impeach testimony youdon't give.
And the answers to questionswere so, you know, watered down.
It's like, well, I can't saythat because it's under
investigation.
Well, you know, did the?
The answers to questions wereso watered down?
It's like, oh, I can't say thatbecause it's under
investigation.
Well, did the guy have a gun?

(05:33):
Well, it's hard to say Shut the.
So I think that if we focus onthe low level of sophistication,
you use the high level oforganization and the access.
If we focus on some of thethings that the shooter did that
should have been red flags thatpeople were looking for, then
we're going to get somewhere.
Everybody knows the mistakes.
I mean mistakes are glaringlyobvious and it's so easy to arm

(05:54):
to your quarterback and go backand point to the mistakes.
What we should be doing isusing this as a proper after
action review to say, ok, howcan we move forward from this
and see those stress fracturesthat are likely going to stack
up and help me stop an eventlike this before it occurs.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
Yeah, and that's exactly.
It is that you know I, we cantake what happened here and go
all right, how do we, how do wenot let this happen at the next
event that we have?
Or how do we, how do we takethis and learn, like you said
said, learn from it, but in thesense that, all right, I, I go
into this assuming, um, thiscould happen to me, so I want to
learn about it, so that itdoesn't happen to me I could

(06:33):
fall victim to all of thesedifferent uh things that
occurred because it was a, itwas, it was a number of uh
things had to happen before, um,you know, he could take any
shots or before he could carryout his attack, right.
So it's like what are all thesesteps that that were in there?
And so you know there's,there's getting all these

(06:54):
reports in and looking at it,you know it was from, from what?
What we're seeing so far andwhat, what?
What people have corroboratedis that there's, there is, you
know, this guy was spotted, soThomas Crooks won.
Let's kind of start here thatthere's, there is, you know,
this guy was spotted, so ThomasCrooks one.
Let's kind of start here bytalking about him, because you
know we don't he's been.
I think this is one of thefirst ones where, actually,

(07:15):
because people are so confusedby it or they're like shaking
their head because he fits theprofile of like a school shooter
or something you know, they'relike, well, wait, why would he
do this?
What's going on?
This is the first one whereeveryone isn't saying you know,
jumping to the, the sort of themotive behind it, because it's
because he just looking at whathe searched on his computer and

(07:38):
where he looked it was like it'sseemingly all over the place,
just like all of these peopleare right, anyone who goes out
and carries out one of theseattacks, and so there's like no
manifesto blaming something yetthat they've released.
I mean, maybe there is, you know, so we can't now attribute it
to something you know.
Well, no one's going to saywell, you know, joe Biden said

(08:00):
put a bullseye on Trump.
You know that's what theystarted with, so that's why he
did it.
It's like, well, this one isn'tas clear, and everyone wants to
do that for different politicalreasons, or to get more time on
the air, on the news, whateverit is, but you and I know that
that's junk, and so can youexplain why those things don't
matter?
We'll start there, I think.

Speaker 2 (08:22):
So let's talk about what does matter.
Okay, so we take a look,obviously, at the history, not
only his internet history.
We look for leakage, we look atphotos he may have stockpiled
or had on his phone and unlockedhis phone.
Those are really good ways ofworking the caper backwards.
For example, if we were lookingfor a target, we'd do the same

(08:42):
thing to forecast where theywould be and what they might be
doing if we stopped it at adifferent point.
But now what we're doing iswe're conducting an autopsy
protocol of the information.
Does that?
make sense we're going back andtaking a look at it.
So in this instance, I thinkit's obvious from the
information that we have at thispoint, on this day, at this
time, while we're recording,that Thomas Crooks was target

(09:03):
agnostic until a target shows upless than an hour from his
house.
So what does that mean?
That means that he registeredto attend the rally.
That's important to me.
He searched both conventionsand where they were and when
they were going to occur, bothRepublican and Democratic.
He didn't have an allegiance toeither party and he had a

(09:24):
number of photos of a number ofhigh valence, high value targets
that happened to be politicians.
Ok, now those startco-enlisting together and become
interesting to me.
And then we have a kid thatobviously wants to go down in
history, but he doesn't want tobe every other kid that goes
down in history.
So what's he choose, brian?
He chooses a really, reallyshort list the presidential

(09:47):
assassins.
The presidential assassinattempts yeah, okay, in case he
lives.
And so if we put now thosetogether and I'll add just one
more, and then I'll stop for aminute If we take a look at the
fact that he goes to his bossesand says July 13th is going to
be a very important date in mylife.
I need to take time off from thenursing home.

(10:09):
Okay, look to an average personthat's untrained, that doesn't
look for patterns, that'sseemingly just another drop in
the ocean.
But to what we do.
If somebody would, even inpassing or at the coffee shop
we'd hear him discussing this.
We'd say, okay, where's yourlaser pointer?
We need to start taking a lookat some other things and doing

(10:29):
trash balls, because what ittends to show is here a kid that
wants to make a name forhimself somehow, and Brian, I
hate to say.
I was going to end and then addthis but there was studies to
see if this kid was bullied.
He wasn't bullied.
There was studies to see if hewas an insult.
He had a girlfriend.
Okay, there was studies to sayhe was going to college in the
fall and he had a job at anursing home where he dealt with

(10:52):
people all the time.
So stop trying to jam thatsquare peg into the round hole
of some gosh damn checklist thatyou've created.
That only you and five otherpeople understand.

Speaker 1 (11:05):
You've created that only you and, and well you know,
five of this.
This is, this is a.
That's a really good point,because I think that's where, uh
, I think that's where a lot ofconfusion comes from, or a lot
of misunderstanding, or that'swhere people kind of get scared.
I would say right, because ifyou, you know, if the guy who is
always acting crazy and angryand mad at everyone goes and
does something like this, thenpeople go yeah, man, he was man,

(11:25):
he couldn't get along withanyone, he was volatile.
Everyone knew he was a tickingtime bomb.
It sort of makes a little bitof sense.
What you're talking about isThomas Crooks could hold it
together.
This guy had a job, he hadfriends, high level of
organization, and that's, Ithink, where people get a little
confused or basically scared.

(11:47):
So you're saying anyone that Irun into or that I work with or
that I've met and I've seen inthe shopping at the grocery
store, that checks me out, thenthe nice bagger kid could be one
of these people and it's like,well, technically, yes, it's
just statistically, it's almostnever meet that person.
So but, but you get what I'msaying.

(12:07):
So so I want to start rightthere, cause you said you said
crooks had a higher levelorganization and that's why he
could do it, you know, andthat's why we look at it that
way.
So so explain that, because Ithink that's where some of that
really just the fear and themisunderstanding comes from.
It's like, well, wait a minute,this is like the neighborhood
kid down the street and that'swhere everyone goes.

(12:27):
So there has to be somethingelse.
There has to be something elsebehind it.
There's no evil, Right right.
So can we jump into that justfor another minute and go a
little bit deeper on that?

Speaker 2 (12:39):
Of course.
So one of the searches he didis for the Oxford shooters and
specifically what happened tothe parents.
Okay, that speaks volumes to me.
He has a sister that he loves,he has parents that he doesn't
want to insult or embarrass.
So what he's trying to do, he'strying to look for a plausible
way out.
What are the legalramifications?
What did they know?

(12:59):
What can I do ex parte oroutside the venue?
So it's not obvious that theyhad anything to do.
I know they're going to getsearched.
I'm speaking as this dead kid.
I know the house is going toget searched.
I'm not stupid, I can read that, but I'm going to leave
everything in my van or myvehicle and the same thing with
the bomb things.
So I don't link anything to myparents.
Okay, that to me is hugelyimportant.

(13:21):
One of the other things is hespent about as much time looking
up on a major depressiondisorder as most of us would.
I mean, I have a brain cloud.
I know because I look upeverything on WebMD, you know,
and so it's not funny if he hadmajor depression disorder.
First of all, he was undiagnosed.
Second of all, nobody came andsaid he was a depressed kid.

(13:43):
Not one person came and saidthis was a deeply depressed kid.
So why would you look that up?
Look, when we were in St Louis,I had a UTI that was so bad
that every time I pissed itlooked like Diwali celebration,
you know.
So the idea is that I had tolook that up.
So if somebody looks back at mysearch history, no-transcript,

(14:50):
so I'm going to carry it out.
I guarantee a kid thisorganized had a threshold and if
he met this threshold forpulling the pin and going home,
okay, he would have gone home.
And, brian, they never gotclose to that threshold.
So he was like, look, he's on aroof doing the inch form with
people filming him and sayingthere he is and he has a gun.
He fully knew at that time.

(15:11):
Do you know how much guts thattook?
And people are going hey, he'sa criminal, yeah, I get it, but
do you know that?
At that point, brian, he said,okay, I've crossed this point of
no return, and now I'm here,here and I'm going to continue
this, and he even took the shots.
That shows a very low level ofsophistication, very high level
of organization, and that's whatwe see in these kids over and

(15:32):
over.
A sloppy shooter is verydifferent and they get wrapped
up very quickly and they onlyhave a couple of targets right.
And why?
Because they've got a higherlevel of sophistication, they're
relying more on weapons ortechnology and maybe their
organization level isn't thatlow.
Look at the Rob Elementaryshooter Okay, gets into a crash
on the way because he's got thehappy head and at the accident

(15:54):
scene is shooting at people.
Do you see the difference there?
So stop trying to force.
Take a look at what you haveand, like Plinko, let it fall
where it may and as they startstacking up, what do you do?
You're getting a more clearpicture, each piece of evidence
that falls in.

Speaker 1 (16:13):
So what do you think?
And now we're getting into the.
We have to speculate with thisquestion.

Speaker 2 (16:21):
Of course we have to Because he's dead and I can't.

Speaker 1 (16:24):
Yeah right, we, we can ask him.
Uh well, I just want to kind ofcaveat that, because no one
does and everyone just startssaying, you know, spouting off
opinions, and people take thatas what could have happened.
But but you know, let's say youknow he was confronted, you
know, by police, you know,before he got on that roof, what
do you think he, he likely havedone?

Speaker 2 (16:44):
He's smart enough that he would have talked
himself out of it and he wouldhave gone home.
He would have left his vehiclewith all the evidence and he
would have picked a futuretarget, but too many of the
things were in the plus columnfor him to do that.
So he may have also been smartenough to say, hey, I'm just a
kid, then gone back to hisbackpack and started the process
over.
But the contact is theimportant part.

(17:04):
Look, kill, contact, capture,right.
That's the stuff that we didwhen we built all our combat
intervention programs so longago.
Why is contact so important?
Because just by going up anddeleting this person as a
potential suspect, how long doesthat take?
A minute, two, two minuteswalking across the street.
If he runs, that's telling,come on.

Speaker 1 (17:26):
And that's the yeah.
I mean, that's the diffusion ofresponsibility that occurs when
you have multiple agencies anddifferent people talking to one
another.
And I reported this and that'swhat I did, and then someone
else is supposed to go do that,but it didn't get down to them.
Or maybe I'm in a positionwhere I'm not supposed to leave,
I'm only supposed to stand hereand report things, and someone

(17:46):
else is supposed to be thecontact team.
I mean there's all thesedifferent.
This is how it plays outbecause those are so planned and
organized.
The problem with that is whenthe seams and gaps, when you're
doing anything, interagency,anything with different teams,
anything with people you haven'ttypically worked with, even if

(18:07):
you're all you know, really,really good at what you do, it's
those seams and gaps wherethere's always problems.
So that's one the seam and gapin security that they had here
with this place, the seam andgap in communication that they
had with one another.
I mean that's where thingshappen.
You know they don't.
That's where things happen.
That's where the ones thataren't obvious, I should say,

(18:28):
happen.

Speaker 2 (18:29):
So let's go right there Before we go too much
further.
So one of the things that wecan look, I get paid for my
opinion, so that means that Igive you my professional opinion
.
When I'm just givingopinion-based testimony, where
it's not my professional opinion, where I go, well, what I'm
thinking, okay, that's different.
That's completely differentstandards.

(18:50):
So what I'm telling you rightnow is stuff that I've
researched and stuff that I'mwilling to go to bat and testify
to.
It's a very big difference.

Speaker 1 (18:56):
Well, and right now, unless some new thing comes out
that we don't know.

Speaker 2 (19:01):
We're scientists, we change our opinion.
Okay, that's, that's the waythings go.
So I will tell you to take alook at the evidence that we've
got on the ground and what ittends to show.
So we both know that.
That.
Uh, ray director, ray directorcheetle went in and were very
evasive on their, on theirquestioning and, and it's going
to bug you, but let's go to theladder.

(19:21):
There's no question that ourboy not only bought a ladder.
Thomas Crooks brought it to thescene.
You and I.
Whether it was the ladder thathe used to get up or the air
conditioner, and whether theladder that was in all the
videos was his or not, does notmatter.
But you know who it matters toRay and Cheadle.
You know why?

(19:42):
Because, brian, you get caughtwith your hand in a cookie jar,
you get caught with your pantsdown.
Here is a black eye waiting tohappen and somebody goes up and
goes hey, dude, the ladder wasright there, it wasn't his
ladder.
I pick things that I can fight,that that nobody can prove or
disprove, because I'membarrassed, brian, I'm
embarrassed.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
It's important to know for the purposes of the
investigation, know the specificdetails, like you have to know
that.
But what we're saying is thatit doesn't matter if it was his
or it was there or whatever.
A ladder was used and he hadintent by buying one, so he
intended to use that to get upon some.
So, like we're just saying, forthe takeaway, for the lesson,
for the story, right, it'simportant and it doesn't matter

(20:27):
that it was already there,meaning he took steps, he knew
it was there, he had access, hedemonstrated his intent by doing
that and then now, whateverplays out, we know one was there
, it was used, it was used bythe teams that went up onto the
roof, it was used in some mannerby him.
So it's they're, they're doingit for the purposes of, like you
said, one.
You have to have the detailedinvestigation, know exactly what

(20:47):
happened and also to say, well,yeah, they didn't use ours, as
if like, oh, okay, like, good,good job, what?

Speaker 2 (20:55):
the fuck does it matter?
Right, but in thousands ofinvestigations the person will
go yes, I killed her with thebarbell.
Then I saw it off her head andI put the head in my gosh damn
bowling bag and I took it out tomy car.
But I was not speeding whenthat stop, cop, cop stopped me.
So you understand what I'mtrying to say.
So that's what that ladder hasbecome chain of responsibilities
.
Now let's add a little bit tothat right.

(21:16):
When somebody says, hey, Icontacted this, I did that, okay
, the idea is that you're tryingto diffuse the blame, you're
trying to push that blame onother people, and you've gone
with me to many locations andyou've done investigations on

(21:37):
your own.
Have you ever seen an eventwhere it was a carnival or a
fair or whatever else, wherethere was agencies supporting
others county sheriff, localpolice and everything else?
Do they, after the first hourof vigilance, start forming
school circles and potting upand having little conversations
on their own.

Speaker 1 (21:55):
Absolutely, it's natural that happens with
everyone.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (21:59):
So now you're in the middle of nowhere, pennsylvania,
and you've got a couple ofsecret service agents and you
got some ATF and you got somesnipers.
You don't think you're going towant to wander over and talk to
those folks.
You don't think that there's asemen gap that's caused just by
this lack of operating togetherall the time.
So now we take a look at thatside.
Now let's flip the coin for aminute.

(22:20):
So we know that our boy, thomasCrooks, researched porn and we
know he was a game player andspecifically liked some
shoot-em-up games.
So what?
Well, so that tells me a lot.
Just like I want to go down inhistory, I want to control my
narrative.
I don't care where you comedown on the side of pornography.
I've got a daughter and I cantell you exactly where I come

(22:43):
down on it.
You get what I'm trying to say.
So my idea is that's notsomething that we joke about or
I would engage in jokes about.
But why does he do it?
He does it because he cancontrol it.
He can control the volume, hecan control the content, he can
pause and stop and change.
Okay, why does he do a shootergame?
That's the same thing.
I have an identity, brian.

(23:03):
I create a manifesto in thegame, I create an autonomous
region that I control.
And guess what?
If I get shot, I'm coming backand I'm coming back and I'm
going to change the weapons.
I'm going to keep trying untilI get it right.
These are things that thehighly organized mind seeks out
and these are things that giveme a low sophistication feedback

(23:27):
and they give me the accessPornography gives me the access
to an ejaculation which releaseschemicals in my brain.
That's the same thing that thatshooter game gives.
And planning for this shootingof the president the former
president president gave himthat same high.
It gave him that same high formonths, if not a year, before

(23:49):
this event occurred.

Speaker 1 (23:52):
Yeah, and video games are a great example and analogy
to use, because that's whythey're so.
One of the reasons why they'reso popular is because they play
into our psychological andsociological needs.
So in that case you're talkingabout like I can create a new
avatar of myself, something Isort of kind of maybe aspire to
be.
Some people create it's likealmost an exact copy of

(24:12):
themselves, where you can can goand be like oh my god, dude,
this character is you or it's adifferent version of you and
it's all normal to do that andthat's why those, like you know,
alternative reality games, therole playing games, all that
stuff are like so popularbecause it just plays into our
psychology.
It's like a natural extensionof humans of how we think and

(24:34):
allows us sort of this outsideperspective and we can play.
It's like a natural extensionof humans of how we think and
allows us sort of this outsideperspective and we can play it's
.
It's almost like you areexperienced in the world from
from an outer self.
You know what I mean Likeoutside of yourself, and so it's
like it's very engaging thatway.
But but it's a great reason,it's a, it's another example of
how it just in the same thingwith pornography meeting
psychological and sociologicalneeds and biological needs at

(24:55):
that point, yeah, and again,that's not endorsing it.

Speaker 2 (24:57):
We're not endorsing that, brian, but what we're
saying is it occurs, and when wesee it occur, I'll give you.
Let me give you a couple ofmore points to touch on.
He didn't steal the gun.
He didn't buy the gun.
He went in and borrowed hisdad's gun and told his dad I'm
taking the gun and going to theshooting range.
He did go to the shooting range.
He did go and buy ammo.
None of those people this isnot like Cho at Virginia Tech

(25:20):
None of those people said, hey,I had a stone cold killer
standing in front of me.
Why?
Because they had a kid.
They had a kid that was anormal kid and that didn't stand
out in any manner, but hewanted to.
This is not your average.
Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh.
Ne'er-do-well, I'm gonna getback at society.
I was shit on my entire life.
Uh, uh.
One of the kids theyinterviewed uh, he never tried

(25:42):
to make a conversation, he wasan odd kid, he was bullied and
you know what?
They're not true.
There was.

Speaker 1 (25:47):
Well, here's, here's, here's one thing, because there
was a kid you know that theyinterviewed, and I mean a kid
who's?
I mean he's 20, whatever, sameage as.
Crooks or older or whatever, butyoung adult.
And he was doing the Because Ikind of want to get your take on
this they were interviewing him.
He was like, yeah, he gotbullied a lot at school and
people kind of picked on him.

(26:08):
He was by himself and they wereasking him what kind of things
did they say to him or did theycall him?
Or, and they were asking like,what kind of things did they say
to him or did they call him, orwhat names did they use?
and he could provide zerodetails like he was like well, I
don't really remember, but likeI know they were mean to him
and I know and I don't reallyremember what they called him or
what they said, so either A Iwas getting the feeling like he

(26:28):
was just talking or he was oneof the people that did talk.
Shit to this.

Speaker 2 (26:34):
Kid you growing up and didn't want to admit to it.
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (26:38):
But it was.
There was when you can'tprovide details.
It's not like oh, everyonecalled him school shooter, you
know what I mean.
Like that stuff comes out.

Speaker 2 (26:46):
That's what's happening now.
Every time there's a shootingwe go and go.
What went wrong?
What you know injustice didthis person fall into?
But I will tell you that wehave to take a look at some
simple things Like do you knowthat he used a rifle and that he
was on a roof and he portrayeda sniper?

(27:07):
Actually, he looked up distanceand other snipers.
Why?
Because psychologically he felta need to remove himself.
He's a lot like the guy thatshot McKinley back in 1901, when
you take a look at thebackground on him.
But the McKinley shooter hadrecently lost a job and so he
goes to the dark side and hecomes out.

(27:28):
It starts spreading out.
But the idea is he wanted to doit in a public venue with a
person that couldn't refusegoing out and shaking hands and
talking in public.
So that's why he wasresearching this stuff.
So why is it important that hehad a drone, remote ISR?
Why is it important that he hada bomb?
Because a bomb is a remotething.
It doesn't have a face.
I can emplace it and use it asa distraction or a device to

(27:51):
kill people.
What is that profile startingto build?
That he didn't want to go likethe McKinley shooter and walk
right up to the president andshoot him twice.
He wanted to maintain thedistance.
He didn't worry about gettingcaught.
He didn't have an escape planbecause he fully knew that this
was going to be the time that hewas going to do it.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
He was not walking out alive.
He knew he was going to getkilled Like that, was it that?

Speaker 2 (28:14):
likelihood was so high and that's part of his
organization and that's why hekept his sophistication low
enough that, no matter what planlook if the ladder gets
compromised, I've got anotherway up because there's an air
conditioner.
If that roof is compromised, Ihave another way up because I
have my vehicle roof or I haveanother location to scout it out
.
He was going to do this.

(28:35):
He's a determined shooter andhe's a determined shooter
because he wants his place inhistory.
He wants to say this was me atthis time and he looked up
people that were similar to himto show wow, man, wikipedia,
history, look at this hero thatI'm looking at.
That's there and that fed partof his ego.
He's got a fragile break in hisego somewhere.

(28:56):
Whatever it was, it wasn't sopsychological that he couldn't
hold together a job, that hecouldn't buy a box of ammo, that
he couldn't drive.
Nobody said wow, he was drivingerratically and he parked in an
odd location.
None of that was part of it.
So throw that shit out and stoptrying to force it to fit.
Sometimes shooter profiles arelike fetch.

(29:16):
Stop trying to make fetch work.
Stop sitting there and sayingthat we're going to do some
downfield blocking on this Look,if I got a drone and I got a
gun and there's a formerpresident in town and I say, hey
, by the way, I'll be back in anhour, that's enough for me to
say, out of all the people thatwe took a look at, brian he's
the only one that fit thatspecific profile.
So so, stop making this bigthing, go smaller.

(29:40):
Take the flashlight and go to alaser and take a look at what
he said and what he did in thedays and weeks before.
And what would that tend toshow?

Speaker 1 (29:47):
a reasonable person and even to the point, you know,
um, which all these guys do,they, they research other
attacks and other schoolshooters and everything, um, but
you know the, the.
I know the reports were thathis, his parents, um, you know,
he told his parents he was goingto go to the range or whatever,
and then, when his dad couldn'tget a hold of him and he wasn't

(30:07):
back yet, he was calling.
And then when his parents heardabout the shooting, when it
occurred, apparently they calledthe, apparently they called the
police.
And they called the police andsaid I think my son is involved
with this.
Everyone think about that for asecond.
You turn on the news and yousee this happen and your first

(30:31):
thought is, oh shit, that mightbe my kid.
It means you knew.
It means you didn't not.
Means you knew it means you youdidn't not that you knew it
happened, or he was planningthat, or you knew he was going
to do that.
You knew that it was apossibility.
You knew that you had someonewho did not go along with normal
.
You know ways of doing thingsthat had.
Whatever issues he had, becausewe don't know, maybe he had

(30:53):
some chemical imbalances entirelife and whatever.
I mean that that that thatdoesn't matter in a sense, but
it's like his parents knew thatmy son could be one of these
people, and so how many parentscalled that day?

Speaker 2 (31:06):
Brian, you're onto something right there, because
do you think there was nineother parents that called and
said hey, maybe that's my kidone, and where has that happened
before?
Where have we seen?

Speaker 1 (31:16):
that Exactly that was Ethan Crumbly at Oxford.

Speaker 2 (31:20):
Ethan Crumbly Come on , but hold on, because I think
that's a very important point.
Folks, write this down ifyou're listening to what we're
saying.
We're not anti-pattern, we'resaying that patterns emerge, but
we're saying read the patternthat emerges, don't force

(31:41):
something to fit your pattern.
And that's the problem.
When we have a very rigid thinghas to be, this has to be, this
has to be this.

Speaker 1 (31:48):
It doesn't work that way.
Okay, then let's explain that,because that's exactly what I've
seen people I even know do.
Where it's like you're goingthis is what I think happened.
Then you're collecting evidenceto support your claim, but
that's basically the definitionof confirmation bias.
Of course it is right, andthat's why we limit our

(32:10):
statements.
How am I supposed to do thisthen?
So, if I'm listening to thisand you're going, all right,
well, don't force a pattern, letthe pattern emerge.
How do I let that patternemerge, meaning okay, we've got
all of these different datapoints, these different
collections.
We have this I'm looking up atthe stars in the sky, and each
one of these stars is one ofthese pieces of information
that's come out.
How do I make you know the anyconstellation out?

Speaker 2 (32:42):
of that um and have it be correct, versus just
creating one out of my own mindand the need to see a human face
and everything.
So we don't have the hours itwould take to unpack what Brian
just said, because it's spot onand he's talking about a galaxy
and a universe.
I would say let's just talkabout our solar system, okay.
So we call Mars the red planetand we call Jupiter, you know,

(33:05):
the ring planet, and and Jupiteris also a giant, okay.
So when we start coming up withthose terms for it, it's
because something that we'veseen all along start coming up
with those terms for it, becausesomething that we've seen all
along, and those are verydescriptive terms okay, the
earth is the big blue marble.
Okay.
So I would say, instead oflooking at all of it, because
our ancient ancestors looked atthat same galaxy that Brian was

(33:27):
talking about, laying on thelawn at night and looking up,
and they said, hey, that'sSagittarius, or that looks like
a crab, or you know, this lookslike whatever.
And depending on where you wereon the face of the planet, you
came up with those descriptors.
I'm saying make it even smaller, make it just a nine.
You know eight now becausePluto got the shaft.
But if we take a look at thosethings that mattered to Thomas

(33:49):
Crooks, brian, if I come up toyou and say, hey, let me borrow
any gun.
Okay, it wasn't, it was along-range rifle.
Now do you think he gave a shitthat it was a black AR-15 with
a magazine?
No, it just happened to be whatwas available.
You know what he didn't choose?
He didn't choose a pistolbecause that didn't plan into

(34:10):
his reckoning at all.
I'm not going to shoot a copbefore the thing.
Even if they come up andcontact me, take the picture.
I'm not going to act outviolently.
This is what I'm going to do,this is my plan and I need a
long range rifle to do it.
So if he would have found aflintlock that he was familiar
with, that could shoot 160 yardsand that was the only rifle he
was going to use that rifle.

(34:40):
So again, we're talking about anagnostic thing.
I'm target agnostic here.
The president is going to behere.
That's where I'm going to go.
I'm roof agnostic.
Well, this one's outside of theperimeter.
It's an easy thing.
So that's a low level ofsophistication that I can access
when I talk to my parents.
For my parents to call, therewould have to have been some
leakage.
He had to make a comment ormake a statement.
Hey, if you don't see me laterI'm off to shoot the president.
Those type of things occurredsomewhere.
And, brian, that's just not howclinically normal things

(35:01):
function.
Like Shelly would pop hotbecause Shelly's angry all the
time and Shelly's adyed-in-the-wool Republican and
has been her entire life.
As a matter of fact, we've gotstuff in the House that when her
parents Democrats come over,shelly has to take and put in a
drawer, but in the house thatwhen her parents Democrats come
over, shelly has to take and putin a drawer.
So but the one thing you knowis Shelly's never going to
attempt an assassination onanybody Shelly wants her safe

(35:21):
and that's all.
She wants her safe, but shedoesn't ever meet her way.
I would tell you that if wetake a look at Thomas Crook's
friends because he had them andhis girlfriend I bet he was a
loving, kind, wonderful person.
I bet his engineering degreemade sure that there was a
degree of specificity ineverything he did.
He didn't just make that bomb,he made a missile that went up

(35:42):
and blew out a little parachuteand came down.
He showed other people, hey, ifI take 10 sparklers, look at
the things I can do.
Brian, I'll guarantee you, ifwe dig deep enough those
directions, we'll find stuff.

Speaker 1 (35:58):
Yeah, and I'm waiting to see what when some of the
details come out about some ofthe devices that he built,
because it's very they're beingvery specific with the language
that they use to describe it.
They said they were viable andnot armed, or something like or
not on receive.
They didn't, the receiver hadnot been turned on or something.
It was very specific Like no.
They basically said what I tookfrom it was these were they

(36:19):
would have worked and it was noton or it was not armed, or
something like that.
They acknowledge the fact thathe built a successful bomb that
would have worked and that's all.
As those details come out,it'll be.

Speaker 2 (36:32):
What did he do with those, though, brian?
It'll be interesting to see.

Speaker 1 (36:41):
We don't necessarily know why, like maybe he did, was
just you know he forgot to toto you know what I mean to to
arm it or something like thatand then went oh shit, I still
have my plan.
You know, yeah, he did have afew things on his mind that day,
but you know you, you actuallyyou brought something up I want
to hit on, and what you'retalking about, too, is why it's
important the lexicon, thelanguage we use to talk about

(37:01):
some of this stuff.
So we have a vernacular, alexicon that we teach in our
course, that we talk about, weuse it even here on the podcast,
right, and it's for a specificreason.
Like, we use terms likeorganization, sophistication and
access, we use things likeseams and gaps, even our term
like file folders, you know, Imean, when we talk about
experiences, the Rolodex.

(37:22):
The Rolodex, because one that'sa visual way I can understand.
Well, because when someone getsin the well, everyone uses the
term.
You know it's schema, right, ofhow mentally we work and
process information and accessand so.
But but if I ask you, well,like I can't, I don't know what
a schema looks like.
And you're like, oh, like aschematic.
I'm like fuck, I've never seenone of those.

(37:42):
It's like, okay, do you knowwhat a file folder is like,
let's say on your computer?
When you click on that, youopen it up, what else could be
in there?
Well, there could be otherfolders in there or just files,
and then they'll lead you toanother thing.
Okay, I can visualize that, theRolodex, the file cabinet that
I open, amongst other entireroom full of it.
So it's a visual way for us tokind of get a point across or to

(38:04):
understand a concept.
But when we get into this andthis is part of the reason when
people say like lone wolf, likelone wolf or something like
along those terms, or wasinspired by, or did it because
he heard this we're attributingvalues to things and it really

(38:25):
gets in the way of how we lookat people.
And I think a lot of the timesbecause people go well, why do
you guys use all these terms?
Or you use this, or you're justtrying to sound smart.
It's like no, no, no, I'mtrying to not get you to
misattribute some information tosomething where it shouldn't.
I mean, you even brought it upto now with the, the online
diagnosis, like that's we're.

(38:46):
We're so far past the web.
Md, greg, like everyone onsocial media, like everyone says
that they have, like ADD orADHD, or now autism is a big one
, everyone's calling themselvesslightly autistic.
Then there's all these otherones that people do the terms
like narcissist and gaslighting.
And what's the other one,dunning Kruger, like PSYOP.

(39:07):
You see all these terms thatare like hey, that thing has
actual meaning and you're usingit incorrectly.
Even with him, it's like OK,were you diagnosed with this
meaning?
And you're using it incorrectly.
Even with him, it's like okay,were you diagnosed with this?
Like I can?
You know?
I mean if I say I havesomething, because multiple
doctors have been like brian,you have this problem.
It's very easy to see you know.

Speaker 2 (39:24):
But you know exactly and you've got medical, yeah,
exactly yeah, so.

Speaker 1 (39:32):
But the thing is it really clouds how we look at
these different issues.
And so the same thing, whenpeople talk about, well, there
was a threat from Iran, did theyhave something to do with this?
It's like, okay, one.
When is there not a threat fromone of our foreign adversaries?
Is there ever a time when theygo, hey, the intel community

(39:54):
goes, hey, guys, this month nothreats, they're standing down
this month.
It's like no, there's thingsthat are always present, that
are always there, but what I wasbringing up the language in the
lexicon was how you're talkingabout crooks and some of the
things that he did and said.
You're doing it in a specificmanner and to get to the point

(40:19):
of that is why, then, is itimportant to look at it this way
and not about his motive to doit?
Because this is a big thingthat we talk about, how we
always say motive doesn't reallymatter, because it doesn't in a
sense.
But if I'm investigating it,yeah, I want to look at his
searches because I want to know.
I want to know, like, where hishead was at and that's what he

(40:40):
was thinking, what, what Crookswas thinking.

Speaker 2 (40:42):
But.

Speaker 1 (40:43):
But but the that came right out, that was that came
out really fast too, Um, but,but uh, no that, but no, it's
still fascinating to me that wewant to create, we have to
create a story, and we have tocreate a story to justify it in

(41:04):
our heads, and we have to haveone that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (41:07):
But we're so all over the place because yeah.

Speaker 1 (41:11):
Right, right.
And I think that this is alsowhat it makes more complicated,
because then someone's going topush back and say, well, no, he
had these bombs built, whichmeant he maybe wanted to do this
, or he had this built, or hesaid this, or he searched this
specific term.
That means that that you know,that means that he wanted to do

(41:31):
this for a political reason, andit's like no, you're saying
that, that's not what Crooks wassaying.

Speaker 2 (41:34):
So how do I get better?
It's your narrative.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (41:37):
You're right, right, but then because everyone says
you got to take someone else'sperspective and you got to look
at it through their eyes, soit's like, well, how am I
supposed to do that?
How did you just say this?
Yeah, this one thing is likehow do I get into Crooks' head
to know what he was thinking?
Because it's likely verydifferent than the way I think
in a lot of ways but in terms ofthe decisions he's going to

(42:00):
make.
But there's a lot of overlapbetween, maybe, the way he
thinks and the way every otherhuman thinks and sees the world.
So I think that's too where itgets a little bit.
You know, the turbidity startsto form there because there's
some overlap between crooks andmaybe me reading this story, but
what we would actually do arevery different things.

(42:21):
So can you kind of explain thata little bit?

Speaker 2 (42:23):
Yeah, the likelihood scale.
The likelihood scale I talkabout things that are more
likely and more unlikely, so themore likely they are, this is
the most likely course of actionand then in there I look for
the most dangerous course ofaction.
So I'll give you an example howto look at the smallest piece
of evidence and how you canextrapolate certain theories

(42:44):
from that and then prove them bygoing out and searching for
evidence.
We know that he searched forpornography, so is it likely
that it was horrible, vicious,snuff porn?
That's the first question.
Part two of that question ishow do we know?
It's likely not kid porn,because the way information goes

(43:04):
, brian, those would have beenreleased.
In the first 15 minutes of theprofile on Thomas Crooks, he
looked at dangerous beating porn, this and that.
So why is the porn important?
What kind was it?
Was it loving, was it healthy?
Was it domination and this, andthat those help give us a
window into how he liked to getoff, and that's important.

(43:27):
Those talismans, those markers,those things that he has that
are around him.
It's not to say he was a goodor a bad guy.
Clearly he wasn't the best guyon the block because he tried to
shoot the former president,right, but the idea is that if I
really yeah, it killed somebodyand then injured two other
people, let's not forget all themillions and billions of
dollars that are going to bespent.
Looking at Thomas Crooks, thatprofile of the porn is hugely

(43:50):
important to a guy like me.
Now, what about the bomb?
Was the bomb mobile?
Was it easy to carry?
Was it too big?
Was it a vehicle-borne IED?
Was it to place on the road soif he was escaping, it would
cover his escape?
Was it a distraction?
Did it not work?
Or did he decide because ofsome other reason?
Those are the things we dig deepin.
Okay, we don't sit therebecause motive takes us.

(44:12):
Well, he clearly hated Trump,while he had photos and
researched President Biden aswell.
Ok, well, he hated theRepublicans.
Well, he kind of made donationsto an independent and then did
these other things.
See, brian, every time we go tomotive, motive will turn up
just opinions, and thoseopinions can't be bolstered and
they can't be built and theycan't be defined.

(44:33):
So I always use the scientificmethod and say here's the
information that we got, whatmakes most sense and that's
going to help me out.
And so all the stuff about thebomb, are going to give us a
clear picture of Thomas Crook'sletters or writings.
Did he leave something that wedon't know about yet?
And how would we know withWatts and Cheadle?

(44:55):
Do you get what I'm trying tosay?
We don't know about yet?
And how would we know withWatts and Cheadle?
Do you get what I'm trying tosay?
We don't know all the cardsaround the table yet, do we?
And most of the people thatknew?
Holy shit, it happened.
This is the worst thing thatcould have happened on my watch.
Most of those people are nowfired or searching for a hole or
trying to build up an excusearound them, rather than trying
to say how do we prevent thisfrom occurring again?

Speaker 1 (45:23):
And I think part of what gets in that way is because
there's a lot of study of sortof like victimology.
You know, is that that sort ofit?
Can you know?
I look back at you know peoplecan say, remember Bianchi and
Bono?
Right, they killed a lot ofprostitutes.
And people like, okay, well,was it, you know, because their
mother was a prostitute.
And they have thispsychological no, they had
access.
It was really easy to getvictims, very, very easy to get

(45:45):
the victim.
And then, once they learned it,oh hey, shit, this works, let's
keep doing it and we'll getbetter at it.
And if you think about thatvery simply, that's how these
things occur.
That's how criminals operate,because that's how humans
operate.
If I find a way to get, it'svery easy for me to get a

(46:09):
customer for us.
Greg and I went, wow, I onlytook these few steps and they
immediately hired us.
What do you think I'm going todo on everyone after that?
I'm going to go.

Speaker 2 (46:16):
I'm going to go wait, I just want to do that.

Speaker 1 (46:25):
Exactly, I want to do that all the time and so, so
that we get wrapped around likewho the target was, when it
often matters less than whatpeople think, and and we go,
yeah, but it's gotta be, becauseit's a a polarizing figure.
Or, you know, if it was done toBiden, they would have said,
you know, oh, it's because hewas inspired by something Trump
said.
And then people were trying todo that at the beginning of this
one too.
It's like, well, he wasinspired by something Biden said
.
No, no, that does not cause youto.

(46:50):
You know, carry out this attack.
It's a number of other issuesthat you have, but you know,
carry out this attack.

Speaker 2 (46:55):
It's just a number of other issues that you have.
But wait a minute, if it did?
If it did, where would we seethat?
I would have tattoos, I wouldpaint the inside of my room, I
would be gluing up articles onthe wall and stuff.
This is not that kid.
Now you want to talk about AdamLanza.
Did Adam Lanza have sometroubles?
Did he leak in a whole bunch ofdifferent you know manners?
That's not this kid.
So what we're trying to do iswe're trying to reverse engineer

(47:18):
this kid to meet a profile.
So I can say so.
There, I warned you, I told youwe got to stop doing that.
What we got to do is we got toplay the hand that we're dealt
now and take a look at thesefactors that are influencing a
potential decision.
Then we draw a reasonableconclusion that this kid is more
dangerous than that kid in thisenvironment.

(47:39):
It's that simple.

Speaker 1 (47:41):
And so this is a great explanation of what you
mean by the likelihood scale.
So everyone wants some sort ofcomputational analysis, some
data points, some percentagesaying, all right, this person
is 80% likely, or something tocarry this out, or this is an
actuarial table.

Speaker 2 (48:01):
when it's going to happen?
Ooh, it's going to exactly wewant to.

Speaker 1 (48:04):
We want a percentage of what, what's the likelihood
of this occurring in thissituation?
And that's not how we uselikelihood, because you can't,
in these different situations,there's no you.
You can't use, you know, bayestheorem, statistical analysis to
draw the conclusion with, witha number, you can do exactly

(48:24):
what you just said right thereand this is it's, it's, you're,
you're, you're at the event,there's a crowd of people who's
more likely to does not havemore likely that?
Yeah, it's who's more likely inthis moment in time, so that I
can make a decision about whatto do, and then maybe that
changes.
Maybe I go up to Crooks andhe's just like he's got some

(48:47):
mental health issues.
He's lost from his parents.
Okay, good, now.
It's not him.
Now I can get him help.
Now, who's the most likely?
Not him, now I can get him help.
Now, who's the most likely?
And that's the idea behindeverything for just
decision-making in general,because you have to make a
decision now, I have to put allof this information together and
get it in a usable, chunkableformat that I can operationalize

(49:08):
, and that's using likelihood,is the most logical way to do it
, because it's based onartifacts and evidence.
And it's based on artifacts andevidence and it's based on what
you know in that given time,there could have been someone
else in a parking lot that wasgiving off some cues that had
nothing to do with this, where,at that moment in time, for that
person, that area, you go okay,well, in my area that I have to

(49:28):
cover right now, this person'sthe most likely.

Speaker 2 (49:30):
I should maybe go contact them you get what I'm
saying, and now that was just adope deal going on, or that was
a whatever you know.

Speaker 1 (49:37):
it doesn't matter what it is.

Speaker 2 (49:38):
No, no, let's take a look at that.
Would you say that it's likelythat if police would have you
know that my glasses look wonkytoday, sorry, would you agree
that if somebody took a peekinto Crook's vehicle, it would
have been interesting enough forthem to go holy crap and want
to look more?
Yes, what about his backpack?

(49:58):
Yes, what about the fact thathe was walking around with a
drone at least twice in thehours before conducting what's
clearly ISRD event?
What could have been anotherreasonable explication?
He's a high school or a collegejournalist and he's taking
photos.
He's working for the FBI.
None of those fit.
Was it more than one agency andmore than one type of agent

(50:22):
that he popped hot for?
Yeah, the first copper that hepopped out is why was he
avoiding getting checked in?
Okay.
Then the second one was well,why is he doing these other
things?
And then somebody goes hey, Ijust had this interesting kid.
Look, I got a photo of him.
And other people go that's akid I saw.
Okay.
So how many others in this crowdof 10,000 of people, brian
popped hot?

(50:42):
Nobody.
So, first of all, our messageis getting through because
they're using a gating mechanismand saying this person is
interesting and then it trainingfell short.
Because when something'sinteresting, you have to
investigate.
How many interesting things youhave to investigate at your
scene, every one, every one ofthem.
Because that baseline anomalyis where the danger hides.

(51:04):
And if you wanted to look atsome of the things that were
going on and you wanted to saythese are incongruent signals,
brian, did incongruent signalsstick out in your mind in the
moments after the shooting whenyou saw the videos?
Yeah, they did, and that'swhere you go and that's where
you start, not the motive, youknow, because motive is so
nebulous it could be anything.

Speaker 1 (51:26):
And because of the context of the situation.
This, let's say, besides,obviously, before the rifle and
just him walking around him andthe drone, if it had been the
county fair, would that havebeen still interesting, but less
interesting?
Well, of course, because it's adifferent event and it's a
different context.
It's like, and what's crazy tome and why everyone saw it is in

(51:48):
this context there's only, it'sbinary.
At that point, it's either Athis kid has some issue, he's
lost or whatever's going on or Blike no, this is it.
This is the time that I need togo intervene.
And this isn't bashing on thepeople that are there, because
obviously they were trying to dosomething, yes, and they did a
good thing.

Speaker 2 (52:07):
They were saying, hey , there's a shit around the room
, right.

Speaker 1 (52:26):
Well, I mean, it's just like the you know I'm
talking about even before thatyou know.
And this is when it gets intothat, that sort of this
diffusion of responsibility andhow communication works and how
ineffective it can be in thetimes that you really need it,
and it's like what a lot of us,a lot of people, have a hard
time understanding, is like.
So you're telling me it was abunch of, you know, simple human
errors, that that allowed forthe situation to occur.
And my answer is yes, it reallyis, of steps that weren't, or

(52:46):
boxes that weren't checked,steps that were not taken in
what that should have been andfor for all kinds of different
contributing factors to that.
And if some of them wouldn'thave been there, if it had just
been, you know, one agencycontrolled the whole thing,
would it?
Could it have gone differently?
Yeah, maybe it, maybe it was,but that's not the answer, right
.
The solution to it isn't justokay, well, now we do it this

(53:08):
way and it's just one team, theycontrol everything.
It's like, well, no, hang onno-transcript.

Speaker 2 (53:39):
With all your deployments and all the time you
were in a combat zone, did youever see anybody fall asleep?
Because they were tired, eventhough it was a dangerous
environment?
Absolutely.
Did you ever see somebody get sohot that they took their eye
off the glass because they hadto go throw a piss or take a
drink or get into some shade,because if they didn't they were
afraid they were going to die?
Those are human behaviorfactors and the limits of human
performance.
Those situations, thank God, inthat specific instance didn't

(54:02):
lead to that person or somebodyvery close to them getting
killed, but in other instances,50 feet away or 50 miles away or
5,000 miles away, it did causethat.
Now here you add a number ofthings, the perfect storm of
little things that come togetherthat make a situation more
dangerous.
And when we go to thesemeetings this is what I'm trying
to say we go to these meetings,nobody plans on that.

(54:23):
When we were at Plius for thatultra-secret thing I don't go
any attribution and they wereshowing us how this thing
deployed.
The idea was I raised thequestion hey, what's the turning
radius on that?
And they go, why does thatmatter?
And I raised the question hey,what's the turning radius on
that?
And they go, why does thatmatter?
And I was like, well, I've beento Iraq and Afghanistan and
Yemen and guess what, thosestreets that you go down are
really tight and you can't turnthis thing around.
How are you going to escape?

(54:43):
How far can it run with the oilpan shot?
Do you remember the strikers?
Do you remember driving aroundin those son of a bitches with
the metal things to hold yourduffel bags on the outside right
?
And you remember having to takethose off because the screens
and the things were utilized tostop an RPG but you couldn't go
down the streets with them?
So there are things that we do,brian.
We took off our gosham bootsand put on our running shoes, or

(55:07):
you know, today we didn't wearour eye pro, or we looked left
and we didn't.
Those are all things that fallon the likelihood scale and the
Arcadia scale that nobody elseconsiders.
How much water did you have?
Where did the guy throw a piss?
Did he piss before that?
Did he encounter anybody inthose 10,000 people?
We're talking back about theshooter.
Did he said something?
Did he post something there atthe last minute?

(55:27):
Did he really intend to killthe cop?
Did he fire any shots at thecop?
Those things flex on thelikelihood and they paint a
picture and that's the bestpicture that we have to start
breaking down.

Speaker 1 (55:40):
And you know I go back to for a lot of the big
takeaways is what I kind ofstarted with.
Is that really it's those seamsand gaps are the most important
places that we don't thinkabout or don't look at, and this
is why we do.
It goes back to our parking lotanalogy Look the periphery, the

(56:03):
seams and the gaps, like whohangs out there?
Okay, it's not typical.
It doesn't mean you're doinganything wrong or suspicious,
but there's a reason you choseto do something that wasn't
typical.
Now maybe you pride yourself onthis is how I get my exercise,
or I don't want to go and get mydoor dinged and my car hit and

(56:26):
whatever, and I'm not lazy.
Fine, that's intent.
You have intent behind youractions outside of just going
shopping here and and that'sdifferent.
So he had intent that wasdifferent than everyone else at
the event.
now, whether you want differentthat people promise that on but
but and meaning like, whetheryou're, you're, you were, you

(56:47):
were pro or anti-trump you havean intent when you go there.
Your intent is to see thespeech and, to you know, either
be a part of it or or protest itor whatever.
Like there's, there's a, oryou're there as part of a
security element, or eitheryou're working and you're
setting up the stands likeeveryone has a freaking reason
to be there, and so you have tofall into one of those things.

(57:09):
There is no random showing upand just I'll walk around and
see what's going on.
No, that doesn't.
That's not how people behaveever.
We have so much less free willthan we think we do, and so that
I think that's the biggestreason why people don't
understand some of the stuffthat we talk about.
It's like, well, no, I madethis decision.
It's like, no, you didn't, youwere going along with the crowd
and that's how humans operateExactly.

Speaker 2 (57:30):
Look, brian, do you remember the video of the stage
right after the shooting?
They're trying to hustle theformer president off and get him
to that vehicle and there's ascrum that's going on and the
bearded vet with the hat of hisservice stands up with a beer in
one hand and his middle fingerup in the other hand and he's
screaming obscenities.

(57:51):
Okay, everybody else that'suninitiated, that doesn't do
human behavior patternrecognition analysis would have
said keep an eye on that guy.
Was that guy any threat toanybody but himself?
That's a hard nerp right there.

Speaker 1 (58:05):
Okay, that's the woman with the cell phone.
Who everyone?

Speaker 2 (58:09):
picked up.
Why did she do this?
It's like, oh my God, dude.

Speaker 1 (58:14):
Because every time something happens, she picks up
her phone and starts recordingit.
So guess what she does in thisevent, she falls back on what
she knows.
This is where the insane shitstarts to get off the rails.
But we covered a lot, yeah, andhopefully we brought up some
points of interest for folks.
I would love for people toreach out to us, of course, for

(58:36):
our Patreon subscribers.
Patreon subscribers you canjust hit us up on there.
We can go into detail, but wealso have
thehumanbehaviorpodcasts atgmailcom, if you do want to send
us something.
Actually too, I should mentionI keep forgetting to mention
this at the beginning Dependingon what podcast player you have,
I should mention I keepforgetting to mention this at
the beginning depending on whatpodcast player you have it

(58:58):
should say right on there in thedescription send us a message
and you can click on it.
It basically sends a one-waytext to our podcast account, so
I can't respond to that text,but I can bring it up and talk
about it.
So it's a good feedback loop.

Speaker 2 (59:11):
If you have something or a point, you can throw it in
there loop, like if you havesomething or a point, you can
throw it in there.
But I think it's important thateverybody knows that everybody
that reaches out to arcadia getsa personal, personal answer
from brian.
If you're reaching out to me,you're getting that.
We address everything.
Uh, we're not going to addressuh, ridiculous shit, but the
stuff that's realistic, heckyeah paid, paid customers first,
obviously.

Speaker 1 (59:31):
So if you're one of our Patreon subscribers, we're
going to get right on that.

Speaker 2 (59:35):
If not, it might take some time.

Speaker 1 (59:38):
No, no, no.
So we do.
We appreciate everyone tuningin and we appreciate your time.
You know if you enjoyed it.
You know we ask always to leavea review, but even more
importantly, you know, share itwith a friend, tell us what you
liked about it, tell us whatyou're confused about, so we can
really get into the details ofthis stuff and get it out there.

(01:00:02):
But we do appreciate everyonelistening and thank you so much
for tuning in and don't forgetthat training changes behavior.