April 28, 2025 • 37 mins
Episode: 00264 Released on April 28, 2025 Description: In this powerful episode of Analyst Talk with Jason Elder, Jason welcomes back David Cariens, retired CIA analyst, author, and longtime advocate for truth and accountability after mass shootings. David discusses his new book, Outrageous: Investigating Mass Shootings, which draws from his deeply personal and professional experiences analyzing the aftermath of tragedies in Virginia. From the first-hand loss of a family member to working on the Governor’s Commission, David shares eye-opening insights on systemic failures, the patterns that emerge after mass shootings, and the need for fearless, analytical investigations. Proceeds from his book support charities in memory of the victims. Listen in as David offers a no-holds-barred look at why institutional protection often stands in the way of justice—and how true analysis can make a difference. Learn more about David's work and book at davecariens.com. [Note: Description produced by ChatGPT.] Get to know more about David by listening to his episode on Analyst Talk With Jason Elder: https://www.leapodcasts.com/e/atwje-david-cariens-the-analysis-writer/ Name Drops: Related Links: davecariens.com Book on Amazon www.aquestionofaccountability.com www.aquestionofaccountability.blogspot.com Association(s) Mentioned: Vendor(s) Mentioned: Contact: dcariens@gmail.com Transcript: https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/w84aewhihee64f5e/DavidCariensOutrageous_Transcript.pdf Podcast Writer: Podcast Researcher: Theme Song: Written and Recorded by The Rough & Tumble. Find more of their music at www.theroughandtumble.com. Logo: Designed by Kyle McMullen. Please visit www.moderntype.com for any printable business forms and planners. Podcast Email: leapodcasts@gmail.com Podcast Webpage: www.leapodcasts.com Podcast Twitter: @leapodcasts
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(00:00):
Before we get to the interview withDave, Karens talking about his new
(00:05):
book, outrageous Investigating.
Mass shootings.
I wanna take a moment as in betweenrecording and publishing this episode.
Florida State University herein Tallahassee on April 17th
had a mass shooting wherethere were two victims killed.
T Rowe Chaba and Robert Morales, alongwith six others injured in the shooting.
(00:35):
For those that may notknow, I live in Tallahassee.
My wife works forFlorida State University.
Fortunately she was outta town thatday, but this still struck home for me.
So I, I encourage you to listen tothis episode as David talks about
using his analytical skills toinvestigate mass shootings in Virginia.
(01:00):
And, talk about allthe matters that he found.
All proceeds go to charity.
You can find his book on Amazon, andyou can also find it at davecariens.com.
That's d.
C-A-R-I-E-N s.com.
(01:25):
That's D-A-V-E-C-A-R-I-E-N s.com.
Thank you and I really hopeyou enjoy this episode.
Welcome to Analyst Talk with Jason Elder.
It's like coffee with an analyst,or it could be whiskey with an
analyst reading a spreadsheet,linking crime events, identifying a
series, and getting the latest scoopon association news and training.
(01:47):
So please don't beat that analystand join us as we define the law
enforcement analysis profession.
One episode at time.
How we doing?
Alice, Jason Elder here with a veryspecial episode with LEA podcast.
I have invited back, David Karens,who has a new book , outrageous
investigating mass shootings Do out.
(02:10):
April 12th.
David, how we doing?
We're doing fine.
Thank you, Jason.
All right, and for the listeners, if youdon't remember, we had David on in 2022.
He is nicknamed the analyst writer andhe had 51 year career with the CIA.
Longtime instructor of intelligencewriting at the IE Conference has written
(02:37):
several books now effective IntelligenceBriefings and a Handbook of Intelligence
and Crime Analysis to name a few.
He also has written severalbooks now on mass shootings.
In Virginia in particular, which iswhat the subject of this latest book is.
(02:59):
So David, now that I've set thestage there, I know you have
been a part of, unfortunately,several different mass shootings.
That have gone on in Virginia overthe last couple of decades, and this
is kind of a combination of what youlearned from those mass shootings.
(03:20):
So before we dive in too far, what wasyour inspiration behind writing this book?
Jason, I think as, as you know.
I started down this path when the motherof my oldest grandchild was killed at
the first mass shooting here in Virginia.
In January of 2002.
(03:41):
And part of my dealing with thattragedy was to look into it and to
try and analyze and see what happened.
In that process I. It became apparent tome that we were not being told the truth.
And the more I butted myhead against brick walls with
officials, school officials, andpoliticians and some others I.
(04:04):
The more I've determined, I became to getto the bottom of what had, what happened.
And in part it was, it was for healingof my family and, and also for Angie.
Angie was the mother of,of my oldest grandchild and
it, and also for her family.
I felt somewhat unique andthat, that is, that, that.
(04:28):
As an intelligence analyst atthe time I had had, I had over
30 years of work and I'd recentlyretired from the agency before.
I was still working for them oncontract, and I felt I brought a, a
particularly unique perspective toit and that is a very, very personal,
having been in many ways a victimof one of these mass shootings.
(04:52):
Certainly my family was,and the analytic skills.
To try and get to thebottom of what happened.
And so I produced my first book and ithas now it had it's on its third volume.
Not simply not, not because it is a, a bigseller or burning up the charts, but the
publisher that I'm with thinks the bookis significant enough that it needs to be
(05:17):
re revised periodically and brought out.
And that's re and that'sexactly what I've done.
So, I, I, I. So half seriesand half joking, refer to it
as my first book and also my.
Most recent book, which it is untilthis new book comes out on April 12th.
So that's what got me started out.
And then I went on when the Virginia Techshooting occurred I said to my wife, from
(05:42):
what I was seeing from the news reportsand what I was picking up, I said, this
is the Appalachian School of Law allover, except it's on a massive scale.
And I read a news that WashingtonPost did an interview with the Omaha
family and with particularly thefather, Joe Omaha, who's their daughter
was killed in the French class.
(06:02):
And so I, I got ahold of the reporterand said told him what, what I had done,
what I'd written and said, I have a wholefile cabinet full of research and laws,
Virginia laws and, and Virginia SupremeCourt decisions and things of that nature.
They're welcome to it.
And, and I said if you would, I, but Ido not want to call the Omaha family.
(06:24):
I have a rule that I've followedthroughout my work on this.
I never ever contact any ofthe victims of the families.
It's an invasion of their privacy.
They have to contact me, but I didfeel in this case I had a lot of
information, save 'em a lot of time.
And so I met with themwith, with Joe Omaha and.
(06:46):
Out of that relationship I was introducedto quite a number of the families and
finally one of them, father of a, ayoung man killed in the German class
asked me if I would do the same for them.
And that is to write a book that tellsthe truth about what happened at Virginia
Tech and exposes what has gone on there.
(07:07):
Which was very similar to the AppalachianSchool of Law in terms of, of officials
not being cooperative and I don'twanna say that they hid information,
but, it came awfully close to that.
So that led me to my second one.
And then the third one was theVirginia Beach mass shooting.
And I, I was a member of the writer ofthe Hampton Roads writers, and I got an
(07:31):
email from the chairman or head of the.
Organization saying we have a, A memberwho worked in the building in Virginia
Beach, knew all of the people who werekilled and all of those who are wounded
and he is suffering from severe PTSD.
, he asked me if we have a writer whohas addressed this subject, and if
so, he would like to talk to me.
(07:51):
Would you be willing to talk to him?
And of course the answer was yes.
So I talked with him and out of that camecontact with the husband of one of the.
Women who was killed at Virginia Beachand he contacted me and wanted to
know if, if we could, we could talk.
He wanted my help.
And I said, okay, Jason, absolutely,but let me send you my books.
(08:14):
And then unbeknownst to me, he took,after reading them, he went to delegate
Converse Fowler, who along with ourcurrent attorney general, had sponsored
a bill in the Virginia legislature toestablish a commission to investigate.
And the , next thing I knewI was on that commission.
Mm-hmm.
And that was really an eyeopener in termsof, what goes on behind the scenes.
(08:40):
That's, that's pretty unsavory.
And this phenomenon that exists,that seems to exist, at least in
Virginia, that the people in positionsof authorities circle the wagons.
And they protect the institution andorganization at all costs, and they
protect people's careers and in doing so,they effectively block investigations.
(09:04):
So out of all of that, I decided, I seethese patterns and I sometimes I am asked,
do you see patterns in these shootings?
And the answer is, yes, I do.
I see patterns in the killers.
I see patterns in the response ofpoliticians and the leaders of the
organization, whether it's a school or aa, a business and their response, I see
(09:28):
certain patterns and as far as I knew, noone had had written anything like that.
My son had wanted me to write mymemoir, and so I decided to write it.
My memoir in stages and a very importantpart of my life has been investigating
these mass shootings, and hence thebook that's coming out on, on April
(09:50):
12th, which is, is called Outrageousand pulls all of this together.
It's, it's a no holds barred.
Book and I sometimes I I, here in EasternVirginia, I'm periodically asked to give
talks and I, I begin the talk by sayinglook you need to know at some point in
this talk, I'm, you're probably goingto be annoyed if not mad at me because
(10:13):
I'm an equal opportunity offender.
I do not.
Shy away from calling out Republicans,democrats, tea party, politicians,
green party, whatever they are,because they all have one thing in
common, certain certain members ofthem, and that is a reluctance I.
To really dig in and doa true investigation and
(10:36):
find out what has happened.
Instead, they wanna do gloss over andwrite nice little shiny reports about
what are the best security practices.
No, you, you have to use thepowers of an intelligence analyst.
The skills that we develop and diginto what happened, get the evidence.
You need primary sources, you need totalk with the people that were there.
(10:59):
You need to talk with the fa thefamily members and, and the, the the,
the family members of the killer.
You, you need to do the kind of research.
That an intelligence analyst doesin looking for primary sources.
And and that's exactly what I've donein all of those, and I've tried to
pull them together in, in this one bookthat I hope people will find useful in.
(11:23):
And I think it explains in part.
Why we still have this epidemic ofmass shootings, despite all of the,
the crocodile tears and hand wringingthat we have on the part of po of
people in positions of power and trust.
Yet nothing is really ever done.
So that's, that's kind of a longway, Jason, to tell you how I, how
(11:46):
I got to where I am with this book.
Yeah.
And just to, put a bow on yourbeing on the Governor's commission
that you end up resigning becausethey decide to just write best
practices for security instead of.
(12:06):
Researching and investigatingspecifically what happened at
the Virginia Beach shooting.
Yeah.
And, and, and Jason.
It was, it was, that was the culminationof an awful lot of things, including for
example the police analyst listening tothis or the police officers know as well
as I do that, a timeline and a crime.
(12:27):
Is extremely important.
That's where your investigation begins.
The, that's the basis of it.
And I kept asking the chairman ofthe commission who was a former
police officer and saying to him,we need to construct a timeline.
We need to know who was where andwhat, and, and, and all of the events.
(12:48):
And going back even to the killer overthe killer's life over the last few years,
we, we need to construct a timeline.
And at one point he looked at me andI, I forget, I was probably about the
20th time I, I suggested a timeline andhe looked at me and he said, said, oh
David, I'm not interested if it's twoor three seconds, one way or another.
(13:13):
And I said, you should be, becausetwo or three seconds can make the
difference between life and death.
And sure enough, while I was onthe commission, the Virginia Beach.
Police, the first responders releasedthe audio of, of their response.
And in many respects, those men andwomen are victims because they got
into the building, the municipalbuilding, and because of faulty
(13:37):
security protocols, which each build,each floor of that building had.
Had different combinations, differentways to enter it, and no knock
box with a master key or mastercombinations or whatever it was.
And the police stood outside in thehall while the, while the killer was
(13:58):
behind the doors shooting people.
And I matched up, I made myown timeline and I matched.
My timeline line up againstthe police audio recording.
Mm-hmm.
And at least one person was killed and onewas injured while the police could not get
access to where the shooting was going on.
(14:20):
I mean, that's, to me justabsolutely incredible.
To my knowledge it does notappear in the final report.
It appears in what I wrote.
I wrote as, I think Itold you my own report.
Released it to the press and tothe, the governor and the Attorney
General, and I have it all in there.
Mm-hmm.
But I just would not be party to thatsort of what I consider to be deceit.
(14:42):
Yeah.
And so, so, I stuck it out until afew months before they resigned, but
it was clear that I was not goingto have much of a voice in anything
that was said that it would be aglossy these are the best practices.
Yeah,
I,
I do find it interesting, you, you talkabout it in the book, the patterns of
the aftermath and, and protecting theinstitution, typically when analysts.
(15:07):
Are working an investigation, doingcase support for an investigation.
They're out trying to find thesuspect, the, the person, the
murderer in these cases, I.
It's the, the shooter is known.
The shooter is no longer with us.
It's the aftermath of the whole thing,and it just doesn't seem like there's that
(15:31):
appetite to really tell the entire story.
It's.
What's left now is they'retrying to avoid everybody blaming
the, the institution for Yeah.
The lack of response that's the ideaof trying to protect the institution.
(15:52):
'cause the more you dig, the more youfind out stuff that you're talking
about with the, the different levels.
That's exactly right.
The different floors.
Well, and, and, and for example,in the case of, Virginia Tech.
That shooter could have done little.
The only thing, he was sendingsignals right and left.
And at one point he was actually takenthe Virginia tech police department after
(16:15):
he had been harassing a female student.
Took him into custody and he was, wasdiagnosed by a psychologist there on the
campus as a threat to himself and others,and yet he was, he was taken to a mental
hospital and released the next morning,in effect, for lack of other words, I
would say, on his own recognizance andon the proviso that he sought help.
(16:36):
Mm-hmm.
I mean, that's, that'sjust absolutely incredible.
How, how far from that was theshooting was how close, how many
number of days, weeks, months.
Well, I would say it was, if I recallcorrectly, I don't remember the exact,
I would say it was about six or sevenmonths before the actual shooting.
Yeah,
he, yeah.
The these, and the other thing isthese, these killers are, are insidious.
(17:03):
In the case of Virginia, VirginiaBeach in order to save money
they were, they were diverting.
I was, I found out in my research, they,they, they, some of the components of
that municipal building were divertingmoney from safety training for
employees and for safety protocols.
Their area of the building.
(17:23):
, they were diverting it to other expenses.
And one of the things I found out in theresearch at Virginia Beach is a lot of the
people said, we didn't know what to do.
We had absolutely, we'd never hadany drills or any training on,
on how do you react if there'sa, there's an active shooter.
That I find almost jaw droppingbecause of the fact that
(17:45):
Virginia was, in this century hadalready had two mass shootings.
Mm-hmm.
And one of them at a uni, well, bothof them at one of the law, law college
and the other at a major university.
And you would think that the idea of.
Good security protocol would'vebeen very high on the agenda of the
(18:06):
management of the city of Virginia Beach.
And apparently it was not.
And I'll tell you what, inmy research I did, I checked
with other cities in Virginia.
And interviewed their, their humanresources people and, and I was
dumbfounded by Roanoke and Alexandriathe, the types of protocol and
(18:27):
training that those municipalitieshave for their employees.
I mean, it was great.
It, it, it was almost a, amodel for, for others to follow.
Those two cities could do it, butVirginia Beach, the state's largest
city, paid very little attention to it.
Hmm.
What were some of the things inparticular that Alexandria did?
(18:48):
What, what I recall is thatthey had regular training
and they had regular drills.
Those two things.
I'd, I'd have to go back and, and,and pull out the notes from the,
the memorandum of conversationI did when I did the interview.
But they, they listed the typeof training that they were doing.
They told me the type of training theywere doing and how often they had,
(19:09):
and furthermore, it was mandatory.
Mm-hmm.
It was not.
If you want to go, which VirginiaBeach did offer some form of active
shooter training if you want to go.
And I only found two people out of thenearly 40 people that I interviewed who
went to it, who went to the training.
Yeah.
So, there's a very there's very, very,it's almost a Sherlock Holmes type
(19:33):
mystery to the Virginia Beach shooting.
The killer was, was shot.
Was taken to the hospitaland died shortly after that.
Well, when the police and the FBIwent through his condo, they searched
the condo looking for evidence, and,and, and I've seen the pictures and,
and read, read the reports on it.
But what, what was puzzling is thatafter the search was done, both of
(19:58):
them, and maybe it was joint, I don'trecall, but issued a public statement.
As to what they found.
And most importantly, theysaid we did not find a laptop.
Well, usually when you in police work,when you do a research or, I mean, when
you do a search like that, you tell peoplewhat you found, what you did not find.
(20:19):
Mm-hmm.
So
that was very puzzling.
And then of course, over twoyears later, his laptop shows up.
Well, some of the peoplethat I was interviewing had
already had said we saw him.
His laptop.
We know he had had a laptop.
We don't know what happened to it,but, but, but he had a laptop and
one of the, the family members of avictim sued the estate of the killer.
(20:43):
And as part of the award got.
Access to, I took possession of the condo.
She found a laptop in abox in the dining room.
Hmm.
And I was able to get a hold of a copyof the hard drive, and the only thing
on the hard drive is pornography.
There was nothing elsethere, wasn't there?
(21:04):
He there, we, we know that heresearched the internet for
weapons and for ammunition.
None of that's on there.
Most people, they have a a Gmail accountor a Hotmail account or something.
There's gonna be that.
None of that is on there.
There is absolutely nothing.
So do you think it wasremoved because that's, I
I most definitely, I think, Ithink it was, I think that laptop
(21:26):
was tampered with Absolutely.
But without the, the chain of control overthat laptop is, is, I mean, it was lost.
So who knows who had it.
But in the book I do I, I use amethodology that I was, was taught and,
and that is, you look at the who, whowould possibly have tampered with it,
(21:46):
who would benefit.
And there're really, thereare three candidates.
One is the Killer's family.
Two is the Virginia Beachpolice, and three is the FBI.
So what I ruled pure speculation,but I rule out the family because
why would the family re raise, eraseeverything and leave something that
(22:09):
might be be interpreted as damageto the personality of the man.
Mm-hmm.
That is all this his, hisaddiction with pornography.
Mm-hmm.
I would think they would've raisedthat and they would've left his
Gmail account on it and his Hotmail.
And furthermore, one of thequestions about that Virginia Beach
killer was whether or not he wasseeking psychological counseling.
(22:32):
And I kept hearing no he wasn't.
No he wasn't.
No he wasn't.
Well, I interviewed a man who's who.
Suffered, I think the worst PTSD that Ihave ever come across from that, that man,
when I, it was a phone interview and hesaid, I'm going to give you the security
number, the emergency number, becauseI periodically have horrible flashbacks
(22:54):
and I have to be rushed to the emergencyroom and this interview may spark.
If, if I go into one of those,would you please call this emergency
number and have them, I mean,that's how bad this gentleman was.
So he told me, I. I asked himwhat he knew about the killer,
and he said, well, I did.
He said, even before the shooting, Iwas seeing a, a counselor, and I saw him
(23:15):
in the, in the waiting room, in the cin the psychological counselor's office.
So yes, he was seeing someone.
And I mean, there is, there are,there are so many things from my
work on that commission that wecould not get to the bottom of.
But that's extremely important for,we need to know if, if that killer was
seen, a psychologist or psychiatrist.
(23:37):
Once you are dead in the state ofVirginia, all your rights to privacy goes.
There's no reason why thatcommission could not have had,
had access to his medical records.
What would that have told us?
Was he on a medication that mayhave have led to the shooting?
Was he schizophrenic?
So it's, it's, what's troubling tome is we had an opportunity on that
(24:00):
commission, I think to, to perhaps.
Make a small difference and at leastsurface some aspects of these mass
shootings that might help warn againstothers and prevent other mass shootings.
But that did not happen.
That did not happen.
The
city and some of the interviews that I hadthe employees said, I'm here even though.
(24:24):
I, I was advised not to talk to thecommission and my fellow workers told
me if, if we talk to you, if I talkto you, there might be retaliation,
which leads to another thing.
One of the things to come out of all ofthese shootings, Jason, is if you set up a
commission to investigative mass shooting.
You give that commission subpoena power.
(24:47):
Now, what does that do?
Under, under the law with subpoenapowers, if someone talks to the
commission, there is a law that preventsany retaliation against that individual
and a manager who retaliates underit can, can I'm, I'm, I'm not sure
what the penalty is but, but it is.
(25:07):
I had one person who said, Iwould like to talk with you.
I have information about the building,the lack of building security, but
if I talk to you, there's a chancethey'll find out and I'll be fired.
And I'm of an age group, it'llbe hard to find another job
and I'll lose all my pension.
And that's what happened.
And I, I, I've documented all of this.
(25:29):
In the book, as I said, it's, it's a,it's a no holds barred book, but that's
the only way we are ever going to doanything to, to begin to cut down on
the numbers of these mass shootings.
So we, we've got to get atthe truth no matter how harsh
or how severe that truth is.
And despite , what they said at thelaw school, despite what they said at
(25:52):
Virginia Tech, despite what they saidat Virginia Beach, all of these killers.
Were sending signals that they wereviolent, every single one of them.
And yet those, those three, those twoschools in that city government say
there were no, there were no signalsin the case of Virginia Beach with
the research that I did the city.
And, and the Virginia Beach police said,well, he wasn't sending any signals
(26:16):
and I found, I forget whether it's12 or 14 signals that he was sending,
that should have set off alarm bells.
Now whether it would, whether itwould've prevented, I don't know.
But ignoring these signalsmeans there's a very good chance
that violence is inevitable.
So no matter how difficult it is.
For a manager to come toterms with these people.
(26:37):
And, and they have to do it.
I know when I worked at, at CIA asan intelligence analyst, I was a
manager and I had to go through atraining class and I forget, there
was two or three days and, and a largechunk of that class was how do you.
Identify troubled individualsand what do you do?
What actions are appropriate, how doyou get them the help that they need?
(27:01):
And I will tell you in my career, Ihad two very troubled individuals.
One who I found out was threateningsuicide, and I was able to get him
to psychologists and psychiatrists.
Through the CIA and he hashad a fantastic career.
Another one was, was, was very similar.
(27:24):
He was violent and was, was verystrange and very peculiar, and I got
him psycho psychological counseling.
So there, I don't buy the fact that,oh, you can't do that with that people.
It's invasion of their privacy.
I would call shooting people an invasionof their privacy and which one is worse.
Yeah.
(27:45):
Well,
I, I, in fact, even on, on, lemmetell you on the commission, and I'm
sorry, as you can tell, I, I getcharged up a little bit about this.
We were discussing one dayon the commission about
exactly about this subject.
And one of the commissioners whowas a former city of Virginia Beach
official and should never have been onthe commission, said, well, the city
(28:06):
couldn't really do anything if therewere warning signs because it, it was,
his civil rights would've been violated.
And I just looked at him and said, Ibelieve the civil rights of 12 people
who were shot were violated in a very.
Very bad way.
I mean, I, I found that a jawdropping statement, particularly by
(28:28):
someone who was supposed to be ona commission who's investigating.
Yeah.
Well, I think you, you, you hiton it earlier with the Virginia
Tech shooter just released onits own cognizance, right?
I mean that's, yeah, that's thething about it is it's like if
the, if there are mental issues.
They are no longer able tomake the right decisions.
(28:51):
That is correct.
That is absolute inall of these shootings.
In fact, if you go back to VirginiaTech Jason, their security protocol
prior to the shooting was one of thebest in this country of any university.
I read it.
Mm-hmm.
It is extremely impressive.
The failure in all of theseshootings is human failure.
(29:14):
You can have all the technology youwant, you can have all the protocols
written, but if you don't have pe, theright people with the backbone to take
steps that may be uncomfortable but arenevertheless necessary, you're gonna have
these shootings that thus, frankly, what Ijust said is the tragedy of Virginia Tech.
(29:35):
They had in place an absolutelysuperb security protocol and.
On the morning of the shooting, afterthe double homicide in Ambler West
Johnston Hall when the president of theuniversity was talking to, I'm sure it
was the Virginia Virginia Tech policechief, he was talking to the police in
the dormitory at the site of the murderand said, should we warn the campus?
(29:57):
They, he said, no, don't warn the campus.
They had a warning thatwould've locked down everything.
I, I believe to this day, 32people would be alive if they
had followed the protocol.
Oh,
and what, what, what makes when yougo back and you, you research things
and, and, and, and why you have to,sometimes in the evening you have
to have at least a double martinibecause it's, it's just so upsetting.
(30:20):
The school had a whole historyof warning when a prisoner broke
out of a jail in Blacksburg.
They locked down the campus and there,there was no, no indication that
the guy was even near the campus.
They warned the campusfor a measles outbreak.
They warned the campus formold in certain buildings.
They were, they were warning all the time.
(30:41):
As they should have been.
But the critical warning didnot take place and 32 people
paid the supreme price for that.
And 17, at least 17 other were wounded.
'cause we don't knowhow many were wounded.
Some people left that campus whowere wounded and never came back.
Mm-hmm.
We don't.
And, and so we, that'swhy I say at least 17.
Yeah.
(31:01):
You can obviously hear.
The, the emotional toll that workingon these cases has had on you.
And yes, something that.
We've talked about on thisshow from time to time, the,
the mental toll on Alice Yes.
And working some of these cases.
Just talk a little bit about this.
(31:22):
, I know you've gone through this processa, a couple times, but I still feel
that there's probably moments whereyou have to either take a break or
get rejuvenated before proceeding.
Oh, oh, ab absolutely.
Well, I can tell you that yes, it,it, it has, it has, has taken a
toll and I've been under pressurefrom my, I have three sons.
(31:45):
And,
At least one of them our youngestone and my wife wanted, did,
did not want me to do this.
When I wrote the book on, on Angie'sKilling, I felt I had to do it because
it was part of, of what I needed todo to reconstruct my life, to get, to
get some semblance of normalcy back.
And one of the patterns that I see.
(32:07):
With the families of victims are thedifferences between men and women, and
that is the, the families that I havedealt with, invariably the mothers
or the wives or the aunts who, who,whatever the female is, they concentrate
on healing, whereas the male, I won'tsay the male wants revenge, but.
He wants to get to the bottom of it.
(32:28):
He wants to find what went wrongand he want, he, he, he wants to
know who screwed up and, and it's,they're, they're adamant with it.
And so there's, there's thatdifference and that my family
fell into that because my wife.
Did not want me to write the book.
She said, we need to keep, weneed to concentrate on healing.
And I said, I can't healuntil these questions are
(32:51):
answered, so I have to do it.
And she said, well, you,she's also my editor.
And I said to her, she said,well, I will not read it.
And I said, okay.
And so I had the galley, itwas ready to, to be published.
I was proofing the galley andshe came into my office and she
said, she said, I better readthat thing before it comes out.
(33:12):
So she read it and allshe did was hand it back.
And she said, I understand.
But after that.
And on the morning of the VirginiaTech shooting, I had had surgery and
we were sitting in the family room andmy my wife looked at me when the news
broke of the two people being killed.
She looked at me and she said,don't you dare write a book on that.
(33:34):
Don't bring death back into this family.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's, that's really tough.
But, oh, so, all right.
Well so as you mentioned before.
Your whole career kind led you to thismoment in, the skills and abilities
and training that you got throughthe CIA, the research skills, the,
(33:54):
the writing, the asking questions.
Yeah.
All put you in this moment to beable to do this, to tell these
stories, to get the word out.
To I identify the issues of theaftermath of these mass shootings.
You're right.
I, I sort of felt, and, and, and thatI was in a very unique position because
(34:20):
you may have people who have done exactlythe same thing that I have in their
police work or the FBI or the CIA, butthey haven't had a family member killed.
Mm-hmm.
So I felt that I brought tothis problem both aspects.
Of, of what was, what was needed.
And that is, I had had theemotional experience of, of having
(34:42):
a member of my family be done down.
Plus I had the skills, the analyticskills to get to the bottom of it.
And I felt that was, that was unique.
And I, I don't know how uniqueit is, but I doubt if there are
very, there are, are very many.
Men and women like me who havesuffered the loss of a family member
(35:02):
and also have all this backgroundin police and intelligence work.
So yeah, I felt that's one ofthe reasons why I've continued.
And to be quite truthful it's, it'sawfully difficult because after I did
the Virginia Tech, my wife said thesame thing, no more of these books.
My son said the same thing.
Stop it, dad.
It's bad for your health.
I was diagnosed with cancer shortly afterI finished the Angie book and my wife to
(35:27):
this day thinks it was the stress of that.
I'm not so sure.
But, but at any rate, the fact itis a fact that, that that happened.
But I will tell you, Jason,if a mother or father.
Calls you and their child has beenkilled and they say, we need your help.
I can't say no.
Yeah.
David, thank you so much for whatyou've done for coming on here today.
(35:52):
It's great insight for the listeners.
The books out April 12th.
Again, it's outrageous investigating mass.
Shootings.
We will put a link in the show noteshere to Yeah, to give you access
if you want to purchase the book.
And David, once again,thank you, you so much.
(36:15):
Can I say one other thing, Jason?
Absolutely.
Say
one other quick.
Yeah.
I don't take any money for these books.
All of the money goes to charities.
That's awesome.
No, that, that is, thatis, you are a Saint David.
Okay.
No, believe me.
Believe me, Jason.
I am not.
But I, let me just tell youanother aspect of, of this.
(36:38):
I note that there arevultures out there who play.
On, on the families and I, I just,I will not take, I'm, I'm pleased to
say by the way that I, the VirginiaTech book, I've been able to give
several thousand dollars to theMichael Polley Junior Scholarship Fund.
Michael was killed.
All right, David, thank again.
(36:59):
Thank you so much for being here.
Outrageous investigating massshootings out April 12th.
. David thank you again.
I really appreciate your timehere today, and you be safe.
Okay?
You too.
Thanks, Jason.
Bye-bye.
Thank you for making it tothe end of another episode of
Analyst Talk with Jason Elder.
You can show your support by sharingthis and other episodes found
(37:21):
on our website@www.podcasts.com.
If you have a topic you would likeus to cover or have a suggestion for
our next guest, please send us anemail at Elliot podcasts@gmail.com.
Till next time, analysts, keep talking.
Before we get to the interview withDave, Karens talking about his new
(00:05):
book, outrageous Investigating.
Mass shootings.
I wanna take a moment as in betweenrecording and publishing this episode.
Florida State University herein Tallahassee on April 17th
had a mass shooting wherethere were two victims killed.
T Rowe Chaba and Robert Morales, alongwith six others injured in the shooting.
(00:35):
For those that may notknow, I live in Tallahassee.
My wife works forFlorida State University.
Fortunately she was outta town thatday, but this still struck home for me.
So I, I encourage you to listen tothis episode as David talks about
using his analytical skills toinvestigate mass shootings in Virginia.
(01:00):
And, talk about allthe matters that he found.
All proceeds go to charity.
You can find his book on Amazon, andyou can also find it at davecariens.com.
That's d.
C-A-R-I-E-N s.com.
(01:25):
That's D-A-V-E-C-A-R-I-E-N s.com.
Thank you and I really hopeyou enjoy this episode.
Welcome to Analyst Talk with Jason Elder.
It's like coffee with an analyst,or it could be whiskey with an
analyst reading a spreadsheet,linking crime events, identifying a
series, and getting the latest scoopon association news and training.
(01:47):
So please don't beat that analystand join us as we define the law
enforcement analysis profession.
One episode at time.
How we doing?
Alice, Jason Elder here with a veryspecial episode with LEA podcast.
I have invited back, David Karens,who has a new book , outrageous
investigating mass shootings Do out.
(02:10):
April 12th.
David, how we doing?
We're doing fine.
Thank you, Jason.
All right, and for the listeners, if youdon't remember, we had David on in 2022.
He is nicknamed the analyst writer andhe had 51 year career with the CIA.
Longtime instructor of intelligencewriting at the IE Conference has written
(02:37):
several books now effective IntelligenceBriefings and a Handbook of Intelligence
and Crime Analysis to name a few.
He also has written severalbooks now on mass shootings.
In Virginia in particular, which iswhat the subject of this latest book is.
(02:59):
So David, now that I've set thestage there, I know you have
been a part of, unfortunately,several different mass shootings.
That have gone on in Virginia overthe last couple of decades, and this
is kind of a combination of what youlearned from those mass shootings.
(03:20):
So before we dive in too far, what wasyour inspiration behind writing this book?
Jason, I think as, as you know.
I started down this path when the motherof my oldest grandchild was killed at
the first mass shooting here in Virginia.
In January of 2002.
(03:41):
And part of my dealing with thattragedy was to look into it and to
try and analyze and see what happened.
In that process I. It became apparent tome that we were not being told the truth.
And the more I butted myhead against brick walls with
officials, school officials, andpoliticians and some others I.
(04:04):
The more I've determined, I became to getto the bottom of what had, what happened.
And in part it was, it was for healingof my family and, and also for Angie.
Angie was the mother of,of my oldest grandchild and
it, and also for her family.
I felt somewhat unique andthat, that is, that, that.
(04:28):
As an intelligence analyst atthe time I had had, I had over
30 years of work and I'd recentlyretired from the agency before.
I was still working for them oncontract, and I felt I brought a, a
particularly unique perspective toit and that is a very, very personal,
having been in many ways a victimof one of these mass shootings.
(04:52):
Certainly my family was,and the analytic skills.
To try and get to thebottom of what happened.
And so I produced my first book and ithas now it had it's on its third volume.
Not simply not, not because it is a, a bigseller or burning up the charts, but the
publisher that I'm with thinks the bookis significant enough that it needs to be
(05:17):
re revised periodically and brought out.
And that's re and that'sexactly what I've done.
So, I, I, I. So half seriesand half joking, refer to it
as my first book and also my.
Most recent book, which it is untilthis new book comes out on April 12th.
So that's what got me started out.
And then I went on when the Virginia Techshooting occurred I said to my wife, from
(05:42):
what I was seeing from the news reportsand what I was picking up, I said, this
is the Appalachian School of Law allover, except it's on a massive scale.
And I read a news that WashingtonPost did an interview with the Omaha
family and with particularly thefather, Joe Omaha, who's their daughter
was killed in the French class.
(06:02):
And so I, I got ahold of the reporterand said told him what, what I had done,
what I'd written and said, I have a wholefile cabinet full of research and laws,
Virginia laws and, and Virginia SupremeCourt decisions and things of that nature.
They're welcome to it.
And, and I said if you would, I, but Ido not want to call the Omaha family.
(06:24):
I have a rule that I've followedthroughout my work on this.
I never ever contact any ofthe victims of the families.
It's an invasion of their privacy.
They have to contact me, but I didfeel in this case I had a lot of
information, save 'em a lot of time.
And so I met with themwith, with Joe Omaha and.
(06:46):
Out of that relationship I was introducedto quite a number of the families and
finally one of them, father of a, ayoung man killed in the German class
asked me if I would do the same for them.
And that is to write a book that tellsthe truth about what happened at Virginia
Tech and exposes what has gone on there.
(07:07):
Which was very similar to the AppalachianSchool of Law in terms of, of officials
not being cooperative and I don'twanna say that they hid information,
but, it came awfully close to that.
So that led me to my second one.
And then the third one was theVirginia Beach mass shooting.
And I, I was a member of the writer ofthe Hampton Roads writers, and I got an
(07:31):
email from the chairman or head of the.
Organization saying we have a, A memberwho worked in the building in Virginia
Beach, knew all of the people who werekilled and all of those who are wounded
and he is suffering from severe PTSD.
, he asked me if we have a writer whohas addressed this subject, and if
so, he would like to talk to me.
(07:51):
Would you be willing to talk to him?
And of course the answer was yes.
So I talked with him and out of that camecontact with the husband of one of the.
Women who was killed at Virginia Beachand he contacted me and wanted to
know if, if we could, we could talk.
He wanted my help.
And I said, okay, Jason, absolutely,but let me send you my books.
(08:14):
And then unbeknownst to me, he took,after reading them, he went to delegate
Converse Fowler, who along with ourcurrent attorney general, had sponsored
a bill in the Virginia legislature toestablish a commission to investigate.
And the , next thing I knewI was on that commission.
Mm-hmm.
And that was really an eyeopener in termsof, what goes on behind the scenes.
(08:40):
That's, that's pretty unsavory.
And this phenomenon that exists,that seems to exist, at least in
Virginia, that the people in positionsof authorities circle the wagons.
And they protect the institution andorganization at all costs, and they
protect people's careers and in doing so,they effectively block investigations.
(09:04):
So out of all of that, I decided, I seethese patterns and I sometimes I am asked,
do you see patterns in these shootings?
And the answer is, yes, I do.
I see patterns in the killers.
I see patterns in the response ofpoliticians and the leaders of the
organization, whether it's a school or aa, a business and their response, I see
(09:28):
certain patterns and as far as I knew, noone had had written anything like that.
My son had wanted me to write mymemoir, and so I decided to write it.
My memoir in stages and a very importantpart of my life has been investigating
these mass shootings, and hence thebook that's coming out on, on April
(09:50):
12th, which is, is called Outrageousand pulls all of this together.
It's, it's a no holds barred.
Book and I sometimes I I, here in EasternVirginia, I'm periodically asked to give
talks and I, I begin the talk by sayinglook you need to know at some point in
this talk, I'm, you're probably goingto be annoyed if not mad at me because
(10:13):
I'm an equal opportunity offender.
I do not.
Shy away from calling out Republicans,democrats, tea party, politicians,
green party, whatever they are,because they all have one thing in
common, certain certain members ofthem, and that is a reluctance I.
To really dig in and doa true investigation and
(10:36):
find out what has happened.
Instead, they wanna do gloss over andwrite nice little shiny reports about
what are the best security practices.
No, you, you have to use thepowers of an intelligence analyst.
The skills that we develop and diginto what happened, get the evidence.
You need primary sources, you need totalk with the people that were there.
(10:59):
You need to talk with the fa thefamily members and, and the, the the,
the family members of the killer.
You, you need to do the kind of research.
That an intelligence analyst doesin looking for primary sources.
And and that's exactly what I've donein all of those, and I've tried to
pull them together in, in this one bookthat I hope people will find useful in.
(11:23):
And I think it explains in part.
Why we still have this epidemic ofmass shootings, despite all of the,
the crocodile tears and hand wringingthat we have on the part of po of
people in positions of power and trust.
Yet nothing is really ever done.
So that's, that's kind of a longway, Jason, to tell you how I, how
(11:46):
I got to where I am with this book.
Yeah.
And just to, put a bow on yourbeing on the Governor's commission
that you end up resigning becausethey decide to just write best
practices for security instead of.
(12:06):
Researching and investigatingspecifically what happened at
the Virginia Beach shooting.
Yeah.
And, and, and Jason.
It was, it was, that was the culminationof an awful lot of things, including for
example the police analyst listening tothis or the police officers know as well
as I do that, a timeline and a crime.
(12:27):
Is extremely important.
That's where your investigation begins.
The, that's the basis of it.
And I kept asking the chairman ofthe commission who was a former
police officer and saying to him,we need to construct a timeline.
We need to know who was where andwhat, and, and, and all of the events.
(12:48):
And going back even to the killer overthe killer's life over the last few years,
we, we need to construct a timeline.
And at one point he looked at me andI, I forget, I was probably about the
20th time I, I suggested a timeline andhe looked at me and he said, said, oh
David, I'm not interested if it's twoor three seconds, one way or another.
(13:13):
And I said, you should be, becausetwo or three seconds can make the
difference between life and death.
And sure enough, while I was onthe commission, the Virginia Beach.
Police, the first responders releasedthe audio of, of their response.
And in many respects, those men andwomen are victims because they got
into the building, the municipalbuilding, and because of faulty
(13:37):
security protocols, which each build,each floor of that building had.
Had different combinations, differentways to enter it, and no knock
box with a master key or mastercombinations or whatever it was.
And the police stood outside in thehall while the, while the killer was
(13:58):
behind the doors shooting people.
And I matched up, I made myown timeline and I matched.
My timeline line up againstthe police audio recording.
Mm-hmm.
And at least one person was killed and onewas injured while the police could not get
access to where the shooting was going on.
(14:20):
I mean, that's, to me justabsolutely incredible.
To my knowledge it does notappear in the final report.
It appears in what I wrote.
I wrote as, I think Itold you my own report.
Released it to the press and tothe, the governor and the Attorney
General, and I have it all in there.
Mm-hmm.
But I just would not be party to thatsort of what I consider to be deceit.
(14:42):
Yeah.
And so, so, I stuck it out until afew months before they resigned, but
it was clear that I was not goingto have much of a voice in anything
that was said that it would be aglossy these are the best practices.
Yeah,
I,
I do find it interesting, you, you talkabout it in the book, the patterns of
the aftermath and, and protecting theinstitution, typically when analysts.
(15:07):
Are working an investigation, doingcase support for an investigation.
They're out trying to find thesuspect, the, the person, the
murderer in these cases, I.
It's the, the shooter is known.
The shooter is no longer with us.
It's the aftermath of the whole thing,and it just doesn't seem like there's that
(15:31):
appetite to really tell the entire story.
It's.
What's left now is they'retrying to avoid everybody blaming
the, the institution for Yeah.
The lack of response that's the ideaof trying to protect the institution.
(15:52):
'cause the more you dig, the more youfind out stuff that you're talking
about with the, the different levels.
That's exactly right.
The different floors.
Well, and, and, and for example,in the case of, Virginia Tech.
That shooter could have done little.
The only thing, he was sendingsignals right and left.
And at one point he was actually takenthe Virginia tech police department after
(16:15):
he had been harassing a female student.
Took him into custody and he was, wasdiagnosed by a psychologist there on the
campus as a threat to himself and others,and yet he was, he was taken to a mental
hospital and released the next morning,in effect, for lack of other words, I
would say, on his own recognizance andon the proviso that he sought help.
(16:36):
Mm-hmm.
I mean, that's, that'sjust absolutely incredible.
How, how far from that was theshooting was how close, how many
number of days, weeks, months.
Well, I would say it was, if I recallcorrectly, I don't remember the exact,
I would say it was about six or sevenmonths before the actual shooting.
Yeah,
he, yeah.
The these, and the other thing isthese, these killers are, are insidious.
(17:03):
In the case of Virginia, VirginiaBeach in order to save money
they were, they were diverting.
I was, I found out in my research, they,they, they, some of the components of
that municipal building were divertingmoney from safety training for
employees and for safety protocols.
Their area of the building.
(17:23):
, they were diverting it to other expenses.
And one of the things I found out in theresearch at Virginia Beach is a lot of the
people said, we didn't know what to do.
We had absolutely, we'd never hadany drills or any training on,
on how do you react if there'sa, there's an active shooter.
That I find almost jaw droppingbecause of the fact that
(17:45):
Virginia was, in this century hadalready had two mass shootings.
Mm-hmm.
And one of them at a uni, well, bothof them at one of the law, law college
and the other at a major university.
And you would think that the idea of.
Good security protocol would'vebeen very high on the agenda of the
(18:06):
management of the city of Virginia Beach.
And apparently it was not.
And I'll tell you what, inmy research I did, I checked
with other cities in Virginia.
And interviewed their, their humanresources people and, and I was
dumbfounded by Roanoke and Alexandriathe, the types of protocol and
(18:27):
training that those municipalitieshave for their employees.
I mean, it was great.
It, it, it was almost a, amodel for, for others to follow.
Those two cities could do it, butVirginia Beach, the state's largest
city, paid very little attention to it.
Hmm.
What were some of the things inparticular that Alexandria did?
(18:48):
What, what I recall is thatthey had regular training
and they had regular drills.
Those two things.
I'd, I'd have to go back and, and,and pull out the notes from the,
the memorandum of conversationI did when I did the interview.
But they, they listed the typeof training that they were doing.
They told me the type of training theywere doing and how often they had,
(19:09):
and furthermore, it was mandatory.
Mm-hmm.
It was not.
If you want to go, which VirginiaBeach did offer some form of active
shooter training if you want to go.
And I only found two people out of thenearly 40 people that I interviewed who
went to it, who went to the training.
Yeah.
So, there's a very there's very, very,it's almost a Sherlock Holmes type
(19:33):
mystery to the Virginia Beach shooting.
The killer was, was shot.
Was taken to the hospitaland died shortly after that.
Well, when the police and the FBIwent through his condo, they searched
the condo looking for evidence, and,and, and I've seen the pictures and,
and read, read the reports on it.
But what, what was puzzling is thatafter the search was done, both of
(19:58):
them, and maybe it was joint, I don'trecall, but issued a public statement.
As to what they found.
And most importantly, theysaid we did not find a laptop.
Well, usually when you in police work,when you do a research or, I mean, when
you do a search like that, you tell peoplewhat you found, what you did not find.
(20:19):
Mm-hmm.
So
that was very puzzling.
And then of course, over twoyears later, his laptop shows up.
Well, some of the peoplethat I was interviewing had
already had said we saw him.
His laptop.
We know he had had a laptop.
We don't know what happened to it,but, but, but he had a laptop and
one of the, the family members of avictim sued the estate of the killer.
(20:43):
And as part of the award got.
Access to, I took possession of the condo.
She found a laptop in abox in the dining room.
Hmm.
And I was able to get a hold of a copyof the hard drive, and the only thing
on the hard drive is pornography.
There was nothing elsethere, wasn't there?
(21:04):
He there, we, we know that heresearched the internet for
weapons and for ammunition.
None of that's on there.
Most people, they have a a Gmail accountor a Hotmail account or something.
There's gonna be that.
None of that is on there.
There is absolutely nothing.
So do you think it wasremoved because that's, I
I most definitely, I think, Ithink it was, I think that laptop
(21:26):
was tampered with Absolutely.
But without the, the chain of control overthat laptop is, is, I mean, it was lost.
So who knows who had it.
But in the book I do I, I use amethodology that I was, was taught and,
and that is, you look at the who, whowould possibly have tampered with it,
(21:46):
who would benefit.
And there're really, thereare three candidates.
One is the Killer's family.
Two is the Virginia Beachpolice, and three is the FBI.
So what I ruled pure speculation,but I rule out the family because
why would the family re raise, eraseeverything and leave something that
(22:09):
might be be interpreted as damageto the personality of the man.
Mm-hmm.
That is all this his, hisaddiction with pornography.
Mm-hmm.
I would think they would've raisedthat and they would've left his
Gmail account on it and his Hotmail.
And furthermore, one of thequestions about that Virginia Beach
killer was whether or not he wasseeking psychological counseling.
(22:32):
And I kept hearing no he wasn't.
No he wasn't.
No he wasn't.
Well, I interviewed a man who's who.
Suffered, I think the worst PTSD that Ihave ever come across from that, that man,
when I, it was a phone interview and hesaid, I'm going to give you the security
number, the emergency number, becauseI periodically have horrible flashbacks
(22:54):
and I have to be rushed to the emergencyroom and this interview may spark.
If, if I go into one of those,would you please call this emergency
number and have them, I mean,that's how bad this gentleman was.
So he told me, I. I asked himwhat he knew about the killer,
and he said, well, I did.
He said, even before the shooting, Iwas seeing a, a counselor, and I saw him
(23:15):
in the, in the waiting room, in the cin the psychological counselor's office.
So yes, he was seeing someone.
And I mean, there is, there are,there are so many things from my
work on that commission that wecould not get to the bottom of.
But that's extremely important for,we need to know if, if that killer was
seen, a psychologist or psychiatrist.
(23:37):
Once you are dead in the state ofVirginia, all your rights to privacy goes.
There's no reason why thatcommission could not have had,
had access to his medical records.
What would that have told us?
Was he on a medication that mayhave have led to the shooting?
Was he schizophrenic?
So it's, it's, what's troubling tome is we had an opportunity on that
(24:00):
commission, I think to, to perhaps.
Make a small difference and at leastsurface some aspects of these mass
shootings that might help warn againstothers and prevent other mass shootings.
But that did not happen.
That did not happen.
The
city and some of the interviews that I hadthe employees said, I'm here even though.
(24:24):
I, I was advised not to talk to thecommission and my fellow workers told
me if, if we talk to you, if I talkto you, there might be retaliation,
which leads to another thing.
One of the things to come out of all ofthese shootings, Jason, is if you set up a
commission to investigative mass shooting.
You give that commission subpoena power.
(24:47):
Now, what does that do?
Under, under the law with subpoenapowers, if someone talks to the
commission, there is a law that preventsany retaliation against that individual
and a manager who retaliates underit can, can I'm, I'm, I'm not sure
what the penalty is but, but it is.
(25:07):
I had one person who said, Iwould like to talk with you.
I have information about the building,the lack of building security, but
if I talk to you, there's a chancethey'll find out and I'll be fired.
And I'm of an age group, it'llbe hard to find another job
and I'll lose all my pension.
And that's what happened.
And I, I, I've documented all of this.
(25:29):
In the book, as I said, it's, it's a,it's a no holds barred book, but that's
the only way we are ever going to doanything to, to begin to cut down on
the numbers of these mass shootings.
So we, we've got to get atthe truth no matter how harsh
or how severe that truth is.
And despite , what they said at thelaw school, despite what they said at
(25:52):
Virginia Tech, despite what they saidat Virginia Beach, all of these killers.
Were sending signals that they wereviolent, every single one of them.
And yet those, those three, those twoschools in that city government say
there were no, there were no signalsin the case of Virginia Beach with
the research that I did the city.
And, and the Virginia Beach police said,well, he wasn't sending any signals
(26:16):
and I found, I forget whether it's12 or 14 signals that he was sending,
that should have set off alarm bells.
Now whether it would, whether itwould've prevented, I don't know.
But ignoring these signalsmeans there's a very good chance
that violence is inevitable.
So no matter how difficult it is.
For a manager to come toterms with these people.
(26:37):
And, and they have to do it.
I know when I worked at, at CIA asan intelligence analyst, I was a
manager and I had to go through atraining class and I forget, there
was two or three days and, and a largechunk of that class was how do you.
Identify troubled individualsand what do you do?
What actions are appropriate, how doyou get them the help that they need?
(27:01):
And I will tell you in my career, Ihad two very troubled individuals.
One who I found out was threateningsuicide, and I was able to get him
to psychologists and psychiatrists.
Through the CIA and he hashad a fantastic career.
Another one was, was, was very similar.
(27:24):
He was violent and was, was verystrange and very peculiar, and I got
him psycho psychological counseling.
So there, I don't buy the fact that,oh, you can't do that with that people.
It's invasion of their privacy.
I would call shooting people an invasionof their privacy and which one is worse.
Yeah.
(27:45):
Well,
I, I, in fact, even on, on, lemmetell you on the commission, and I'm
sorry, as you can tell, I, I getcharged up a little bit about this.
We were discussing one dayon the commission about
exactly about this subject.
And one of the commissioners whowas a former city of Virginia Beach
official and should never have been onthe commission, said, well, the city
(28:06):
couldn't really do anything if therewere warning signs because it, it was,
his civil rights would've been violated.
And I just looked at him and said, Ibelieve the civil rights of 12 people
who were shot were violated in a very.
Very bad way.
I mean, I, I found that a jawdropping statement, particularly by
(28:28):
someone who was supposed to be ona commission who's investigating.
Yeah.
Well, I think you, you, you hiton it earlier with the Virginia
Tech shooter just released onits own cognizance, right?
I mean that's, yeah, that's thething about it is it's like if
the, if there are mental issues.
They are no longer able tomake the right decisions.
(28:51):
That is correct.
That is absolute inall of these shootings.
In fact, if you go back to VirginiaTech Jason, their security protocol
prior to the shooting was one of thebest in this country of any university.
I read it.
Mm-hmm.
It is extremely impressive.
The failure in all of theseshootings is human failure.
(29:14):
You can have all the technology youwant, you can have all the protocols
written, but if you don't have pe, theright people with the backbone to take
steps that may be uncomfortable but arenevertheless necessary, you're gonna have
these shootings that thus, frankly, what Ijust said is the tragedy of Virginia Tech.
(29:35):
They had in place an absolutelysuperb security protocol and.
On the morning of the shooting, afterthe double homicide in Ambler West
Johnston Hall when the president of theuniversity was talking to, I'm sure it
was the Virginia Virginia Tech policechief, he was talking to the police in
the dormitory at the site of the murderand said, should we warn the campus?
(29:57):
They, he said, no, don't warn the campus.
They had a warning thatwould've locked down everything.
I, I believe to this day, 32people would be alive if they
had followed the protocol.
Oh,
and what, what, what makes when yougo back and you, you research things
and, and, and, and why you have to,sometimes in the evening you have
to have at least a double martinibecause it's, it's just so upsetting.
(30:20):
The school had a whole historyof warning when a prisoner broke
out of a jail in Blacksburg.
They locked down the campus and there,there was no, no indication that
the guy was even near the campus.
They warned the campusfor a measles outbreak.
They warned the campus formold in certain buildings.
They were, they were warning all the time.
(30:41):
As they should have been.
But the critical warning didnot take place and 32 people
paid the supreme price for that.
And 17, at least 17 other were wounded.
'cause we don't knowhow many were wounded.
Some people left that campus whowere wounded and never came back.
Mm-hmm.
We don't.
And, and so we, that'swhy I say at least 17.
Yeah.
(31:01):
You can obviously hear.
The, the emotional toll that workingon these cases has had on you.
And yes, something that.
We've talked about on thisshow from time to time, the,
the mental toll on Alice Yes.
And working some of these cases.
Just talk a little bit about this.
(31:22):
, I know you've gone through this processa, a couple times, but I still feel
that there's probably moments whereyou have to either take a break or
get rejuvenated before proceeding.
Oh, oh, ab absolutely.
Well, I can tell you that yes, it,it, it has, it has, has taken a
toll and I've been under pressurefrom my, I have three sons.
(31:45):
And,
At least one of them our youngestone and my wife wanted, did,
did not want me to do this.
When I wrote the book on, on Angie'sKilling, I felt I had to do it because
it was part of, of what I needed todo to reconstruct my life, to get, to
get some semblance of normalcy back.
And one of the patterns that I see.
(32:07):
With the families of victims are thedifferences between men and women, and
that is the, the families that I havedealt with, invariably the mothers
or the wives or the aunts who, who,whatever the female is, they concentrate
on healing, whereas the male, I won'tsay the male wants revenge, but.
He wants to get to the bottom of it.
(32:28):
He wants to find what went wrongand he want, he, he, he wants to
know who screwed up and, and it's,they're, they're adamant with it.
And so there's, there's thatdifference and that my family
fell into that because my wife.
Did not want me to write the book.
She said, we need to keep, weneed to concentrate on healing.
And I said, I can't healuntil these questions are
(32:51):
answered, so I have to do it.
And she said, well, you,she's also my editor.
And I said to her, she said,well, I will not read it.
And I said, okay.
And so I had the galley, itwas ready to, to be published.
I was proofing the galley andshe came into my office and she
said, she said, I better readthat thing before it comes out.
(33:12):
So she read it and allshe did was hand it back.
And she said, I understand.
But after that.
And on the morning of the VirginiaTech shooting, I had had surgery and
we were sitting in the family room andmy my wife looked at me when the news
broke of the two people being killed.
She looked at me and she said,don't you dare write a book on that.
(33:34):
Don't bring death back into this family.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's, that's really tough.
But, oh, so, all right.
Well so as you mentioned before.
Your whole career kind led you to thismoment in, the skills and abilities
and training that you got throughthe CIA, the research skills, the,
(33:54):
the writing, the asking questions.
Yeah.
All put you in this moment to beable to do this, to tell these
stories, to get the word out.
To I identify the issues of theaftermath of these mass shootings.
You're right.
I, I sort of felt, and, and, and thatI was in a very unique position because
(34:20):
you may have people who have done exactlythe same thing that I have in their
police work or the FBI or the CIA, butthey haven't had a family member killed.
Mm-hmm.
So I felt that I brought tothis problem both aspects.
Of, of what was, what was needed.
And that is, I had had theemotional experience of, of having
(34:42):
a member of my family be done down.
Plus I had the skills, the analyticskills to get to the bottom of it.
And I felt that was, that was unique.
And I, I don't know how uniqueit is, but I doubt if there are
very, there are, are very many.
Men and women like me who havesuffered the loss of a family member
(35:02):
and also have all this backgroundin police and intelligence work.
So yeah, I felt that's one ofthe reasons why I've continued.
And to be quite truthful it's, it'sawfully difficult because after I did
the Virginia Tech, my wife said thesame thing, no more of these books.
My son said the same thing.
Stop it, dad.
It's bad for your health.
I was diagnosed with cancer shortly afterI finished the Angie book and my wife to
(35:27):
this day thinks it was the stress of that.
I'm not so sure.
But, but at any rate, the fact itis a fact that, that that happened.
But I will tell you, Jason,if a mother or father.
Calls you and their child has beenkilled and they say, we need your help.
I can't say no.
Yeah.
David, thank you so much for whatyou've done for coming on here today.
(35:52):
It's great insight for the listeners.
The books out April 12th.
Again, it's outrageous investigating mass.
Shootings.
We will put a link in the show noteshere to Yeah, to give you access
if you want to purchase the book.
And David, once again,thank you, you so much.
(36:15):
Can I say one other thing, Jason?
Absolutely.
Say
one other quick.
Yeah.
I don't take any money for these books.
All of the money goes to charities.
That's awesome.
No, that, that is, thatis, you are a Saint David.
Okay.
No, believe me.
Believe me, Jason.
I am not.
But I, let me just tell youanother aspect of, of this.
(36:38):
I note that there arevultures out there who play.
On, on the families and I, I just,I will not take, I'm, I'm pleased to
say by the way that I, the VirginiaTech book, I've been able to give
several thousand dollars to theMichael Polley Junior Scholarship Fund.
Michael was killed.
All right, David, thank again.
(36:59):
Thank you so much for being here.
Outrageous investigating massshootings out April 12th.
. David thank you again.
I really appreciate your timehere today, and you be safe.
Okay?
You too.
Thanks, Jason.
Bye-bye.
Thank you for making it tothe end of another episode of
Analyst Talk with Jason Elder.
You can show your support by sharingthis and other episodes found
(37:21):
on our website@www.podcasts.com.
If you have a topic you would likeus to cover or have a suggestion for
our next guest, please send us anemail at Elliot podcasts@gmail.com.
Till next time, analysts, keep talking.
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