A Follow-Up to The Psychological Profile of TJ Lane

Yesterday, I posted a psychological profile of Chardon school shooter, T.J. Lane (pictured to the left). As always happens, the day after such incidents, more detailed information emerges about the shooter. So far, everything I have read confirms the information I posted yesterday. Lane has already confessed to prosecutors that he shot his victims at random and did not know them (although he apparently knew one in middle school). 

This is consistent with the pattern of many school shooters, and the theory that he was lashing out against a “system,” be it society, government, the educational system, or all three. This type of behavior actually transcends school shooters and fits into a broader category of mass murderers who commit terrorist acts. For example, I remember walking through the Oklahoma City Memorial and seeing the tiny shoes of the babies who lost their lives after Timothy McVeigh bombed the federal building. McVeigh did not view the babies as innocent individuals who he had a personal problem with but saw them as necessary casualties of war in his fight against the government. In this sense, the victims are actually symbolic representations of a much larger system that the aggressor is upset about.

Although violence prediction is difficult, for Lane’s lawyer to say that this could never have been predicted is simply not true. Lane clearly was in a high risk category for this type of behavior based on what was noted yesterday. Part of this high risk comes from a troubled family life. More specifics regarding this have emerged that fits yesterday’s profile. Specifically, Lane's father has been arrested several times for violent crimes against female acquaintances, including his mother. For the first two years of Lane's life, his parents (who divorced in 2002) were both arrested for domestic violence against each other. His father also served prison time for assaulting a police officer and was charged with holding another woman under running water and bashing her head into a wall. He has been charged with kidnapping, felonious assault, attempted murder (eventually dropped), and disrupting public service. His father had been warned by law enforcement officials to stay away from him on multiple occasions. Thus, Lane clearly had a role model in life for violent behavior as a means to solve problems and lacked proper parental role models.  

It was noted yesterday that Lane attended an alternative H.S. and that this made it likely that he had academic and behavioral problems. Information disclosed today revealed that his alternative H.S. was a place for "at risk" students who are "reluctant learners" with problems such as "substance abuse /chemical dependency, anger issues, mental health issues, truancy, delinquency, difficulties with attention/organization, and academic deficiencies." Thus, there clearly were concerns that people had about him but it is unclear yet if any mental health professionals evaluated him and if anyone made any connections between his family background, belief systems, and tendencies for aggressive behavior.

On the 911 tape, Lane was described as a quiet kid who did not really talk to anyone, which, according to one friend, was associated with a Goth phase he became involved in as a freshman. Neighbors described him as very sullen, rarely showing his face and always wearing a hoodie, the latter being yet another symbol of alienation from society (when interpreted in the context of everything else that is known about him) as the hood can serve as a shell for him to hide in. It is noted that he wore a gray hoodie (again note the absence of bright colors) on the day of the school shooting based on 911 witness accounts. Another student noted that he would sit in the lunch room and no one knew he was there. That is interesting considering that the shooting occurred in the lunchroom. The school lunchroom is one of the most stigmatizing locations in school because this is where the student body becomes segregated into cliques. Students sitting by themselves in the lunch room (either by choice or through not being accepted) can be another sign of social alienation. Thus, he may have chosen an area that symbolized his social alienation as an area for the school shooting. The large availability of students to chose from in the lunchroom setting may have also played a roll.

Suggested Reading: Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us