The 2015 San Bernardino Attack on the second day of December brought in more questions than answers regarding the topic of present day terrorism. The attack resulted in the death of fourteen people and scores of critical injuries totaling to twenty-two individuals. During the carrying out of investigations into the attack, it was notable, from Homeland Security that it was rather difficult to ascertain an enemy/ a terrorist in a crowd situation, similarly to the events that surrounded the attacks as above mentioned.
According to Gumbel 2015, the author made reference to Cohen, an FBI director. He raised the fact that there ought to be a shift into the determination of the similarities associated with violent attacks rather than looking at the motive behind the said attacks in the pursuit for preventing future attacks. He mentioned that the confusion related to the determination of whether a violent attack had the basis of a political, religion or racial sideline weighed a toll on the identification of those responsible for the attack. The author further mentioned that the move from the usual bickering of a political standpoint after a mass shooting to assessing the mental perspectives of the individuals responsible was well in order in such like assessments.
Speaking of psychological aspects, antisocial behavior, families that are dysfunctional, failure feelings that result from frustration will provide an insight into the analysis of mass shootings. According to Tucker and Abdollah (2015), the authors mentioned that pinpointing perpetrators of a mass attack were rather difficult especially when the perpetrators leave no links related to not only personal grievances but ideologies as well. The fact that the persons involved in the mass shooting blended well into the crowd made their identification a bit difficult per se.
The couple, as per the FBI investigations, had undergone the radicalization process evidenced by their actions in social media and behaviors at the workplace (Farook was, for instance, anti-Semitic). The couple lived quietly in their home as mentioned by Tucker and Melley (2015) in their article. Tucker and Melley (2015) made note of the self-radicalization that made matters worse in the identification of Jihadist suicide shooters. The authors mention in their article that such acts of individualized radicalization made identification of suspect difficult because such like personalized activities are not associated with other terrorists who have prior taken part or intended to take part in a terrorist act. The missing of the identification the money trail by the FBI worsened the pinpointing of the perpetrators as well.
The meaning of this is that the identification of possible suspects of a mass attack, according to the operations carried out by FBI has been biased. This is because only in the event of a substantial evidence of any form of wrongdoing can serious investigations through surveillances and tracking of phone information be done (Tucker & Melley, 2015). What amounts is that in the cases of individualized radicalization carried out online for instance together with possible suspects maintaining a low profile and at the same time, the “suspects” blending well in the society, makes matters identification of such individuals in a group of people rather difficult.
Often, it is after an attack has been executed that investigations led by the FBI are done to come up with the “late identification” of the responsible persons. The late identification of mass attack perpetrators is a worrying trend and as a result brings us back to the above mentioning of the need for using new tactics of preventing future attacks. The need for the determination of underlying mental factors that have previously prompted attacks that claimed the lives of many people is what the new investigative measures hope to address.
References
Gumbel., A. (2015). San Bernardino shooting: US divided over whether attack was terrorism. Retrieved 01/08/2016 from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/04/san-bernardino-shooting-america-divided-terrorism
Tucker., E. and Abdollah., T. (2015). Experts Ponder Difficulty of Unraveling Motives in San Bernardino Attack. Retrieved 01/08/2016 from http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/12/03/experts-ponder-difficulty-of-unraveling-motives-in-san-bernardino-attack/
Tucker., E., and Melley. B. (2015). California shooting shows difficulty law enforcement has detecting potential attackers. Retrieved 31/07/2016 from http://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2015/12/08/couple-practiced-at-shooting-ranges-before-california-attack
