It is better to try to keep a bad thing from happening than to fix the bad thing once it has happened. The New York Police Department is on a quest to figure out ways to identify potential “deranged” gunmen on the Internet, in an effort to avoid hapless events, such as the tragic Connecticut school shooting, where in 26 people were killed, mostly children.
In a statement, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said that the techniques would include cyber-searches of language that mass-casualty shooters have used in e-mails and Internet postings. “The goal would be to identify the shooter in cyberspace, engage him there and intervene, possibly using an undercover to get close, and take him into custody or otherwise disrupt his plans,” the commissioner added.
Moreover, Paul Browne, the Chief Spokesman of the New York Police Department, added that they are also planning to send officers to scenes of other mass shootings to collect information. The department is even considering the development of an algorithm that would search online “for terms used by active shooters in the past that may be an indicator of future intentions.”