Discussion Point: Is Aaron

Alexis part of a larger

phenomenon of lone-actor
grievance-based violence?
September 24, 2013Clark McCauley

The following is part of a series of thought pieces authored by members of

the START Consortium. These editorial columns reflect the opinions of the
author(s), and not necessarily the opinions of the START Consortium. This
series is penned by scholars who have grappled with complicated and often
politicized topics, and our hope is that they will foster thoughtful reflection
and discussion by professionals and students alike.
Is Aaron Alexis part of a larger phenomenon of lone-actor grievancebased violence?
Aaron Alexis is the most recent example of a workplace mass killer, but some
years ago the U.S. Post Office had enough of these examples that the
phenomenon came to be referred to as going postal. Almost all of these
cases involve a lone actor: an individual who plans and carries out an attack
without help from any larger group or organization. We do not yet know the
grievance that motivated Alexiss rampage at the Washington Navy Yard on
the 16th of September, but there may be some help in understanding Alexis
if we ask how he might be similar to lone-actor assassins, lone-actor school
attackers, and lone-wolf terrorists.
In a 2013 study published in Perspectives on Terrorism, Sophia Moskalenko
and Ben Van Son joined me in trying to learn about lone-wolf terrorists by
looking for the common characteristics of two categories of mostly lone-actor
violent offenders: assassins and school attackers. The study used existing
U.S. government-sponsored reports to examine these two kinds of offenders.

The logic of comparing school attackers with assassins is that these two
groups of offenders are like lone-actor terrorists in perpetrating planful
violence fueled by grievance. To the extent that assassins and school
attackers share common characteristics, these characteristics may be risk
factors for lone-actor terrorism as well.
The obvious demographic differences between the two groups (teenage
school attackers vs. adult assassins) are actually a strength of the
comparison: any commonalities uncovered are the more striking and unlikely
to be a reflection of life status or demographic factors.
Our study found four common characteristics of assassins and school
attackers: personal or group grievance; history of mental health problems,
especially depression; unfreezing (weak or broken social ties); and weapons
use outside the military. These four characteristics suggest the importance of
means and opportunity for perpetrating violence. Grievance is a motive for
violence, weapons experience provides a means, and the pain of mental
health problems and social disconnection lower the opportunity cost of
violence as the perpetrator has less to lose.
We offered two possible interpretations of these results. One possibility is
that lone-wolf terrorists are importantly different from lone-actor assassins
and school attackers. This possibility depends on finding characteristics of
lone-wolf terrorists that are not shared with lone-actor assassins and school
shooters. The second possibility is that lone-wolf terrorism is just one part of
a larger phenomenon of lone-actor grievance-based violence. In this view,
lone-wolf terrorists differ from lone-actor assassins and school attackers only
in the accident that their grievance is one that observers would call political.
The second possibility, that there is a possible profile of individuals
perpetrating lone-actor grievance-based violence, may be extended to
include workplace shooters. We did not study workplace shooters, but the
common characteristics of school attackers and assassins may appear in the
case of Aaron Alexis.
As already noted, we do not yet know the grievance behind Alexiss
rampage. But news reports indicate that he had a history of mental health
problems, including paranoia and hallucinations that might indicate
schizophrenia. Most clearly, he had weapons experience outside the military:
he was practicing at a shooting range shortly before his attack. More than
that, he was involved in at least two shooting incidents. In 2004 he shot out
the tires of a construction worker who mocked him. In 2010 he was arrested

for shooting into the ceiling of his apartment, apparently in reaction to noise
from his upstairs neighbor.
His personal history is still cloudy, but it appears he was a loner to the extent
that he had few friends and his computer-services job with Experts sent him
to temporary work in many different places, including Rhode Island,
Massachusetts, Virginia, and the Washington Naval Yard. His mother lives in
Brooklyn, but his last stable situation seems to have been in a suburb of Ft.
Worth, Texas, where he was living with a Thai friend and working in his
friends Thai restaurant. This relationship soured after his friend married and
no longer had time for Alexis. According to a police report, Alexis tried to
damage his friends car. In July 2013 Alexis moved out, a sudden
disconnection from friend, job, and home.
As more information becomes available, the four characteristics of lone-actor
grievance-based violence may emerge more clearly. Of course the great
majority of individuals with a grievance do not turn to violence. The great
majority of disconnected loners do not turn to violence.
The great majority of individuals with mental health problems, even paranoia
problems, do not turn to violence. And the great majority of individuals with
weapons experience outside the military do not turn to violence (although
Alexis had already a history of illegal firearms use). The usefulness of the
four characteristics will be determined by research in which we find out how
many individuals have all four characteristics but never turn to violence. It is
possible that having all four characteristics will be closely enough connected
with lone-actor violence that special help might be extended to these
individuals.

References
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/aaron-alexis-navy-yard-shooter567432.
*McCauley, C., Moskalenko, S., & Van Son, B. (2013). Characteristics of lonewolf violent offenders: A comparison of assassins and school attackers.
Perspectives on Terrorism, 7(1), 4-24.
* = That research was supported by the United States Department of
Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate Office of University
Programs through the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and
Responses to Terrorism (START), grant number N00140510629. However,
any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations in this
document are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect views of
the U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Clark McCauley (B.S. Biology, Providence College, 1965; Ph.D. Social

Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, 1970) is Rachel C. Hale Professor of
Sciences and Mathematics and co-director of the Solomon Asch Center for
Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict at Bryn Mawr College. He is researcher in the
National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism
and a member of its executive committee. His research interests include the
psychology of group identification, group dynamics and intergroup conflict,
and the psychological foundations of ethnic conflict and genocide. He is
founding editor of the journal Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict: Pathways
toward Terrorism and Genocide. You can contact him
at cmccaule@brynmawr.edu".