Determining Motive in the Las Vegas Mass Murder

Note: This post will not include names or photos or links in order to not give more fame to the killer.

Definition: The TRUE "Motive" in the case of mass murder is always the same; revenge, power and control, and recognition. Media attention is one of the top reasons for mass murder as the perpetrators love the massive infamy that they are given for their crimes. However, there is a SECONDARY "Motive" which I am looking at here and that is what excuse/justification has this particular mass murderer used for his particular crime. There IS an importance to knowing this as is true with other heinous crimes - gang killings and terrorism - because there can be a promoted ideology that inspires the psychopath to act out and choose specific crimes. This is why we worry about radicalization connected to religious or political organizations and to gangs. Psychopaths will still be psychopaths and may be violent without outside encouragement, but radical ideology - as is true with our excessive sensationalistic media - can be a strong factor in a psychopath choosing a particular road to go down. Just like advertising has an effect on prospective buyers (that is why companies spend so much money and time promoting a product), ideology can also permeate the thinking of an individual when it is very excessive and persuasive.

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Many people are wondering why there is no motive yet discovered for the recent horrific mass murder and this is inspiring many theories, some fairly logical, some pretty off-the-wall. Mostly, they fall into these groups:

1) Crazy gun-toting white alt-right male proving that white males are the Number One terrorists in the world

2) Typical suicidal mass murderer with some recent disaster in his life who is getting back at society which he feels is responsible for his failure

3) Leftist/Antifa radical setting off the revolution 

4) False flag patsy designed to tear apart the country

5) Isis terrorist who was radicalized through his companion and the Philippines

6) Normal guy who went nuts due to a brain tumor or recent use of Valium

Okay, lots of possibilities. Let me knock out the ones that make no sense.

6) This guy has all the hallmarks of lifelong psychopathy and he wasn't just a normal guy until a few days before he slaughtered five dozen people. He planned this mass murder for a long time. No brain tumor or drugs made him lose his mind.

5) Isis radicalization. First of all, his companion is a Catholic, not a Muslim. Secondly, there is nothing that rings of any Isis connection in his past behaviors or communications. Yes, he dropped into the Philippines, but his girlfriend was from there, so big deal. I have photos of me wearing hijab in Egypt but that doesn't make me connected to a terrorist organization. I would be very surprised if radical Islamic links are found.

4). Just no. I am not even going to argue this because there is no evidence of some Deep State stuff going on here.

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Which leaves us with 1), 2), and 3). 

Either he is just a typical mass murderer whose life was going down the toilet so he decided to get his  big revenge and have his day in the sun and all the infamy from the media that goes with it....

....or he had a political motive...

...or both.

So, we need to look at his life and what has been happening.

A) We know he is a psychopath and has always been one. Psychopaths can make up reasons for doing things for their own amusement, so he could simply commit the mass murder for the fun and thrill or he could do develop a political motive for the crime (a la McVeigh) to justify his actions. McVeigh really WASN'T very political, but he found a cool story in a book about attacking the government and he decided this would be exciting to act out. Psychopaths don't actually give THAT much of a shit about politics but they may use it for their own peculiar ideation to gain power and control.

B) So far, there is little in this psychopath's life that show any big change as far as monetary loss or girlfriend loss. The ONLY change we see, so far, is a stockpiling of weapons that began one year ago. 

What set him off one year ago?

C) Venue. He chose to target a largely white, conservative, Republican group of people. This was not a spur of the moment choice. He could have chosen many other venues to annihilate a large number of people. Interestingly, the media is not discussing his choice of victims. But, he chose those victims for one of two reasons, 1) convenience and familiarity - this is common for mass murderers, or 2) political reasons. Actually, it is possibly he could have chosen the venue for both those reasons. At this point in time we do not know the answer.

D) His politics. We have not heard that he has any political interest. In some sense, this could be true. He is a psychopath who only gives a crap about himself, so it is not unbelievable that he could care less about politics. It is true that his family members, from what I can determine from interviews and their Facebook pages, are pretty bland about politics. There are NO strong political comments from anyone which is pretty amazing in these times. If you look at my Facebook friends, you will see many people outspoken about politics of all sorts. The only little bit of politics I see in the relatives is a slight lean to the left with a pussy hat on the girlfriend of the nephew. Now, what is a bit more interesting is that the killer's girlfriend was married for over two decades to a fellow who was quite  to the left. This, of course, doesn't mean she is, but it is interesting. We will have to wait to see if the shooter has any political leanings at all. One other thing which possibly supports a political ideation is the age of this mass murderer. Most killers of this kind are either really young (school shooters) or middle age (lost job/wife shooters), but almost none are in their sixties. Sometimes, older people get crotchety about politics (go sit in a senior center and you will see what I mean) and even psychopaths can get adamant in their later years about what is wrong with our country. If there is any political motive behind this crime, I would find it hard to believe that the shooter didn't at least grumble to people at some point in time.

E) But, there are three things put together which might mean something. He started collecting a huge  amount of weapons at election time last year, he shot conservative white people, and it is the 100-year anniversary of the October Revolution of the Bolsheviks, know as Red October. Coincidence? Perhaps.

So, where are we with motive? I am not sure I can answer that. This is what the investigation will at some point determine, I certainly hope. It would be very unlikely there are zero clues although we are seeming to be told that today. Most of the time it doesn't really matter what the so-called motive of a murdering psychopath is because it is usually only really important to him, but with the festering civil war in this country and increasing hatred and intolerance, I would like to know if this massacre is another blow to a civil society. If it is, it is a call to all citizens and to the media that we need to start behaving like intelligent adults, able to respect differences of opinions, and to not see everything in black and white when it comes to race and politics. We need to grow up and start acting like civilized human beings and not savage idiots. While attacking each other with words is probably sufficient for many people, adding violence can become the method of communication for those with sicker mentalities. If we don't want to be like some countries in this world with terrorist acts being a hazard of daily life, we need to get our act together.

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown
October 5, 2017

MO, not Motive is the Key to Labeling the Murder of Multiple Victims and the Key to Stopping These Crimes

The term "motive" has caused a lot of problems in crime solving, court cases, and in the public arena of understanding crime.

First, let me define "motive" properly. Motive is the reason someone THINKS he he has committed a crime or someone else THINKS he has has committed a crime. In reality, there is often little evidence that the claimed "motive" is the true reason for the crime and, in reality, it really doesn't matter a damn to the dead people or their families.

The problem with the definition of "motive" is that humans often do not understand themselves, others, or the complexity of why we do things and that we might claim one motive when another is totally the reason for our action or, as is often true, there are multiple motives for any action and focusing on just one is not giving the full story.

Take a action which is a non-crime: why does Pat Brown go on television? Is her motive the one she gives - a desire to educate the public about crime and criminals - or is it the motive some others claim is the truth - that Pat Brown is a narcissist who likes the limelight? Or that she wants to advertise her books? That she wants to make money? That she likes to ride in limos to the studio? Or that she likes the free hairstyle and makeup? Is she seeking truth or fame? Or, is it possible that she has multiple motives, some possibly stronger than others, that make up her choice to appear on television?

And killers? How do we KNOW their motive? Are they angry at the person they kill? Or was it just fun? Or did they want notoriety? Or was it a robbery gone bad? Or a supposed hate crime? If a killer says he shot a bunch of people down because they were African-American is this necessarily the truth? Or did he know he would get more publicity for saying so? Or the support of racists while in prison? Or did it just sound good after his plan to shoot up the white church next door fell through because the church went on a picnic and the black church next door was just a back up plan?

If a Muslim mass murderer yells "Allahu Akbar" does this mean the motive for his killing is truly to kill nonMuslims? Or is he just pissed off at his workmates? Or mad that his wife left him? Or does he simply want to justify in his own mind his desire to kill a lot of people and attain media fame?

Truth is, searching for an absolute motive is a waste of time. What IS important is determining how the crime was committed, who supported the killer (if anyone) and what we need to do to stop it from happening again. So far, there are a number of issues we need to address:

In a particular crime, we need to determine MO (modus operandi), how he did it.

1) Did he commit the crime all on his own? Then it is mass murder and we need to address the cause of mass murder in general and find any encouragers of the crime (the media) and stop them.

2) Did he commit the crime with the help of an organized terrorist cell? Then it is terrorism and we need to address the cause of terrorism in general and find any accomplices to the crime (other terrorists) and stop them.

Then we need to examine more deeply:

1) The increase of psychopathy
2) The increase of mass murder
3) The increase of terrorist attacks

There are real factors behind the increase of these three things: an environment that encourages the development of psychopathy, an environment that encourages the choice of mass murder as a tool of revenge and self-fulfillment, and an environment that encourages the choice of terrorist attacks to make a political statement.

These three factors should cause us to focus on how we raise our children, why we allow the media to make mass murderers famous, and how to stop the spread of radical Islam, especially within our own country (and that could be the US, the U.K., Malaysia, Nigeria, etc.)

While we are wasting time caring about some psychopath's excuse for why he committed his heinous crime, we could be using our time to stop these crimes from happening.

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown
June 12 2016

Criminal Profiling Topic of the Day: Motive of a Mass Murderer

We keep hearing how the investigators are working hard to find the motive in the mass murder at Virginia Tech, that somewhere in the life and writings of Cho Seung-Hui there is the answer to why he committed such a horrible act. I say, why are we wasting so much time to search for an answer that is meaningless and also impossible to prove as being the actual truth of the matter?Cho was a psychopath who hated the world. If he were alive, he might pick this motive or that motive in an attempt to justify his actions. This supposed motive might be something he feels comfortable with as his reason for committing a heinous crime or it might be a motive he picks just to make himself look better in the eyes of the world. He might choose a motive to punish his classmates, his family, or some girl who didn’t give him the time of day. He might pick a motive just to play games with us. If Cho were alive, we might get some sort of answer but we would never know the veracity of it.

But, Cho is dead. We can peruse his mind through his writings and behaviors and take a wild guess at a motive, but we will never get his confirmation that we have the right one (the one he wants us to buy which makes it a nonsensical exercise anyway). So what is the point of this exercise in futility? I guess folks just want some answer they can live with, an answer that will assure us that this horrifying act was an anomaly which only happened because of one specific issue in Cho’s life. Then we can breathe a sigh of relief and say, well, there is nothing we can do about some that one circumstance that set him off..

However, if we admit that Cho is a violent psychopath who simply wanted to get his revenge at the world for damned near everything that he felt went wrong in his life, then we have bigger problem: other psychopaths may come out of the woodwork and repeat Cho’s crime just for the hell of it. To stop future mass murderers we must address the creation of psychopaths and how we enable them to eventually take revenge on us. Accepting Cho as a psychopath is much scarier than just thinking he is a psychotic who misinterpreted some incident and snapped. If we finally accept that school mass murders and serial killings are on the rise in this country, we then know it is just a matter of time before we see another tragedy in the news.

Let’s stop looking for the “motives” of psychopaths and start spending our time figuring how to keep our children from developing antisocial personalities and how to protect society from those psychopaths that are already among us.

Criminal Profiler Pat Brown