Heroes And Villains

Every day we catch the news in some form or another, whether it be online, in print or via social media and every day we are overwhelmed with looped footage of devastation, war, poverty, abuse, rape, murder and ever growing mass shooting incidences. It seems as soon as one occurrence is over another pops up somewhere else.

Why?

According to the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training Center (ALERRT), at Texas State University, who created the Don’t Name Them campaign; has experiential evidence proving most shooters are motivated by a desire for fame, notoriety, and/or recognition. When the media focuses on a shooter, they provide them with validation of their sociopathic desires.

Mass media coverage infects us all with fear, anxiety and effectively producing more shootings; also known as the Contagion Effect. Researchers with ALERRT say some shootings may be prevented by removing the incentives like notoriety.

The Don’t Name Them campaign urges the media and all others not to name the shooters or focus on their lives. The shooters should be as unrecognized in their deaths as they were in their lives.

Instead of perpetuating hysteria and encouraging potential shooters into action, media coverage needs to shift focus from the suspects who commit these acts to the victims, survivors, and heroes who stop them.

From Newtown Connecticut to Aurora Colorado, Roanoke Virginia, and most recently Roseburg Oregon mass shootings are clearly on the rise. Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin, director of the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training Center, a founder of the Don’t Name Them campaign, and a researcher of these events made a decision upon the unfortunate events at the UCC campus in Roseburg not to name the shooter, in turn kicking up a nationwide exchange about the concept.

Dr. J. Pete Blair, a professor of criminal justice at Texas State University, is director of the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training Center and Diana Hendricks, Director of Communications for ALERRT Center at Texas State University will be speaking at the International Association of Chiefs of Police Conference in Chicago on October 23, followed by The 2015 ALERRT Active Shooter Conference, November 1-4, 2015 at the Embassy Suites Hotel and Convention Center here in San Marcos Texas.

This is the only national conference bridging the law enforcement, Fire and EMS responses to active shooter events.” For the past 13 years the Texas State ALERRT Center has trained more than 80,000 law enforcement officers in 48 states plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia with the FBI naming ALERRT their national standard for active shooter response in 2013.

While the U.S. Constitution ensures freedom of the press, preventing legislative restrictions on the press, the movement of No Notoriety and Don’t Name Them is voluntary and luckily has reached every corner of national media from USA Today, New York Times, NPR, CNN, FOX, Houston Chronicle, Newsweek even People magazine’s editor Jess Cagle has taken a stand in support of the No Notoriety/Don’t Name Them platform, stating “will not allow ourselves to be a platform for their messages.”

Just because our digital age is capable of bringing us information faster than ever doesn’t mean it should be delved out carelessly especially with regard to violent crimes.

Some people feel they need to know or deserve to know and make a case for freedom of speech.

Some people think crimes like this are one in a million and find themselves hooked in front of the saturated coverage as if in suspense during a horror flick convinced not watching the news unfold in real time in every intimate detail would not actually make a difference.

Others think gun control or lack thereof or pervasive violence as a product of economic environment is to blame.

The truth is, everyday there are men and women, someone’s mother, daughter, sister, father, brother and son getting up, going to work as emergency response public servants; police, fire, EMS, SWAT, FBI, with only one objective- to keep you safe.

They keep us all safe and partnered with the vigilant researchers at Texas State and founders and supporters of the Don’t Name Them/No Notoriety campaigns, are on a mission to prevent further unnecessary tragedies.

Who wouldn’t want to be a part of that no matter where you stand on gun control, freedom of speech or economics?

We all know every channel on television is competing with each other for ratings. What do you suppose ratings look like for those stations airing every minute detail of a shooter’s life including helicopter video coverage versus those sources that don’t?

With an increased awareness, involvement and education of ALERRT to every media outlet, all knowing the responsibility they carry in deciding whether or not to give infamy to these villains; Do you think they, the media who chooses to name those names, be held accountable, fined, charged or otherwise?

What if it were your mother, daughter, sister, father, brother, or son on the six o’clock news as a victim or a hero trying to do their job?

Tom and Caren Teves son, Alex, was one of the 12 killed in the movie theater mass shooting in Aurora, Colo. At the time, they were away from home and turned on the television in search of answers about Alex’s fate. “All we kept seeing was the shooter, the shooter, the shooter,” Caren Teves recalls.

So again, if you got that call and turned on the news what do you really care about; a sociopathic killer’s picture, name, Facebook posts or manifesto’s or the conditions of fellow neighbors, family, friends and communities?

What can you do?

With so many media sources, participating and supporting these campaigns you too can help by not aiding in the glorification of shooters by giving them valuable airtime in your living room.

“Don’t share his manifestos, his letters, and his Facebook posts. Be above the sensationalism. Tell the real stories – the stories of the victims, the heroes and the communities who come together to help the families heal.” – Diana Hendricks, Director of Communications The ALERRT Center at Texas State University.