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The persistent crime that connects mass shooters and terror suspects: Domestic violence
Before police in Virginia arrested a 20-year-old man they said plowed his car into a group of activists in Charlottesville over the weekend, killing one and injuring 19 others, the same man had come to the attention of law enforcement in another state. In 2010, police records show, the mother of James Alex Fields Jr. called 911 to report that her son had hit her and threatened to beat her. During another 911 call, made the following year, Fields’s mother said he was “very threatening toward her,” the dispatcher noted.
These calls have helped shed some light on Fields’s life before the chaos in Charlottesville on Saturday. They were also grimly familiar. With the revelation of his mother’s terrified calls, Fields became the latest man accused of a potential terrorist attack or a mass killing to have previously been accused of domestic violence.
. . .
Since the attack, which experts say appears to straddle the line between a hate crime and terrorism, details about Fields’s background have slowly emerged. Notably, a former teacher recalled him as a Nazi sympathizer since at least high school. But the 911 calls fit a different and striking pattern, one that seems to regularly emerge after a mass shooter opens fire in a public place or an act of terrorism erupts in the United States.
Time and time again, spasms of violence in public places have been followed by investigations into the attackers and suspects. Many of those probes have unearthed reports of violence or threatening behavior against women in their lives. While research has shown that domestic violence is not universally a factor preceding public attacks, it has cropped up often enough following high-profile incidents to constitute a disturbing, recognizable pattern.
These calls have helped shed some light on Fields’s life before the chaos in Charlottesville on Saturday. They were also grimly familiar. With the revelation of his mother’s terrified calls, Fields became the latest man accused of a potential terrorist attack or a mass killing to have previously been accused of domestic violence.
. . .
Since the attack, which experts say appears to straddle the line between a hate crime and terrorism, details about Fields’s background have slowly emerged. Notably, a former teacher recalled him as a Nazi sympathizer since at least high school. But the 911 calls fit a different and striking pattern, one that seems to regularly emerge after a mass shooter opens fire in a public place or an act of terrorism erupts in the United States.
Time and time again, spasms of violence in public places have been followed by investigations into the attackers and suspects. Many of those probes have unearthed reports of violence or threatening behavior against women in their lives. While research has shown that domestic violence is not universally a factor preceding public attacks, it has cropped up often enough following high-profile incidents to constitute a disturbing, recognizable pattern.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/08/15/the-persistent-crime-that-connects-mass-shooters-and-terror-suspects-domestic-violence/?tid=sm_fb&utm_term=.7190f4012b4d
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