PUBLIC SECURITY
The Science of Risk Assessing Threats to Public Figures
Secret Service agents cover Press Secretary James Brady and police officer Thomas Delahanty during the assassination attempt of Reagan.
Threat assessments and the subject of targeted violence date back to the 19th Century France and Italy where the work of Laschi & Lombroso was well known and suggested that criminals could be identified based on physical defects. More recently, research has been directed by issues of mental disorder and driven by those from the world of psychiatry and psychology. This changed in the late 1990s when Fein and Vossekuil were tasked by the US Secret Service to research all assignations and attempts, to ascertain what could be learnt from them and how this might change their operational approach. This project, which is now widely known as the Exceptional Case Study Project
(ECSP) started considering targeted attacks, a term created by them, from a security rather than a mental health perspective. When tasked with assessing the threat that an individual may pose, it is not unusual for investigators to utilise Open Source research. The question is; what is it that you are looking for? Previous criminal
history? Association with groups of interest? All very useful, but do they tell you the whole story and could you be missing vital information, information that might enable a more forensic assessment? Methodology introduced by Philip Grindell MSc Msyl to aid the investigation of abuse targeted at
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