>> NARRATOR: The images flash across our screens, and we
wonder what compels a human
being to commit the most inhuman of crimes?
>> The school is in lockdown.
>> NARRATOR: In the wake of
Newtown, NOVA investigates the roots of violence.
Are killers born or made?
Are mass murders driven by an urge to kill or a wish to die?
So he was really going through hell?
>> Yes, he was being tormented by his friends.
He was a new kid at a big school.
>> This sense of frustration and hopelessness grows in them.
>> NARRATOR: Neuroscience examines the causes of violent
behavior and the key ingredients in creating a killer
>> We know the factors that can put a child at risk for acting
aggressive and vlently. The kids who typically do these
rampages show many of the same factors.
>> These were very important
behaviors, they are telling us something.
These were kids whare going to go on to have serious hostile
and aggressive behaviors towards their classmates even
though they don't look that way in infancy.
>> NARRATOR: On the front lines working with the most violent teens
>> Their way to survive, their way to be safe, is to be aggressive.
>> NARRATOR: In rare interviews with families living the daily
nightmare of mental illness.
>> Hammers, knives, scissors.
>> Why did you do that?
>> Because he pulled a knife on me.
You feel like you're in a
warzone, right down to the constant anxiety..
>> NARRATOR: Can we uncover clues to help unravel the
mystery of the violent mind and help find ways to stop the next
massacre before it happens?
The question on everybody's mind
is how do you prevent the next Newtown?
"Inside the Mind of a Rampage Killer," right now on NOVA.
>> Major funding for NOVA is provided by the following:
Supporting NOVA and promoting
public understanding of science.
And by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
And by:
Additional funding is provided by Millicent Bell through:
>> Hi, Andy!
>> Hi, Daddy >> Andy was always real playful.
>> The movie that you're going to see is going to have me in
it, and a couple of other friends.
>> He was a real kind kid.
He was the clown of the classroom.
Andy was like my best friend.
>> NARRATOR: But on March 5th, 2001, Jeff Williams' only child
shattered that image.
>> About 9:30 this morning shots
rang out at a suburban San Diego high school
>> NARRATOR: Andy Williams had packed a revolver in his
backpack and opened fire when he got to school, killing two
and injuring 13.
>> You don't expect the class clown would be the class killer.
>> NARRATOR: How did the sweet kid in the home movies become a
rampage killer?
>> On behalf of Andy Williams,
who is present in custody before the court.
>> NARRATOR: And why does it keep happening?
>> Eyewitnesses say the two gunmen, wearing black trench
coats and black masks, came in shooting and began working their
way through the school.
>> NARRATOR: From Columbine, where two seniors plotted to
blow up their school.... >> A gunman appeared at the
front of one of the theaters... >> ...14 confirmed dead...
>> It seemed very methodical.
>> NARRATOR: to Aurora, where a graduate student in neuroscience
took aim on a crowded theater... >> Caller's indicating she
thinks someone is shooting in the building.
>> NARRATOR: to Newtown and the slaughter of 20 first graders
and seven adults.
>> State and local police are on the scene.
>> NARRATOR: The images are all too familiar and the questions
are always the same.
>> Why that young man was set off?
>> Why the attack on the children at the school?
>> Are there warning signs for people like this?
>> NARRATOR: We all want to know what was going on inside the
mind of the killer?
>> NARRATOR: Unfortunately there is no easy answer.
>> One of the most infuriating things as a scientist and as a
person is this attempt to try and find some diagnostic label,
some neat diagnostic box to put this person into and thus
explain why they did this terrible, terrible thing.
>> NARRATOR: But that has not stopped researchers from trying.
And their hunt for an explanation is taking them
closer to some answers.
Little did they know when the work began many decades ago.
>> And a human rampage spreads death and terror across the
University of Texas campus.
24-year-old old student Charles Whitman goes berserk...
>> NARRATOR: In 1966, ex-marine Charles Whitman killed his
mother and wife, then climbed to the top of a bell tower at the
University of Texas and started shooting.
>> One afternoon's tragic total:
16 dead, 33 wounded.
>> NARRATOR: Whitman knew something was wrong with his brain.
Before he set off on his rampage, he left behind writings
asking for an autopsy, hoping that it might reveal the source
of his violent thoughts.
After he was gunned down by police, Whitman's brain was
analyzed, revealing a nickel- sized abnormality close to the
amygdala, one of the brain's primary emotion centers.
>> And so, the thought was "A- ha!"
This was it.
This amygdala lesion in Charles Whitman can explain his behavior.
>> NARRATOR: In the decades since Charles Whitman's rampage,
one thing has become clear: the human brain is not that simple.
Today, CAT scans and MRIs allow researchers to peer deep inside
the brains of violent criminals,
revealing detailed anatomy and function.
And using sophisticated analysis
of many brains, they find some patterns.
Josh Buckholtz is a Harvard neuroscientist searching for the
biological roots of violent >> When we compare people who
commit violent acts against people who don't commit violent
acts, some brain differences begin to emerge, differences in
brain circuitry that's involved
in emotional arousal and emotion regulation.
>> NARRATOR: One of these circuits connects the prefrontal
cortex, responsible for higher level thinking, to the amygdala,
an emotion center, which goes into overdrive whenever a threat
is perceived.
If the threat is not real, the prefrontal cortex will send a
message to the amygdala to calm down.
But if the wiring is faulty,
that calming message may not get through.
>> And in those folks, it seems like this circuit is broken in
such a way that they're more likely to respond with greater
amygdala activity and greater emotional arousal, when they
think that they're being faced with some kind of threat.
>> NARRATOR: So what can break or damage this crucial circuit?
At least part of the answer lies
in the genes we inherit from our parents.
Buckholtz and others have found that certain genes can
compromise this wiring.
But here's the tricky part: even if people have those genes-- and
their wiring appears weak-- there's no guarantee they will
end up violent.
>> There's no one single gene, there's not even ten single
genes that on their own predispose people to become violent.
What we know about complex behaviors generally and violence
specifically is that the genetic architecture is very complicated.
>> NARRATOR: When it comes to the brain and people's behavior,
evidence points to a complex
dance between genes and the environment.
Nature and nurture.
>> Everything we talk about in
psychology is both nature and nurture.
So the trick is to find out how do they both operate.
It's never one or the other-- never.
>> NARRATOR: Key clues to how nature and nurture might operate
to shape the brain are emerging from studying families.
And some of the best evidence is
coming from these families-- rats.
Remarkably, researchers discovered that baby rats who
were licked frequently by their mothers grew up to be calmer and
gentler adults.
But if the mother was standoffish when the babies grew
up, their biology and behavior was different.
>> What we were particularly interested in is the way in
which these animals might respond to stressful events.
And we found that the offspring ses in blood pressure and
greater increases in stress hormone production.
>> They will scream.
They will try to bite you.
Just walking into their cage, those rats will respond differently.
>> NARRATOR: Moshe Szyf and Michael Meaney of McGill
University knew this violent behavior was not strictly
inherited because it happened even when the caretaker was
unrelated and long after the rats were grown.
Could it be that nurture was trumping nature, somehow
changing the way the genes worked?
>> The behavior of the mother has an impact on the offspring
years after the mother isç already gone.
And we reasoned that there must
be some mark in genes that marks that memory.
>> NARRATOR: Studying the brain cells of calm and stressed out
rats, they found that different genes were getting turned on or
off in the babies depending on how they were treated.
When a baby was licked and cuddled, cells in the rat's
hippocampus-- a part of the brain that helps regulate
emotion-- turned on a gene that reduces stress hormones.
But if the baby was neglected, a chemical chain reaction began
that effectively shut down the
gene, causing stress hormones to soar.
And amazingly, these changes
would stick long after the baby grew up.
>> What we've learned from animal models which was pretty
astounding is that the quality of maternal care in the first
week of the rat babies' life sets up the stress response
system in the baby.
>> NARRATOR: Harvard researcher Karlen Lyons-Ruth doesn't study
She studies people.
Of course there are differences between rats and humans, but
she's finding we might have a lot in common, particularly when
it comes to the relationship between parent and child, and
how it can impact the way the child will respond to stress
throughout his or her life.
It started with a simple, yet revealing experiment called the
"strange situation."
Here's how it works: the baby is placed in a room with some toys.
The parent leaves.
The baby predictably gets upset.
Next, a stranger comes in and tries to provide some comfort.
No luck.
The baby just wants his mom.
So in comes the parent.
What happens next is what Lyons- Ruth finds fascinating.
>> We're interested in how the baby responds to stress and then
how the parent is able to help the baby regulate that
>> NARRATOR: Most of the time, it is a happy ending, like this
one, but things don't always go so well.
The Lyons Ruth videos, now 30
years old, have never been shown
outside a narrow circle of scientists.
To protect the identities of the
participants, we obscured them digitally.íI]i
>> You see the mother come in.
So you hear the mum enter silently.
It's a threatening approach.
We usually signaled it that we're friends, wear a smile, we talk.
>> Arms open, whatever.
>> To approach silently is threatening.
The lab assistant leaves.
So she then goes to mother and then see the mom step back and
the baby is now going to stop.
>> It's just comforting herselfK on the rug.
>> She gets up, she looks to mom, and she's not quite
comfortable just scooping her up, and she hesitates and she
does that and then she picks her up.
We call this the "hot potato pick up, put down."
Quickly, the mom puts her down again in the middle of all the toys.
>> NARRATOR: Though this behavior would never qualify as
abuse, some of the moms found it
harder to comfort their distressed babies.
>> As an observer you see that there's a bigger picture emerging.
There's the silent entry.
There's the not moving to the baby.
There's the hesitating when the baby moves to her.
There's the awkward pickup.
There's the quick put down.
There's the silent interaction from there on.
So as these accumulate, you begin to get much more pattern
of the emptiness and what the baby is not getting in terms of
regulating their own state.
>> NARRATOR: The research team
followed about 60 families over 30 years.
Although there is not just one way to build attachment, certain
patterns became clear.
They found that the babies who had trouble calming down were
more likely to grow up with
behavioral problems once they go to school.
>> Go away!
>> They're predicting that these were kids who are going to go on
to have serious hostile and aggressive behaviors toward
their classmates even though they don't look that way in infancy.
>> NARRATOR: And when they became adults, the same group
was twice as likely to be anti- social, or suicidal.
>> And the pirate captain was... >> NARRATOR: It's not just the
relationship with mothers that can count, but other caring
relationships as well.
And it's not just the infant brain that can be altered by stress.
Throughout childhood and adolescence, the growing brain
is extremely sensitive to threatening situations.
>> When you're exposed to stress, you program your body to
have a more elaborate, greater stress response, and that can
help you survive.
>> NARRATOR: Martin Teicher studies the effects of neglect,
abuse, and stressful environments on brain anatomy and function.
He's found that as a child grows up, different areas of the brain
are more vulnerable, depending on age.
And one of the most sensitive periods of all is the teenage years.
>> It's a period of very rapid transition, in that, that period
between the onset of puberty and what we define arbitrarily as
adulthood, say 18 or so.
There's a tremendous amount of brain change.
There's more brain change taking place in that period than will
occur for the rest of your life.
>> NARRATOR: And a quickly changing brain is more likely to
be altered and shaped by stress, potentially making it more prone
to anxiety, depression, antisocial behavior and even violence.
For example, the pre-frontal level thinking, can be stunted
by stress and abuse during this period, making it even harder
for teens to control their emotions.
So, could the pressures and strain prove too much to bear
for those few teenagers who go on to become rampage killers,
like Andy Williams?
Is that him?
>> Yes.
And there he is.
>> NARRATOR: Oh, yeah.
>> Making the goofy faces.
>> NARRATOR: It was March 5, 2001, when the cute kid in Jeff
Williams' photo albums became the murder suspect on the 6:00
news.
>> About 9:30 this morning, shots rang out at a suburban San
Diego high school.
>> NARRATOR: Andy walked into a boys room at Santana High
School in Santee California and opened fire.
He killed two fellow students and injured 13 others.
>> The suspect shot two people in the bathroom at first.
Then opened the door to the bathroom and started shooting
randomly anybody who was passing him by.
>> NARRATOR: More than a decade
after the shootings, Jeff is still perplexed.
So, he wasn't a kid that was infatuated with violence?'
>> No, not at all.
You have the silly clown, that's the thing.
You don't expect the silly clown
to do something like this, to go kill people.
>> NARRATOR: The class clown.
>> The class clown to be the class killer.
>> When we heard the shots, I hUcZ was fake, but my
teacher said it was real.
>> NARRATOR: The gun was a .22
caliber revolver like this one.
Andy took it from Jeff's locked gun cabinet; ironically, aG]
that had brought father and son together.
>> I feel bad that he used my gun, but it was the gun... one
of the guns that I taught him how to shoot with.
>> The first two counts charge the defendant with murder, the
remaining counts are 13 counts of premeditated attempted murder...
>> NARRATOR: Facing life without parole, Andy pleaded guilty.
At his sentencing hearing a year and a half after the shootings,
he faced the families of his victims.
>> All I ask is that you look at the horrors Andy committed and
not to be lenient because of his age.
He was old enough to know what was right and what was wrong,CÑ7
and he knew that what he was doing was terribly wrong.
>> NARRATOR: Do you love your son?
>> Yes, I love my son very much.
Ironically, first time I told him I loved him that I can
remember was when I saw him for
the first time at Juvenile Hall, on March 8.
And you know, I... yes, I love him now.
I loved him then and I'm going to support him.
He's my son.
I do not condone what he did.
I did not condone the way he went about trying to resolve his
issues whatsoever.
He made a very bad choice.
I can't change that.
>> NARRATOR: So what were Andy's issues?
After the shootings, the truth began to emerge.
For Jeff, the revelations were a complete surprise.
He knew that Andy was the new kid at school.
He and his son had recently moved to a San Diego suburb from
Maryland, leaving his ex-wife, Andy's mom, a continent away.
But what Jeff didn't know was
Andy had sunk into a state of deep despair.
>> About to go down to the skate park, meet everybody, because
they're already down there.
>> NARRATOR: He didn't fit in at Santana High, and even his so-
called friends bullied him unmercifully.
>> Beat him up like you did Trevor that one day.
>> NARRATOR: He'd started drinking, smoking pot and taking
prescription painkillers.
>> He's high.
Yeah, we're all high.
>> Turn it off.
>> Santana students say the suspected shooter had a
reputation for being picked on and even though he made threats
no one thought he would carry out such an act.
>> NARRATOR: Andy is now 27 and has served 12 years of his 50-/H
year to life sentence.
We spoke on a monitored line from inside the Ironwood Prison
in the middle of the Southern California desert.
>> This call is from an inmate
at a California Correctional Facility.
>> NARRATOR: Can you still hear me?
>> NARRATOR: Take us back to that moment, and if you can tell
us what was going on in your
mind at the time that would really help us.
>> To me it was just like a numbness at the time.
You know what I mean, and like I couldn't really, like at 15 I
didn't really think like all that stuff through.
I didn't think two boys were gonna die.
I didn't think 13 people were going to get shot.
I just thought I was gonna make a lot of noise and that the...
and that the cops were gonna show up.
>> NARRATOR: Did you feeloQ,v suicidal?
>> Absolutely.
It was like an eight month constant like, like I wonder if
things would be better if-if I wasn't... if I wasn't like in
this, in this city, in this state, like or even-even on this earth.
So my grand sche, like my grand plan was suicide by cop.
>> NARRATOR: Andy says he wanted to die, if not by his own hand,
then "suicide by cop"-- getting gunned down by authorities.
At the last moment, he changed his mind, and turned himself
into police on the scene.
As it turns out about 60% of
rampage killers end up killing themselves.
Some experts believe understanding and spotting the
suicidal mind is a key piece of the puzzle.
>> The sense of frustration and hopelessness grows in them often
to the point that they are suicidal.
>> NARRATOR: Katherine Newman is a sociologist at Johns Hopkins
University.;Knç?Ñ
She's studied school rampages, looking for the particular set
of circumstances that can turn a child into a murderer.
>> These are kids who are desperate to be accepted.
They are not loners, they are people who are trying to join
groups all of the time but their experience everyday is friction.
>> NARRATOR: She found that many of these shootings take place in
smaller, tight-knit communities, where acceptance is crucial and
not fitting in becomes all the more unbearable.
Tight knit is great as long as you're part of the knit.
>> Yeah.
So if you're not doing well,
you're on the outs, you got nowhere to go.
>> Imagine that in someone's ( no audio ) brain."
>> NARRATOR: Depression, suicide, and exclusion proved to
be volatile factors in one of the most infamous rampage
shootings of all: Columbine.
In April 1999, seniors Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold arrived
at Columbine High School with an arsenal of homemade bombs and
weapons, hoping to kill hundreds.
>> These kids have guns, these kids have guns.
Their bombs failed to explode, but they still shot up the
school, killing 13 before turning the guns on themselves.
We now know Dylan Klebold was severely depressed and suicidal,
but his parents, evidently attentive and loving, had no idea.
>> He was incredibly good at keeping his inner life secret
from everyone who was around him as many adolescents in fact are.
>> NARRATOR: Author Andrew Solomon, who has written
eloquently about his own depression, spent weeks with the
Klebold family trying to get to
the roots of what happened to Dylan.
NHe found disturbing clues in te teenager's secret diaries.
>> In his writings he talks endlessly about wanting to die,
he talks about feeling incredibly sad.
He talks about being in love
with a girl who doesn't even know his name.
He talks about the feeling of invisibility.
And in all of that, there's a lying through of profound
depression and of finding this life a terrible life and wanting
to be out of it.
>> NARRATOR: So is the brain of a suicidal person like Dylan
Klebold different?
Psychologist John Keilp is trying to find out.
>> We're looking at what's different about those people.
One of the things I think we feel confident about is that
there is something different about those people, that it's
not just a feature of depression.
Take your three fingers and put it on the buttons and one, two,
and three stand for the response red, blue or green.
>> NARRATOR: Keilp believes one fundamental difference may show
up in a deceptively simple test, which he let me try.
It is called a Stroop test, invented by psychologist John
Ridley Stroop in the 1930s.
All I had to do is identify th color I saw on thecreen.
>> Go through the set as quickly as you can.
>> NARRATOR: But when the color and the word do not matcith
gets a more interesting.
>> The thing to do is just respond to the color.
>> NARRATOR: Yeah, okay, got it.
Got it.
Okay, I get it.
Gosh, this is harder than you would think.
>> But you noticed right away how you slow down.
>> NARRATOR: Yeah.
I don't know why this-this shouldn't be that hard.
Why is that?
>> That was Stroop's big discovery.
>> NARRATOR: Keilp had two groups of people complete Stroop
tests while their brains were being scanned in an MRI.
>> Lie still and relax, okay?
>> NARRATOR: One group was depressed and some had attempted
suicide, the other was healthy.
He noticed a surprising difference in their brain scans.
These are healthy brains doing a Stroop test when the color and
the word don't match.
The red areas denote increased blood flow, and thus brain
activity, in the frontal cortex region, the cingulated, which
resolves conflicting perceptions, and the visual regions as well.
Now look at the brains of depressed and suicidal people
doing the same test.
That's very dramatic.
Look at that.
>> What it's telling us is that they're not activating regions
that are necessary in order to process the task as efficiently.
>> NARRATOR: Keilp has found depressed, suicidal people are
just not as good at the Stroop test.
Their brains seem inclined to focus on one thing-- in this
case the word, not the color-- and are less flexible.
It may mean their brains are wired in a way that makes them
fixate on suicidal thoughts.
Research like this may take scientists closer to a means of
screening for suicidal tendencies, especially in
adolescents who would never admit to it like Andy Williams
or Dylan Klebold.
But the question remains: why does someone who wants to end
his own life decide to take so many others with him?
One answer is the desire for fame.
>> If you decided that your life is worth nothing, you are
nobody, you haven't made a difference and you want to do
something that guarantees that your name will be on the lips of
everyone in the country, what are your options?
There's only one, and that is kill a lot of innocent people.
>> NARRATOR: According to many experts, rampage killers are
often trying to remake their images, and they say boys are
more likely than girls to use violence to change the way the
world perceives them.
>> Violence in general is a guy thing.
Testosterone is responsible for all kinds of violence, but it-it
does seem to be involved in
the response to a challenge to dominance.
>> NARRATOR: The link between violence in the media and real
world violence is still being debated, but it is clear rampage
shooters sometimes cast themselves as Hollywood
villains, the antiheroes.
Aurora shooter James Holmes was infatuated with the Joker in the
Batman movies.
>> Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
>> What young people see is power.
They see power.
They see people who inspire fear in others or respect.
>> Where is Harvey Dent?
>> The antihero is a respected character.
>> NARRATOR: Better to be infamous than irrelevant?
>> Better to be infamous than invisible.
>> NARRATOR: Andrew Solomon found evidence in Dylan
Klebold's diaries that the Columbine shooter was, in a sad,
twisted way, trying to redeem his reputation.
Unfortunately, Dylan was very good at keeping both his despair
and plans for redemption secret from the adults around him.
>> What's clear in reading Dylan's diaries is that he was in agony.
He was in terrible distress for a long period of time.
If someone had only known that and if someone had only been
able to help assuage it a little bit sooner, perhaps this
wouldn't have happened.
>> NARRATOR: Like Dylan Klebold, Andy Williams never said
anything to his father about his suicidal thoughts, or his plans
to bring a gun to school.
In fact, he lied about the bruises and cuts from the
bullying, said he fell off his skateboard.
Was there anything that you wish
you did or you wished your dad did?
>> No, I wish... I wish I was brave enough to tell someone
what was going on with me.
I wish I was, like, courageous enough to confront, you know
what I mean, everything that was happening to me.
>> NARRATOR: So, why were you holding back from your father though?
>> I don't know, man.
I think I, like... I think I was just ashamed of like...
confront, like, my failure.
>> NARRATOR: Is it possible to help kids confront their
problems before they escalate into violence?
Psychologist Paul Frick has spent his career trying to
understand what causes violent behavior so he can try to stop it.
I met him on a windy, cold day at the University of New Orleans.
I asked him if there is any way
to spot a rampage killer in the making.
>> The analogy I use is like a hurricane.
We're kind of good at predicting what conditions make hurricanes
most likely to develop.
Low pressure, the warmth of the
water, wind shear, things like that.
We're not always perfectly correct.
You might have the perfect conditions and somehow the
hurricanes don't develop, and it is the same thing with violence.
We know the factors that can put a child at risk for acting
aggressive and violently.
And the kids who typically do
these rampages show many of the same factors.
The thing we're not too good at is determining when does the
perfect confluence of influences lead to a category five
>> NARRATOR: So the rampage would be category 5.
>> Rampage would be category 5.
>> NARRATOR: Like Category 5
hurricanes, rampage killings may get the banner headlines, but
they are extremely rare.
Since Columbine, about 90 people
have died in school rampages in the U.S.
For every single person killed this way, about 2,000 died in
less infamous homicides.
When it comes to violence overall, scientists have a
slightly better track record
predicting who will become an offender.
For that, they turn not to brain scans or psychiatrists but to
statistics called actuarials.
>> Instead of turning to neuroscience, we can turn back
to some perhaps less sexy, but still very useful techniques
that are derived, of all places, from insurance companies.
>> There are characteristics that when they occur together,
um, markedly increase the risk of violent behavior.
Youth, male gender, substance abuse, a paranoid view of the
world, hostility and difficulty controlling anger, preoccupation
with weapons.
>> NARRATOR: These are the factors that greatly increase
the risk that a person will turn to violence.
But there's a hitch.
>> The problem is that there are tens of thousands of people who
fall into that category, and the majority of them will never
commit a violent act, and that's
the limit of our predictive abilities today.
>> NARRATOR: Without good predictions, what can we do to
reshape young minds before they
become too entrenched in violent thoughts?
>> The adolescents who are committing serious crimes, the
adolescents who are doing very serious aggressive and violent
acts typically have started with
milder conduct problems early in development.
They've had problems in school, maybe even in preschool...and so
the key, the number one thing is to do early intervention, early
mental health programs because we know what are the early
signs, it's behavioral problems early on.
>> NARRATOR: But when, if ever, is it too hard or too late to
change a violent mind?0m÷gNh
This is the Mendota Juvenile Wisconsin.
And these are some of the most violent teenagers in the state.
The worst of the worst, too hard
to handle in the traditional juvenile prison.
That's why they are here.
The t2lu>46çota has been arrested between six and
nine times, starting at about age 11.
Their crimes are violent felonies: armed robbery,
assault, rape and even murder.
Many of them are callous and unemotional, psychopaths in the
Greg Van Rybroek is the director.
>> We have kids who basically came from hell.
They came from hell and don't understand what the world is all
about that is of benefit to them.a#ç/1wN They're not interested in
playing by the rules of the game.
>> NARRATOR: And so here, they have changed the rules
>> So, what we're trying to do here is have a little bit of
time for you guys to talk about your lives.
>> NARRATOR: Despite the locks and chains, Mendota is no prison.
It is a mental health facility.
>> I'm really talking to your heart.
>> NARRATOR: And Greg is no warden, he is a psychologist.
>> I want to hear about what went in your life before you got
to this point and what you're thinking about for your future, deal?
>> Okay.
>> Do you remember the first time you got in trouble with the law?
>> How old were you?
>> Eleven.
I was a new kid right here I was like, they will mess with him./ñ
See, we're about, so I felt like -- well, at first I used to let
people bully me and mess with me, at the end I just said,
"Enough is enough."
That's when I started fighting.
>> It wasn't a school playground fight then if you've got caught,
it was worse than that?
>> I kind of like I won't stop fighting until I've seen blood
like until he was badly hurt.
>> And then?
>> Then guns came.
>> Guns came?
How did guns get there?
>> I just started playing with guns.
>> Well, I couldn't get a gun of my life depended on it probably.
How do you get a gun?
>> It ain't that hard.
>> What do mean it ain't that hard?
>> Like in the alley somewhere there under like somebody's car
on the side or somebody's wheel,
I bought a gun from this dude for $60.
>> And how did you live?
>> Selling crack.
>> This guy's been sitting quiet, but I can tell he wants to talk.
Something must have got you here.
>> Yeah, I was tired of being picked on, you know.
I was tired.
Tired of losing fights, tired of struggling, you know what I mean.
So I got me a little crew and start getting cool with people.
>> So, I, I don't got me a crew, so I don't really know, when you
got me a crew, what is a crew?
How does that work?
>> Like had others, we stand up with each other and stuff like
>> NARRATOR: There aren't any school rampage shooters here,
but the same storm brews inside, a storm fed by a lack of hope,
loneliness, fear, access to guns, and a deep desire to prove
Only for these boys, the venue for violence is not school, it
is the streets.
What kind of trouble did you get in that put you here?
>> Robbing people and fighting.
>> NARRATOR: What kind of robbery?
With a gun?
I would pull a gun on you in broad daylight.
>> NARRATOR: What's it like when you pull out a gun on somebody
and point it at them?
What's that like?
>> It's like you are in control, like you tell them what to do,
like your word is higher no matter what.
>> NARRATOR: The usual approach is to lock these kids up.
So what is different about Mendota?
>> I have been on this unit for a year-and-a-half but I've
worked out here at Mendota.
I'm working on my 14th year.
>> NARRATOR: When I walked the halls with operations director
Cindy Ebsen, I started to understand.
The razor wire, remotely locked doors and restraints coexist
with boys walking to class or therapy sessions, past birthday
greetings, award certificates, and motivational posters.
>> Ken here made honor roll in school, and so he put that up.
>> NARRATOR: The place runs on a
mix of punishment and positive reinforcement.
>> These guys, they do good in school, if he make honor roll at
the end of the semester you get a McDonald's meal.
>> NARRATOR: There is a direct and immediate connection between
conduct today and privileges or not tomorrow.
All of it is tracked in meticulous detail.
would be about for you?
What did you think coming here >> You know, it was like, it's
all based on my behavior to go home.
Yeah, like, it's all depending on me.
The fate is in my hands.
My freedom is in my hand.
Either I can grab it or I can
let it go by fighting with somebody else.
>> So, what's hard about grabbing it instead of fighting?
>> Like, like... I'm so used to fighting.
>> It's a habit.
>> Yeah, it's the only option we know.
>> We want to believe you just open the steel door and give
them a big hug and some cookies and say, "Get over it."
But it's nowhere close to that in reality.
>> We can't go back to the womb and play Beethoven and we can't
get the attachment that they may be ideally should have received.
But we can by constantly, consistently creating a fair
system for them to interact in behaviorally, start to work with
them once they trust that we're not anything but people who are
firm and fair and then most of all, caring.
>> The sound bite statement would be you're being soft on
crime, soft on criminals.
>> I would amend that to saying we're being smart about people.
>> NARRATOR: And it appears to be smart when it comes to
reducing the number of repeat offenders.
Graduates here are half as likely to commit a violent
felony as teens who are incarcerated in a traditional
Mendota is a unique crucible for the idea that it is possible to
stop the storm.
If it works here with some of these callous, unemotional felons.
Perhaps intervention can stop the clouds from building inside
a potential rampage shooter.
Are there kids that are beyond that, just kind of lost causes?
>> No.
And I will say that and I think people will disagree.
And I will - I will say the younger that is, the more su I
am of that statement.
The only time a kid is a lost cause is when we're not willing
to put the resources to give him what he or she needs.
>> NARRATOR: Frick is preaching
to the choir for people like Liza Long.
Liza is trying to bring a national discussion about mental
health care to a crescendo.
>> Everybody wants to help these kids.
But we don't have the information, we don't have the resources.
Too often, there just isn't enough.
>> NARRATOR: She knows first hand how unavailable and
unaffordable mental health care can be in the US.
After all, she is trying stop
the storm from building inside her own son.
When Adam Lanza went on his rampage in Newtown, Connecticut,
Liza watched with a strong sense of foreboding.
Might this be a vision of her future?
Her son-- we'll call him Michael-- is a bright normal 13
year old most of the time.
But he is prone to violent, uncontrollable blind rages.
All of this roiled in her mind as she wrote a blog post about
her son that went viral.
>> Circulating across social media today is a blog titled "I
am Adam Lanza's mother".
>> NARRATOR: It launched a national conversation on the
link between mental illness and
>> I had no idea that I wasn't alone.
Really, I thought I must be the only person in America who's
struggling with this.
And, boy, I heard from so many
people who said, "You just told my story."
>> NARRATOR: Liza Long lives in
fear every time she leaves the house.
>> You feel like you're in a war
zone, right down to the constant anxiety.
I'm always checking my phone.
I'm panicked.
What if something goes wrong?
I never know.
>> NARRATOR: Her son has been different since he was born.
>> As a parent, you don't always know what's normal, but looking
back I think that there were signs early on that he just
wasn't the same as other children his age.
He did things like bang his head against the wall a lot.
I remember asking a pediatrician about that, like, "Why is this
kid banging his head against the wall all the time?"
"Oh, just some kids do that."
Or repetitive sounds, made a lot of repetitive sounds.
Again, we just didn't know any better.
>> NARRATOR: I met Michael on a good day.
>> And it really was kind of fun because you really have nothing
to do in the loony bin.
>> Don't call it the loony bin.
>> That's what it is.
>> NARRATOR: But in her car, Liza carries evidence that he
can change into something very frightening.
So what's this?
>> This is the Tupperware container.
>> NARRATOR: What's in it?
>> I'll show you.
Hammers, knives, scissors, anything sharp.
>> NARRATOR: Now, why did you do that?
>> Because he pulled a knife for So the knives travel with me.
I don't have to worry about >> NARRATOR: Not surprisingly,
Liza does not have a gun in the house and doesn't think anyone
with a child like Michael should.
>> You put your foot down on the pedal.
>> Please go away!
>> I moved this piano out of the way, and moved this bench and
sat down on it and then he came over here and...
>> No, I was playing it before you sat down.
>> NARRATOR: Brothers bickering-
- the usual stuff in most households.
But here everyone is on eggshells.
>> Thanks a lot.
>> NARRATOR: Because every now and then, for no apparent
reason, Michael flips into a wild rage.
>> What happens when you have a rage?
>> Your mind goes blank.
You think about nothing but getting revenge on the people
that have hurt you, you lash and do violent things.
It's very hurtful.
And afterwards you may be incredibly tired and basically depressed.
You feel really bad about it, but you know that there's not
really anything you can do to them to make up to the people
you hurt during those incidents.
You can't control yourself when
you're like that and no one else can.
When you get like that, you just want to get the heck away from
anyone in the area.
It's kind of like a werewolf.
When a werewolf turns into a werewolf, it doesn't know who he
is, it doesn't know where he is,
it's just wants to hurt and fight people.
>> NARRATOR: So you feel like there's another person inside almost?
>> Basically.
>> NARRATOR: Scary.
>> The first time he pulled a knife on me, he was ten.
That's a really frightening It's just a really frightening
But again, as a mom, I love this child.
I just love this child, but it's exhausting.
It's painful for him, too.
He's not the type of child who wants to get to that space where
he's that angry or that violent.
He doesn't want to be there.
He doesn't have the coping strategies or the ability to
stay in a safe space for him.
It's frustrating for him and scary.
He's scared of himself when he gets like that.
>> NARRATOR: Is it hard to love him?
>> It's never hard to love your It's hard to wonder how to help
your child and to feel helpless;
that's what's hard.
>> NARRATOR: The frustration is compounded by this simple yet
frightening fact: medical science cannot even settle on a
diagnosis, much less a cure.
>> By the time he was ten years
old, we'd looked at autism spectrum.
We had looked at intermittent explosive disorder, oppositional
defiance; we hadn't considered ADHD at that point, but that got
thrown into the mix.
Basically, people are just looking at your child saying,
"Well, it's something.
Let's throw some medication at See if it sticks."çí9%yK>?8.,;÷)
>> NARRATOR: So what do we have here?
>> Some of these are some of his older meds.
I just kept them in case they change his dosage or in case
they say, "Oh, we're going back to that drug."
>> NARRATOR: When I met Michael he was on a drug that is used to
treat ADHD and anxiety.
>> He's done really well on it.
>> NARRATOR: So since he's been out of this, he had a real
escalating episode or anything?
>> We did have to call the police one time since he's been
on this medication but he de- escalated when the police came,
which is huge.
It's really great.
Here ya go, it's time.
>> NARRATOR: But Liza Long is still on eggshells, wondering
when the next rage may be.
>> Hey, bug.
I just need you to take your meds.
You can stay asleep, I need you to take them, okay?
>> NARRATOR: In December, a minor argument in the car escalated.
Michael tried to throw himself into traffic.
Two days later, while he was still hospitalized, Liza saw the
horrible images from Newtown.
thinks there's someone shooting in the building.
>> Until today, Adam Lanza was known mostly in his
neighborhood as someone who did not play well with others.
>> My first thought was, what if
my son grows up to do something like this?
And I sat down, and I wrote that piece right there.
>> NARRATOR: She took a lot of heat by speaking out.
Many criticized her for stigmatizing her own son.
>> NARRATOR: But Liza feels it is important to stop avoiding
this taboo issue for her son and for anyone who may
struggle with mental illness.
>> We're seeing children like this who need help everywhere.
>> NARRATOR: They're everywhere and yet they're kind of silent
until we have a Newtown.
>> Yes, and that's the tragedy.
And that's why I'm talking with you because in the aftermath of
all of this, I decided that, as hard as it's been personally for
me, it's been hard and for my family.
This is a conversation that's got to continue.
>> NARRATOR: And so will the research.
While it may never give us an easy way to identify a future
rampage killer, it has made it crystal clear it is never too
early-- or too late-- to make a difference in a child's life.
>> Major funding for NOVA is provided by:
Supporting NOVA and promoting
And by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.
Thank you.
by Millicent Bell through:Z
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