General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMN School Shooting "That did not happen in this case."
Drew Evans, the superintendent for the Bureau of Criminal Apprehensions, told reporters that "We need the help of the public and everybody else if there's concerning social media behavior by anybody --or that there's concern in their community--that they are contacting law enforcement so that we can adequately address that in the process" of restricting firearms, according to NBC.
So, if a person does not have a criminal record, the authorities in MN (and elsewhere I assume) are relying on the public and family members to alert them to social media behavior that is "concerning".
This reliance seems to be faulty at best, since it has failed to yield warnings in many mass shooting scenarios. For example, authorities in Uvalde,TX fell back on that too, saying that the individual involved had displayed many warning signs on social media but no one had notified authorities.
There has to be a better way. If nothing else, there should be a well funded public messaging campaign educating the public about how important their role is. It just seems that it's all being left to chance.

GusBob
(7,970 posts)Start a hotline for that.
Make sure you have plenty of operators
Baitball Blogger
(50,847 posts)Maybe they should spend more time looking at social media?
dsc
(53,118 posts)I don't live in TX or MN but I would be amazed that there is no such system in place in those states. We also start off each year telling students to report such behavior. As to parents they have access to the reporting system and are given a parent handbook that outlines how and what to report.
TommyT139
(1,793 posts)If that expensive Big Brother surveillance system didn't catch this, they just found an excuse to pry even more.