Shows
Back to School ShootingsEp 66. Are School Shootings a Unique Form of Violence?Paper: Are School Shootings a Unique Form of Violence? A Comparison of the Individual and Contextual Correlates of Nonfatal School Shootings and Youth Gun ViolenceAbstract:School shootings have been traditionally viewed as a unique form of violence in which disgruntled suburban White boys indiscriminately target their peers and cause mass injury; however, a series of recent studies that employ broader definitions of school shootings suggest they more closely resemble community-based gun violence. This study tests the fundamental assumption that school shootings are a unique form of violence using multi-level logistic regression models to compare...
2025-12-221h 02
A Public AffairThe Tragic Repetition of School Shootings
WORT 89.9FM Madison · The Tragic Repetition of School Shootings
This week marks the 1-year anniversary of the shooting at the Abundant Life Christian School in Madison. Meanwhile the search for the Brown University shooter is ongoing. To talk about these events and the ongoing crisis of school shootings across the US, host Ali Muldrow is joined by Dr. David Riedman who tracks these shootings and the online communities that foster gun violence.
Dr. Riedman takes an evidence-driven approach to the study of school shootings. He’s tracked 3,400 shootings back to the 1960s, including 226 of...
2025-12-1700 min
Back to School ShootingsPolice chief explains Brown University shooting investigationGuest: Retired police chief Patrick Flannelly served 27 years with Lafayette Police Department which borders Purdue University in Indiana. He served 10 years as chief of the department and now hosts of the Coptimizer Podcast.Brown University has 235 buildings (most built between 1770-1926) on its 143-acre urban campus in downtown Providence, RI. The school has 20,000 students in a community of 200,000 people.Latest photos of suspect (white male around 5’8”):Locations of the doorbell cameras where photos of the suspect were recorded:Background on Brown University shooting:* Why hasn’t the Brown University shoote...
2025-12-1657 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 65. When a school shooting happens, will you Run, Hide, or Freeze?New Paper: Run, Hide, or Freeze: Social and Emotional Influence on Behavior in an Immersive School Shooting SimulationAbstract: As school shootings rise in frequency across the United States, understanding how individuals respond during such crises is critical for developing effective safety protocols. This study used an immersive, computer-based simulation to investigate how social influence and emotion level from non-player characters (NPCs) affect behavior during an active shooter event. A total of 285 participants were randomly assigned to one of six experimental conditions varying NPC behavior (run, hide, or mixed) and emotional intensity (high vs. low). Participants were...
2025-12-1538 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 64. Treatable victims die during school shootings and 3 ER doctors have solutionsArticle (pre-submission/pre-publication): Early Medical Response in Active-Shooter Incidents. A Systematic Review of After-Action ReportsGuests:* Dr. Dominique Wong is an attending physician the Cabell Huntington Hospital Emergency Department and chair of the hospital’s Medical Readiness Committee. She also serves as a tactical physician and medical director for police SWAT and Tactical EMS teams, trains law enforcement officers and the US military, and serves in leadership roles with the American College of Emergency Physicians, Tactical and Law Enforcement Medicine Section.* Dr. Clay Young is a board certified emergency physician with over 25 years of...
2025-12-0949 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 63. Directors of HBO's 'Thoughts and Prayers' documentaryInterview with the directors of HBO’s new documentary Thoughts & Prayers. Their film premiers this Tuesday night at the DOC NYC film festival and is available streaming the same night. (note: I set up this interview, HBO didn’t ask me to promote this film or provide any financial incentive).This 90-minute documentary traces the $3 billion active shooter preparedness industry in the United States and its effect on students and educators.Here is the iPhone note that I wrote right after watching it:This documentary is a postmodern 90-minute examination of the insanity of m...
2025-11-1733 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 62. AI creates a threat disguised as a school security solutionPolice to students: “The way you guys were eating chips, it picked it up as a gun. AI’s not the best. Can’t trust stuff like this at a school man. Good thing you guys didn’t run [laughs]...that would have made a major problem.” Bodycam footage shows Baltimore County, MD police handcuffing 4 students who were waiting to be picked up after football practice when they got an alert from AI software that detected a gun on the school’s CCTV system.What happened in Baltimore County is more than a minor technical glitch becau...
2025-10-3134 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 61. Dr. Bellavita: "Why do you believe data will make things better?"Host: Dr. Chris Bellavita, senior faculty at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense and Security.Guest: Dr. David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database and author of ‘How Critical is Critical Infrastructure’ (thesis chaired by Dr. Bellavita).Articles mentioned:* Imagining Future Homeland Security Threats: Known and Likely to Unknown and Unlikely* Questioning the Criticality of Critical Infrastructure: A Case Study Analysis* The Cold War on Terrorism: Reevaluating Critical Infrastructure Facilities as Targets for Terrorist Attacks* Ep 59. Can AI and LLMs like Chat...
2025-10-241h 51
Back to School ShootingsEp 60. Inside the True Crime Community (TCC) that grooms teens into school shootersGuest: Allizandra Herberhold, LMSW, works with radicalized, at-risk, and violent teens and young adults to prevent mass shootings and counter violent extremism.Host: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database.Samples of TCC Content:TCC style cartoon that I used ChatGPT to generate:Links discussed in the show:* Allizandra’s Website: Parents4Peace. We center our work on those most affected by extremism—families and targeted communities—while equipping frontline professionals to intervene early and stop hate before it escalates. We address hate at its source, across every...
2025-10-1659 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 59. Can AI and LLMs like ChatGPT assess school shooting threats?Last week, I successfully defended my PhD dissertation. This episode is a short overview of my research on using LLMs like ChatGPT to assess threats of violence.My Dissertation: LLMs Versus Human Experts: Mixed Methods Analysis Measuring Variance in School Shooting Threat AssessmentsAbstract: This study measures the unwanted variability in expert judgments by testing six frontier large language models (LLMs) on fictitious but realistic school shooting scenarios derived from 1,000 real threats made in the United States (note: there are approximately 100,000 threats made nationwide to schools each year). Using prior decision science research, this dissertation measures...
2025-10-0327 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 58. How to survive a mass shootingGuest: Simon C. Osamoh, a former British detective and security director at Mall of America.Host: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database.Book: How to Survive a Mass Shooting: Practical Tools to Prevent Gun Violence and Protect Yourself When It HappensDavid Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen to my weekly podcast—Back to School Shootings—or my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Journal of Medicine, and my article on CNN...
2025-09-2259 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 57. TCC, gore videos, groypers, and online radicalizationGuest: Allizandra Herberhold, LMSW, works with radicalized, at-risk, and violent teens and young adults to prevent mass shootings and counter violent extremism.Host: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database.Website: Parents4Peace. We center our work on those most affected by extremism—families and targeted communities—while equipping frontline professionals to intervene early and stop hate before it escalates. We address hate at its source, across every ideology.Links discussed during the show:* Meme culture, Groypers, school shooters, and ‘Anomie Extremism’* Discord Platform: What schools and parents...
2025-09-1751 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 56. Two Principals Who Experienced School ShootingsGuests: School principals George Roberts and Andy McGill, both experienced a school shooting on their campus.Host: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database.Website: Principal Recovery NetworkResource: The NASSP Principal Recovery Network Guide to Recovery (In August 2022, the PRN published the Guide to Recovery, a collection of best practices to assist school leaders in the aftermath of shooting tragedies.)David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen to my weekly...
2025-09-0843 min
Back to School ShootingsHow To Stop A School ShooterDavid Riedman is the creator of the K-12 school shooting database and a man with a deep insight on how school shooters take shape. Riedman joins the show to talk about all of the surprising things he has discovered in this trove of data about an admittedly macabre topic. He will make you question some of the ideas you may have on why and how these school shootings happen. Most importantly, he has some very important ideas on how to make it stop.Full episode on iHeartMedia.David Riedman is the creator of the K-12...
2025-08-2929 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 55. Study of 30 rampage school shootingsGuests: * David Russell is an associate professor of sociology at Appalachian State University. His research uses multiple methods to explore topics across the areas of medical sociology, aging and the life course, and stress and mental health.* Jon Gordon is an assistant professor of sociology at Appalachian State University and an ethnographer whose research focuses on violence, gender, and criminalized organizations in marginalized urban communities.* Kelly M. Thames is an associate professor of sociology at Appalachian State University. Her research interests include criminological and sociological theory, social control, and inequality.Host...
2025-08-281h 08
The News Junkie: InterviewsHow To Stop A School ShooterDavid Riedman is the creator of the K-12 school shooting database and a man with a deep insight on how school shooters take shape. Riedman joins the show to talk about all of the surprising things he has discovered in this trove of data about an admittedly macabre topic. He will make you question some of the ideas you may have on why and how these school shootings happen. Most importantly, he has some very important ideas on how to make it stop.
2025-08-2831 min
Back to School ShootingsTalking to kids about the Annunciation Catholic School shooting in MinneapolisHost: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database.Guest: Josh Novick is a licensed professional counselor, trauma specialist, founder of Trust and Grow Consulting, and volunteer for Teachers Unify to End Gun Violence.Resources for parents:* https://www.instagram.com/childlifetherapist/?hl=en* https://www.nmvvrc.org/media/3tmbuhke/parents_guidelines_for_helping_youth_after_the_recent_shooting.pdf* https://www.nasponline.org/resources-and-publications/resources-and-podcasts/school-safety-and-crisis/school-violence-resources/talking-to-children-about-violence-tips-for-families-and-educators* https://childmind.org/guide/helping-children-cope-after-a-traumatic-event/* https://www.pbs.org/parents/thrive/helping-children-with-tragic-events-in-the-news?fbclid=IwAR04ONybPf1...
2025-08-2722 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 54. School shooter felt "my only friend was my gun"Host: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database.Guest: Anne Nassauer, Professor of Sociology, Universität Erfurt, Germany.Paper: “The only friend I had was my gun”: A mixed-methods study of gun culture in school shootingsAbstract: Firearms are the leading cause of death for minors in the United States and US gun culture is often discussed as a reason behind the prevalence of school shootings. Yet, few studies systematically analyze if there is a connection between the two: Do school shooters show a distinct gun culture? This article studies gun cultu...
2025-08-2247 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 53. Trends in Carrying Handguns Among Florida AdolescentsGuest: Erin Wright-Kelly DrPH, MA, Director of Research and Evaluation of the Firearm Injury Prevention Initiative at the Colorado School of Public HealthHost: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database.Paper: Trends in Carrying Handguns Among Florida Adolescents: 2002–2022* OBJECTIVES: This study explored changes in general handgun carrying, in-school carrying, favorable attitudes toward handgun carrying in school, and ease of handgun access among Florida adolescents.* METHODS: Data were from even years between 2002 and 2022 from the Florida Youth Substance Abuse Survey, a repeated cross-sectional and representative survey of Florida middle an...
2025-08-1543 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 52. Texas floods and armed school guardiansHost: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database.Guest: Officer Seth Capps, Guardian Program Director, Mineola ISD Police.Slides: Implementation of a School Guardian Program in TexasDavid Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen to my weekly podcast—Back to School Shootings—or my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Journal of Medicine, and my article on CNN about AI and school security.School Shooting Data Analysis and Reports is a...
2025-08-081h 02
Back to School ShootingsEp 51. Origins of the first threat assessment team modelGuest: Dr. Dewey G. Cornell is a forensic clinical psychologist, the director of the Virginia Youth Violence Project, and a faculty associate of the Institute of Law, Psychiatry, and Public Policy.Host: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database.* Behavioral Threat Assessment and Intervention in Schools: School Administrator March 2023* National Center for School Safety: School Threat Assessment Toolkit * University of Virginia: Research on School Threat AssessmentDavid Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and...
2025-08-0143 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 50. Trauma surgeon's priority treating gunshot woundsGuest: Sarabeth Spitzer, MD, MPH, SAFE Co-Founder, General Surgery Resident, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA.Host: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database.Scrubs Addressing the Firearm Epidemic: SAFE’s mission is to ensure that all healthcare providers are equipped with skills and evidence-based knowledge to advise their patients, communities, and legislators on firearm use and ownership to prevent injuries and deaths.David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen to my weekly po...
2025-07-2532 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 49. Constitutional law professor analyzes school policingGuest: Maryam Ahranjani, professor of law at the William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where she teaches and writes in the areas of criminal law and procedure and constitutional law.Host: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting DatabasePaper: Unarresting School Safety, Nevada Law JournalAmerican public schools continue to utilize and expand harsh policing policies and practices, including, inter alia, on-site school resource officers, restraint and seclusion, zero tolerance, threat assessments, cameras, metal detectors, and use of student data to predict criminality. This...
2025-07-1953 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 48. More victims when a school shooter makes multiple types of threatsGuest: Dr. Megan Raichelson, Post-Doctoral Fellow in Clinical PsychologyHost: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting DatabaseDissertation: Exploring Leakage as a Warning Behavior in K-12 School Shooting EventsDavid Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen to my weekly podcast—Back to School Shootings—or my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Journal of Medicine, and my article on CNN about AI and school security.School Shooting Data Analysis and...
2025-07-1145 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 47. School shooting decreases grocery and restaurants sales for 6 monthsHost: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database.Guests: Muzeeb Shaik is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University–Bloomington. John Costello is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Mendoza College of Business, University of Notre Dame. Mike Palazzolo is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Graduate School of Management, University of California, Davis, and also serves as a Research Affiliate at UC Davis’s Center for Poverty & Inequality Research. Adithya Pattabhiramaiah is an Associate Professor of Marketing and the Sharon A. and David B. Pearce Professor at t...
2025-07-0348 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 46. Dr. Beth Sanborn's new book on school policingHost: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting DatabaseGuest: Dr. Beth J Sanborn, President of the Pennsylvania School Resource Officers AssociationBook: Piecing It Together: School Resource Officers as Allies in EducationPrior Episode: Ep 30. Dr. Beth Sanborn on the traits of an effective school police officerDavid Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen to my weekly podcast—Back to School Shootings—or my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Jour...
2025-06-2730 min
Off the Mats PodcastOff the Mats Podcast #265- Rules of BJJ feat. David RiedmanWhat's up, friends? This week on the podcast, I welcome back David Riedman—Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner, writer, and creator of the Rules of BJJ Substack. In this episode, David breaks down key topics from his articles, including what every grappler should know before stepping onto the mats for the first time.
We explore the dangers of mindless drilling and the difference between volume and intentionality in training.
David also unpacks how analytics and data can shape the future of Jiu-Jitsu performance, offering a look at how elite teams already apply metrics (whether consciously or not). Pl...
2025-06-231h 54
Back to School ShootingsEp 45. Year as a parent since the Mount Horeb Middle school shootingHost: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database.Guest: Robert Chappell is the executive editor of 365 Media Foundation in Madison, WI.Wisconsin School Shootings:* Near Miss: Student had 'dirty bomb' at Mount Horeb Middle during school shooting* School shooting at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, WI * What happened during the school shooting at Mount Horeb Middle in rural Wisconsin* Was the Madison, WI school shooter a domestic terrorist?David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer...
2025-06-2049 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 44. Founder of Grandmothers for Gun ResponsibilityHost: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database.Guest: Dr. Margaret Heldring, is the founder and CEO of Grandmothers for Gun Responsibility, a retired clinical psychologist, clinical faculty in the UW Dept of Family Medicine, as health care legislative assistant to former U.S. Senators Bill Bradley and Paul Wellstone, as a senior policy advisor on Bill Bradley’s presidential campaign, and as the founder and Executive Director of America’s HealthTogether.Join Grandmothers for Gun ResponsibilityDavid Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a...
2025-06-1353 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 43. Forensic psychologist explains the Nashville school shooter's journalsGuest: Dr. Jillian Peterson, forensic psychologist, professor at Hamline University, and executive director of The Violence Prevention Project Research Center.Host: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database.Access the full document hereOther episodes we mentioned:* Ep. 5: Forensic psychologist analyzes a school shooter’s manifesto and the attack at CVPA High was a ‘death of despair’.* Ep. 39: Talking about "unspeakable" violence (like Columbine) with Rev. Dr. IngebretsenDavid Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk m...
2025-06-0553 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 42. School policing in Texas is 24/7Host: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database.Guest: Officer Seth Capps, Guardian Program Director, Mineola ISD Police.10 step framework for implementing an armed guardian program: * Determining the number of guardians required to meet Texas law state mandate* Selecting the criterium and type of staff member necessary* Establishing training requirements* Determining qualification & evaluation standards* Equipment considerations* Documentation & liability considerations* Oversight and administrative responsibility* Program member anonymity* Transparency with school community* Law enforcement interaction
2025-05-301h 22
Back to School ShootingsPart 2: Looking back on the first year of this podcastHere are a few more clips from my first 40 episodes:* Ep. 19: Dr. Brian Williams on preventing gun violence in homes, schools, and communities* Ep 41. ER doctor Cedric Dark explains how to cure the gun epidemic* Episode 7: Conversation with Dr. Sonali Rajan on Using Data to Reduce Gun Violence at Schools* Ep 10. Revisiting 'School of Errors' with Dr. David Perrodin* Ep 9: "School Safety is a $hitshow right now" compared to the 1970s, 80s, and 90s with Dr. Ken Trump* Ep 12. Crime data isn't great. Dr. Matt Nobles explains...
2025-05-2348 min
Back to School ShootingsPart 1: Looking back on the first year of this podcastMy first episode of the Back to School Shootings podcast (Episode 1: Noise audit for assessing school shooting threats) was released on May 20, 2024. I recorded it to share the findings from a research paper that had been stuck in the peer-review doom loop.A year later, the show has turned into a place for experts across disciplines to share their findings about reducing gun violence. This episode is a compilation of clips from these conversations:* Ep. 5: Forensic psychologist analyzes a school shooter’s manifesto and the attack at CVPA High was a ‘death of despair’.* Ep...
2025-05-1647 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 41. ER doctor Cedric Dark explains how to cure the gun epidemicHost: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database.Guest: Cedric Dark, MD, MPH, is a board-certified emergency physician practicing in a Houston, Texas trauma center. An associate professor at Baylor College of Medicine, he also serves as the Medical Editor-in-Chief of ACEP Now, the Official Voice of Emergency Medicine.* Dr. Dark’s Website* Policies to Prevent Gun Violence in Schools* Under the GunDavid Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Li...
2025-05-1050 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 40. Survey shows 20% of Americans experienced a mass shootingPaper: Mental health consequences of exposure to mass and non-mass shootings in a national sample of US adults (Nature)Guests: Dr. Jillian Peterson, forensic psychologist, professor at Hamline University, and executive director of The Violence Prevention Project Research Center and Dr. James Densley, criminal justice department chair at Metropolitan State University and co-founder of The Violence Prevention Project.Host: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database.David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen...
2025-05-0348 min
Back to School ShootingsEp. 39: Talking about "unspeakable" violence (like Columbine) with Rev. Dr. IngebretsenArticle: Columbine's 'MONSTERS next door' and cultural rituals of school shootingsGuest: Georgetown University professor Rev. Dr. Ed Ingebretsen, an expert in monsters, cultural studies, and the author of At Stake: Monsters and the Rhetoric of Fear in Public Culture.Host: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database.Each of these four elements plays out in the social discourse following a school shooting:* The monster comes from some distant place that is separate from civil or mainstream society like the trench coat mafia, goth kids, mentally ill, loners, outcasts...
2025-04-191h 01
Back to School ShootingsEp 38. Dr. Jens Ludwig explains his new book 'Unforgiving Places'Host: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database.Guest: Dr. Jens Ludwig, Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, Director of the University of Chicago’s Crime Lab, codirector of the Education Lab, and codirector of the National Bureau of Economic Research’s working group on the economics of crime. The Crime Lab was the recipient of a $1 million MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions.In 2007, economist Jens Ludwig moved to the South Side of Chicago to research two big questions: * Why does gun violence happen?* Is ther...
2025-04-101h 03
Back to School ShootingsEp 37. Realtime database shows violent crime is falling nationwideHost: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database.Guest: Jeff Asher is a nationally recognized expert in evaluating criminal justice data. Before launching AH Datalytics, Jeff worked as an analyst for the CIA, as a crime analyst with the New Orleans Police Department, and at FiveThirtyEight. Jeff also publishes weekly articles on Substack.David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen to my weekly podcast—Back to School Shootings—or my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New...
2025-03-2840 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 36. School shooters are bad at killing. We can make them even worse.Host: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database.Guest: Anne Nassauer, Professor of Sociology, Universität Erfurt, GermanyPaper: The Interactional Pathways of Mass Killings: Toward a Novel Understanding of Rampage School ShootingsKey points:* Prior papers and books on school shootings tend to cite the same 5-10 high profile cases (e.g., Columbine, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, Parkland, Uvalde). This paper is based on 83 cases since the 1960s.* Most “rampage” school shooters kill 0 or 1 victim. 40% kill zero victims.* 98% of victims were shot in the back...
2025-03-211h 03
Back to School ShootingsSystematic Failures: Why Predictable Problems Repeat at SchoolsI was a guest on the Coptimizer Podcast with retired police chief Patrick Flannelly.We talked about:* Systemic flaws with the incident command system (ICS) during mass shootings like Las Vegas Harvest Festival and Uvalde* School lockdowns versus evacuating* Increased risk from arming teachers and private security* Lost guns and accidental/negligent discharges* Warning signs of violence and how to prevent school shootingsDavid Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a...
2025-03-141h 11
Back to School ShootingsEp 35. Six evidence-based ways to prepare teachers for a school shootingHost: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database.Guest: Dr. Albert Spiegel is the Assistant Principal for a regional Catholic high school in New Jersey. His dissertation focused on secondary Catholic school teachers’ sources of self-efficacy regarding active shooter incidents. Dr. Spiegel has been an emergency medical technician (EMT) for over 20 years and is an adjunct professor at Saint Peter’s University teaching courses in school administration and teacher preparation.Dissertation: A Qualitative Study to Determine Teacher Self-Efficacy in Active Shooter Incidents in One Catholic Secondary SchoolDavid Riedman is the crea...
2025-03-081h 06
The Coptimizer PodcastDavid Riedman: Founder of the K-12 School Shooting DatabaseDavid Riedman is the founder of the K-12 School Shooting Database and a graduate from the Naval Postgraduate School. He conducts research on gun violence in schools and authored multiple peer-reviewed articles on homeland security policy, critical infrastructure protection, and emergency management. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
2025-03-081h 11
Back to School ShootingsEp 34. Heartening vs hardening schools with a trauma-informed counselorHost: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database.Guest: Josh Novick is a licensed professional counselor, trauma specialist, founder of Trust and Grow Consulting and volunteer for Teachers Unify to End Gun Violence.Josh’s journey began as a social studies educator at an alternative high school operating within Malcolm X College in Chicago. There, he witnessed firsthand the profound impact of trauma, particularly gun violence, on BIPOC teenagers. This experience sparked his commitment to understanding and mitigating the effects of trauma on young people.In July 2022, following the Highland Park Fo...
2025-02-2856 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 33. Let kids fight (safely) with 'Guardian' founder Ben KovacsHost: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database.Guest: Ben Kovacs, BJJ black belt and founder of Guardian.Website: Guardian, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, is committed to providing free jiu jitsu scholarships to underserved kids around the world including Ethiopia, Peru, Mexico, Mongolia, and in US cities like Baltimore, Oakland, and LA. David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen to my weekly podcast—Back to School Shootings—or my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radi...
2025-02-2156 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 32: Seven years after Parkland and the school shootings since thenActive Shooter: When you can’t run, can’t hide, and can’t fight (November 6, 2017 on Medium before I started this Substack)David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen to my weekly podcast—Back to School Shootings—or my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Journal of Medicine, and my article on CNN about AI and school security.School Shooting Data Analysis and Reports is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, cons...
2025-02-1444 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 31. From public school teacher to economic advisor at The White HouseHost: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting DatabaseGuest: Dr. Matthew Kraft, Associate Prof. of Education & Economics, Brown University* Website: www.matthewakraft.com* Twitter: @MatthewAKraft * BlueSky: @matthewakraft.bsky.socialReport: The Cumulative Costs of Gun Violence on Students and Schools (January 15, 2025 - The White House archive)David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen to my weekly podcast—Back to School Shootings—or my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radi...
2025-02-0855 min
Back to School ShootingsCan Brazilian Jiu Jitsu prevent school shootings?The Off the Mats Podcast is hosted by Jake Dante, a jiu jitsu practitioner in Maryland and all around regular guy. On the show, various topics are discussed ranging from training to dealing with injury and mental health as it relates to martial arts.Episode 246: School Safety and Self-Defense (uncut 90 minute interview)This week on the podcast, I welcome David Riedman, a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu brown belt and the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, a critical tool in understanding and addressing school gun violence in the United States. David shares his journey in BJJ...
2025-01-3043 minOff the Mats PodcastOff the Mats Podcast #246- School Safety and Self-Defense feat. David RiedmanWhat's up, folks? This week on the podcast, I welcome David Riedman, a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu brown belt and the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, a critical tool in understanding and addressing school gun violence in the United States. David shares his journey in BJJ and how the discipline has shaped his approach to defensive training for educators. We dive into what measures should be taken to protect students in school and whether or not to arm teachers, practical applications of BJJ in real-world situations, and the invaluable lessons martial arts bring to high-stakes environments. This episode offers...
2025-01-271h 38
Back to School ShootingsEp 30. Dr. Beth Sanborn on the traits of an effective school police officerHost: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting DatabaseGuest: Dr. Beth J Sanborn, President of the Pennsylvania School Resource Officers AssociationWebsite: bethjsanborn.comBook: The Missing PieceReport: Measuring the Strategic Fit of the School Resource Officer with Law Enforcement (Leaders), the Education System, the Community and Other Interested PartiesDavid Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen to my weekly podcast—Back to School Shootings—or my recent inte...
2025-01-251h 04
Back to School ShootingsEp 29. Gun violence exposure on walkable routes to and from schoolChildren heading to and from school in Englewood, on the south side of Chicago, are heavily dependent on public transit and walking, because about half of residents live in households without vehicular access. Those walking routes are through violence-prone areas.The study was published in November in SSM - Population Health, the online, peer-reviewed journal. Researcher Gia Barboza-Salerno led the study, working alongside Sharefa Duhaney and Hexin Yang, all from the College of Public Health at Ohio State University in Columbus.Paper: Spatial accessibility to gun violence exposure on walkable routes to and from school
2025-01-1451 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 28. Why School Police May Not Be the Best Way to Prevent ViolenceHost: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting DatabaseGuest: Monic Behnken, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, Iowa State UniversityArticle: Why School Police May Not Be the Most Effective Way to Prevent ViolenceDavid Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen to my weekly podcast—Back to School Shootings—or my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Journal of Medicine, and my article on CNN about AI and school security.
2025-01-0457 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 27. CEO of Children's Minnesota hospital explains the gun injury crisisHost: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database.Guest: Dr. Marc Gorelick, Pediatrician & President and CEO at Children's Minnesota.Book: Saving our Kids: An ER Doc’s Common-Sense Solution to the Gun Crisis.Blog: Progressive Pediatrics.David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen to my weekly podcast—Back to School Shootings—or my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Journal of Medicine, and my article on CNN about AI and school...
2024-12-2751 min
Back to School ShootingsLive radio interview about Abundant Life Christian school shooting in Madison, WISchool shooting researcher: Women shooters are 'rare’David Riedman joins Megan Lynch on KMOX News Radio following the school shooting in Madison, Wisconsin.David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen to my weekly podcast—Back to School Shootings—or my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Journal of Medicine, and my article on CNN about AI and school security.School Shooting Data Analysis and Reports is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and su...
2024-12-2409 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 26. Christmas, Kids, and Guns: ‘Extreme Overvalued Beliefs’ Behind a Controversial GiftHost: David Riedman, founder of the K-12 School Shooting Database.Guest: Dr. Tahir Rahman, associate professor of psychiatry at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.Reference:* Prior podcast: Ep 16. Can psychologists treat school shootings the same way as eating disorders? Dr. Tahir Rahman M.D. explains why extreme overvalued beliefs--not severe mental illness--drive school shooters to commit violence.* Psychology Today: Shifting the American Relationship With Firearms* Book: Extreme Overvalued Beliefs: Clinical and Forensic Psychiatric Dimensions* Forensic Psychology: School Shooters: Recognizing Extreme Overvalued Beliefs...
2024-12-2157 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 25. Would more security stop the school shooting at Abundant Life Christian in Madison, WI?Host: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database.Guest: Dr. Daniel Semenza is an Associate Professor at Rutgers University and the Director of Interpersonal Violence Research at the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center. He has published more than 100 peer-reviewed papers on issues of gun violence, victimization, and health disparities and his research has been featured in the New York Times, LA Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Scientific American, The Trace, Prevention Magazine, PBS, and NPR. Links to topics in the show:* CBS News: Inside the $3 billion school security industry as deadly shootings...
2024-12-191h 06
Back to School ShootingsAbundant Life Christian School Shooting: Interview on WORT in Madison, WIDavid Riedman, founder of the K-12 School Shooting Database, joins WORT 89.9fm (Madison, WI) afternoon radio show A Public Affair hosted by Sara Gabler.This interviews follows the December 16th school shooting at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin. Riedman joins Gabler to discuss this shooting in context of the 323 school shootings that have happened so far this year. They unpack what the data tells us about these tragedies, the importance of recognizing warning signs, and policies needed to prevent future school shootings.Image posted by the shooter’s father that was discussed during th...
2024-12-1824 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 24. Understanding Different Forms of Gun Violence in American SchoolsHost: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting DatabaseGuest: Dr. Daniel Hamlin is an associate professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Oklahoma. His research focuses on the effects of education policies related to student health and safety, parental involvement, school climate, and school choice. Papers:* Understanding Different Forms of Gun Violence in American Schools: An Analysis from 1980 to 2019* Are gun ownership rates and regulations associated with firearm incidents in American schools? A forty-year analysis (1980–2019)David Riedman is the creator of...
2024-12-1455 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 23: What can dance and performance teach us about lockdown drills?Host: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting DatabaseGuest: Shannon Woods, Ph.D. Candidate, Performance as Public Practice, University of Texas at AustinPapers:* The Threat Is Now: Choreography, Temporality, and the Active Shooter Drill* Drilled Choreographies: Interventions on Preparing for the Active ShooterDavid Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen to my weekly podcast—Back to School Shootings—or my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Journal of M...
2024-12-0752 min
Back to School ShootingsBotcast: Summary of school shootings in November 2024GoogleLM summary of shootings on campus in November 2024.David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen to my weekly podcast—Back to School Shootings—or my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Journal of Medicine, and my article on CNN about AI and school security.School Shooting Data Analysis and Reports is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full acce...
2024-12-0420 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 22: The Fortress Problem is a paradox because defenses create vulnerabilitiesHost: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting DatabaseGuest: Jack Anderson, expert in insurance, risk, catastrophe, and securityPeer-reviewed paper: The Fortress ProblemWhen they rely on robustness or complication, positions of strength are only tolerant of stress up to a defined point or of a certain character. For a fortification that fails to adapt, centralization—even of strength—presents a surprising liability. Fortresses concentrate risk.A grand design for security will not produce grand security. Security requires fewer scripted plans and more improvisation, more diversity, less uniformity, less trai...
2024-11-211h 02
Back to School ShootingsEp. 21: Hidden Cost of Gun Violence on Black Students' EducationHost: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting DatabaseGuest: Dr. Algernon Austin, Director for Race and Economic Justice at the Center for Economic and Policy ResearchNew research paper: Gun Violence Lowers Academic Achievement Especially for Black ChildrenArticle referenced: The Other School Shootings: Gun Violence at America’s Poorest SchoolsPeer-reviewed research on economic impact of school shootings:* The Impacts of Shootings on Students' Human Capital and Economic Outcomes* Effects of School Shootings on Risky Behavior, Health and Human Capital* Do school sh...
2024-11-1657 min
Back to School ShootingsMinnesota Gun Violence Research Summit: Gun Violence in Schools PanelRecorded on November 1, 2024 at the Hamline University Violence Prevention Project Research Center in St. Paul, MN. Note: This was the first panel of the event and there are a couple glitches in the audio that get fixed as the discussion goes on.David Riedman – Founder of the K-12 School Shooting Database. David's pioneering work tracks and analyzes school shooting incidents across the U.S., offering crucial data that informs violence prevention strategies. He also serves on the advisory board for the Violence Prevention Project Research Center (VPPRC) and is an assistant professor at Idaho State University....
2024-11-0754 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 20. Being a 7th grader five miles away from Columbine High in 1999Host: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database.Guest: Shea Swauger is a PhD student in Education and Critical Studies at the University of Colorado Denver. He researches social factors that influence school shootings and gun policy.David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen to my weekly podcast—Back to School Shootings—or my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Journal of Medicine, and my article on CNN about AI and school security....
2024-11-011h 08
Back to School ShootingsBonus Botcast 2: GoogleLM explores the Issue Attention Cycle and Law of Unintended ConsequencesThis is not a “real” podcast in the traditional sense of the word. Google has a new AI tool called Notebook LM creates podcasts from text articles. I didn’t write the script. The voices you hear are completely generated by Google’s language models.The botcast is based on my article: School Shootings: Issue Attention Cycle & Law of Unintended ConsequencesMy article argues that the public's attention to school shootings is a cyclical pattern: intense focus in the immediate aftermath of an event, followed by a decline in interest. This cycle often leads to hastily...
2024-10-2823 min
Back to School ShootingsEp. 19: Dr. Brian Williams on preventing gun violence in homes, schools, and communitiesHost: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting DatabaseGuest: Dr. Brian Williams, author of “The Bodies Keep Coming: Dispatches from a Black Trauma Surgeon on Racism, Violence, and How We Heal”As a Harvard-trained physician, Williams learned to keep his head down and his scalpel ready. As a Black man, he learned to swallow the rage when patients told him to take out the trash. Just days after the tragic police shootings of two Black men, Williams tried to save the lives of police officers shot in Dallas in the deadliest incident for US l...
2024-10-2450 min
Back to School ShootingsEp. 18: What Every Parent Needs To Understand About School Shootings & LockdownsHost: Mother of It All parenting podcast (Miranda Rake and Sarah Wheeler)Guest: Me (David Riedman)No one wants to think about school shootings. But nearly every day in our country, a gun is fired on a campus. Often, when that happens, entire student bodies are then traumatized by spending hours in lockdown. David Riedman of the K-12 school shooting database — an unparalleled collection of data about school shootings that has been used as a resource by publications like The Economist and New York Times, as well as organizations like the FBI— joins Sarah and Mira...
2024-10-2055 min
Back to School ShootingsBonus Pod: Google's experimental AI summarizes my recent articlesThis is not a “real” podcast in the traditional sense of the word. Google has a new Artificial Intelligence tool called Notebook LM that allows users to feed it written data, which it will then turn into a podcast. The voices you hear are completely generated by Google’s language models.I created the content that went into this ‘podcast’ (see: School Shooting Data Analysis and Reports), but I didn’t decide what the key points or topics would be. This is worth listening to because the AI hosts do a good job of summarizing ~25,000 words from a dozen diff...
2024-10-1614 min
The Mother Of It AllWhat Every Parent Needs To Understand About School Shootings & Lockdowns with David RiedmanNo one wants to think about school shootings. But nearly every day in our country, a gun is fired on a campus. Often, when that happens, entire student bodies are then traumatized by spending hours in lockdown. David Riedman of the K-12 school shooting database — an unparalleled collection of data about school shootings that has been used as a resource by publications like The Economist and New York Times, as well as organizations like the FBI— joins Sarah and Miranda to talk about the thing none of us want to talk about but that we absolutely must: American school’s gun...
2024-10-1455 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 17. What we are getting dangerously wrong about school shootingsBy several measures, 2024 is on course to be one of the worst ever in terms of gun violence on school campuses. My guest this episode to discuss these tragic incidents is David Riedman. David is the founder of the K-12 School Shooting Database, arguably the most complete accounting of school shootings in the United States. As you will hear, David's own analysis of the data has revealed some chilling findings that suggest that many schools’ prevention efforts and active shooter plans are, at best, inadequate and ill-informed, and, at worst, making students more vulnerable.Talking About Kids is...
2024-10-1134 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 16. Can psychologists treat school shootings the same way as eating disorders?Host: David Riedman, founder of the K-12 School Shooting DatabaseGuest: Dr. Tahir Rahman, Forensic Psychologist and Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Washington University in St. Louis.Book: Extreme Overvalued Beliefs: Clinical and Forensic Psychiatric DimensionsArticle: School Shooters: Recognizing Extreme Overvalued Beliefs (Forensic Psychology). Non-delusional, rigidly held beliefs motivate most school shooters.Key points:* School shooters are driven by ideology not severe mental illness.* Lockdown drills are ‘dress rehearsals’ where a vulnerable student with extreme overvalued beliefs gets to experience what committing a school shooting would be l...
2024-10-071h 09
Talking About KidsWhat we are getting dangerously wrong about school shootings with David RiedmanSend us a textBy several measures, 2024 is on course to be one of the worst ever in terms of gun violence on school campuses. My guest this episode to discuss these tragic incidents is David Riedman. David is the founder of the K-12 School Shooting Database, arguably the most complete accounting of school shootings in the United States. As you will hear, David's own analysis of the data has revealed some chilling findings that suggest that many schools’ prevention efforts and active shooter plans are, at best, inadequate and ill-informed, and, at worst, making students more vu...
2024-10-0734 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 15. Kids carry guns at school for the same reasons the gun industry advertises to adultsThis episode was recorded with Devin and Caitlin from GVPedia. The recording is also available as GVPediaExplains Episode 26: Interview with David Riedman of the K-12 School Shooting DatabaseYouTube version:GVPedia arms policymakers, advocates, and the public with facts and data to create evidence-based policy to reduce gun violence. GVPedia started as a project to provide ready access to academic research and high quality data on gun violence.David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen...
2024-09-2552 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 14. Society, institutions, & communities have failed when a 14-year-old takes an AR-15 into Apalachee HighThe 14-year-old kid was not a monster until the second that he pulled the trigger inside Apalachee High killing 2 classmates, 2 teachers, and wounding at least 9 others. For at least a year prior to the attack, this kid cried for help and was ignored by police, teachers, school administrators, community members, and his own family. Committing a school shooting is a final act of violent public suicide when a kid feels like society has forgotten him (or her) and there is no other option.These are not excuses that justify a school shooting. To prevent the next attack...
2024-09-0744 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 13. How to prevent school shootings with Stephen DubnerEvery school shooting—the latest at Apalachee High in Georgia—is the culmination of a long chain of failures as parents, police, and school officials all missed their chances to act on overt warnings. Could analyzing and studying the information within the K-12 School Shooting Database be the key to stopping them?From Freakonomics Radio+ episode: The Only Person That Tracks Every U.S. School Shooting This was only the first half of my interview. If you want to listen to this entire bonus episode of Freakonomics Radio, it’s available through the Sirius...
2024-09-0630 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 12. Crime data isn't great. Dr. Matt Nobles explains how a strong research methodology can address these problems.Host: David Riedman, founder of the K-12 School Shooting DatabaseGuest: Dr. Matt Nobles, Criminologist and Methodologist, University of Central Florida* All research projects start with finding data or evidence, and then applying a research methodology to answer the question.* Federal crime data is incomplete, published ~2 years after crimes occur, and doesn’t add up when multiple sources are cross-referenced.* Before 2000, there wasn’t a federal mandate for colleges and universities to report crimes on campus. Dr. Nobles’ first major research project was analyzing unreported sexual assaults on campus.* There...
2024-08-2439 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 11. Do armed teachers make schools safer? Dr. Jason Koele carries a gun at school and wrote his dissertation about it.Host: David Riedman, founder of the K-12 School Shooting DatabaseGuest: Dr. Jason Koele, Missouri middle school principalDissertation: Differences Between Missouri K-12 Educator Perceptions of Safety on Campuses that Allow Teachers Concealed Carry and Those That Do NotDavid Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen to my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Journal of Medicine, and my article on CNN about AI and school security.School Shooting Data Analysis...
2024-08-1251 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 10: Revisiting 'School of Errors' with Dr. David PerrodinHost: David Riedman, founder of the K-12 School Shooting DatabaseGuest: Dr. David Perrodin, Professor at Viterbo University and author of School of Errors & Velocity of InformationSchool of Errors establishes another voice in the discussion of how to promote safe schools. It challenges the unchecked expansion of school fortification and questions the realized benefit of inter-agency collaboration during a sentinel event. This book offers an alternative to traumatizing simulations by providing clear options for improving school safety by the empirically-proven effective measures of leakage detection (preventive) and sensemaking (reactive). School of Errors restores the...
2024-08-0453 min
Back to School ShootingsEp 9: "School Safety is a $hitshow right now" compared to the 1970s, 80s, and 90s with Dr. Ken TrumpHost: David Riedman, founder of K-12 School Shooting Database Guest: Dr. Ken Trump is the President of National School Safety and Security Services, a Cleveland-based national consulting firm specializing in school security and emergency preparedness trainingIn this episode we discussed:* Evolution of school security during the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s—all time periods that Dr. Trump has been working inside k-12 schools.* Landscape of school safety is not just deliberate school shootings. School safety includes fires, natural disasters, riots, fights, gangs, drugs, weapons, rapes, sexual assaults, and ki...
2024-07-2744 min
Back to School ShootingsEpisode 8: Why does a kid bring a shotgun to school? Convicted school shooter tells his story.Host: David RiedmanGuest: Jon Romano, convicted school shooter and mental health advocate on TikTokThe purpose of the corrections system is to:* Confine and separate a dangerous threat from society.* Punish an offender for their wrong.* Rehabilitate a person so they can re-enter society as a pro-social contributor.It’s the department of corrections not the department of confinement. In most states a young teenager cannot be sentenced to life in prison which means that even a convicted school shooter will return to free society....
2024-07-1841 min
Back to School ShootingsEpisode 7: Conversation with Dr. Sonali Rajan on Using Data to Reduce Gun Violence at SchoolsHost: David RiedmanGuest: Sonali Rajan, Ed.D., M.S., Associate Professor, Department of Health Studies & Applied Educational Psychology at Columbia University & President of the Research Society for the Prevention of Firearm-Related HarmsResearch Paper: Protocol for a nationwide case-control study of firearm violence prevention tactics and policies in K-12 schoolsResearch Methods: Authors created a nationally representative dataset of schools that experienced intentional gunfire on the campus during school hours since 2015 using the K-12 School Shooting Database. Matched control schools will be randomly selected from the US Department of Education's national database...
2024-07-0847 min
Back to School ShootingsEpisode 6: What is the definition of a 'school shooting' and why does it matter?Host: David Riedman, founder of the K-12 School Shooting Database.Guest: Dr. Benjamin P. Comer, Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminology & Criminal Justice at Texas Christian University.Paper: Definitional Discrepancies: Defining “School Shootings” and Other Incidents of Gunfire Affecting SchoolsWe discussed:* How the K-12 School Shooting Databased started.* Landscape of ~30 different info sources about school shootings from the “Columbine’s Angels” blog in the 1990s to anonymized government reports that omit school names.* Definitions run amuck when the US Secret Service excludes a sniper firing 240 rounds at...
2024-07-0150 min
Back to School ShootingsEpisode 5: Forensic psychologist analyzes a school shooter’s manifesto and the attack at CVPA High was a ‘death of despair’.Host: David Riedman, founder of the K-12 School Shooting Database.Guest: Dr. Jillian Peterson, forensic psychologist, professor, and executive director of The Violence Prevention Project Research Center. I obtained exclusive access to the CVPA High School shooter’s manifesto from KMOV’s investigative reporting team. Last year, I narrated the documentary KMOV produced about this attack. Parts of the images are redacted because they name specific school staff members who are not aware they were targets during this school shooting. Dr. Jillian Peterson and I discuss:* Details of the manifesto....
2024-06-2444 min
Back to School ShootingsEpisode 4: School policing is 5% law enforcement. An officer should be an educator, mentor, and problem solver.Host: David Riedman, founder of the K-12 School Shooting DatabaseGuest: Justin Seals, school security director, school police officer, and military veteran.We discussed:* Justin’s career as a Navy Corpsman, Army Chaplain, patrol officer, school police officer, SRO unit supervisor, and school security director.* How school policing has changed and evolved post-Columbine, post-Sandy Hook, post-Parkland, and post-Uvalde.* Differences in safety and security at public schools compared to private schools.* Systemic gun violence, gang violence, and teens who habitually carry guns every day on campus.* De...
2024-06-1738 min
Back to School ShootingsEpisode 3: Can ChatGPT prevent school shootings? An expert in criminal innovation thinks so.Host: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting DatabaseGuest: Dr. Rodrigo Nieto Gómez, professor at the US Naval Postgraduate School and expert in criminal innovation, AI, and national security.Articles referenced:* How does OpenAI's ChatGPT-4o assess school shooting threats compared to human police officers?* Did OpenAI create the best weapon detection software available with ChatGPT-4o?During this episode we discussed:* Rodrigo’s unique background being born in Mexico and educated in Paris, yet he is an expert in US national security and def...
2024-06-1054 min
Back to School ShootingsEpisode 2: Can School Nurses Prevent the Next School Shooting?Host: David RiedmanGuest: Robin Cogan, National Association of School Nurses and Relentless School Nurse BlogOn the show we talked about:* Robin’s career in occupational health and deciding to work inside Camden City, NJ schools for the last two decades.* Role of a school nurse as the Chief Wellness Officer and being the frontline emergency medical responder for hundreds—or thousands—of students each day.* Investing in a Student Wellness Team with school nurses, psychologists, and social workers can identify at-risk students and provide a wide array of ass...
2024-06-0348 min
Back to School ShootingsEpisode 1: Noise audit for assessing school shooting threatsGuest: Dr. James Densley (Criminal Justice Dept Chair at Metropolitan State University and Co-founder of The Violence Prevention Project).Nobel prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman passed away in March. I started the research for this paper when I read his final book, Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgement, back in 2021.Noise is the unwanted variability in decisions made by experts who are looking at exactly the same information. We measured the amount of variability in threat assessments. This study is the first time noise was measured in this context!We talk about methods for...
2024-05-2040 min
Back to School ShootingsWhat happened during the school shooting at Mount Horeb Middle in rural WisconsinOn May 1, police were called for an active shooter at Mount Horeb Middle in rural Wisconsin. Officers spotted a teen outside of the school with a long black rifle and killed him when he didn’t comply with commands. Four days later, police provided an update that the rifle was a $100 pellet gun available at Walmart and Amazon.Robert Chappell, the executive editor of Madison 365 News, has two kids at Mount Horeb Middle and High schools. He arrived at the school at the same time as the first two police officers.On WORT 88.9 A Public Af...
2024-05-0953 min
Back to School ShootingsKeep it simple: Designing the school of the future to keep students safeOn the latest episode of The Room Where It Happen with Baer Halvorson, we talked about a path forward 25 years after Columbine as school shootings are more frequent and more deadly. The status quo isn’t working. Is this because using the wrong planning assumptions two decades ago made school security more complicated than it needs to be?We also discussed school security issues including:* Failures at Uvalde are the same systemic problems that never got fixed after 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina.* How kids get access to firearms and new trend of teens habitually ca...
2024-04-251h 06
Back to School ShootingsPodcast: Defining "school shooting" and exploring the root causesEvery parent wants to know any time a gun is fired at their kid’s school. I was a guest on the “Talking About Kids” podcast with R. Bradley Snyder to discuss the importance of collecting data on gun violence at schools.We talked about:* Government definitions of “school shooting” exclude domestic violence and gun violence in marginalized communities * Difference between “active shooter” versus “school shooting”* Failure of one-size-fits-all approach to school security by locking down for every scenario* Problems with using exclusionary discipline to punish a student who is identified as a...
2024-02-2723 min
Back to School ShootingsParadigm Shift: Planning for evacuation instead of lockdown during a school shootingTwenty-five years after Columbine, school shootings have become more frequent and more deadly. An entire generation of students have either been traumatized—or worse, taught how to be a school shooter—during lockdown drills. The status quo is not working.On the EM Weekly podcast, Zack Borst and I discussed how schools are missing decades of best practices from overlooking the emergency management cycle (prepare, respond, recovery, mitigate) for school security planning. Effectively evacuating a school during an emergency requires planning and help from the ‘whole community’ just like a flood, tornado, or earthquake.We also cov...
2024-02-1333 min
Back to School ShootingsConversation with Democracy Labs on analyzing data from sixty years of school shootingsOn the Digital Politics weekly podcast, I was interviewed by Deepak Puri, CEO of The Democracy Labs. We talked about:* Differences between mass shootings in public places and school shootings* Capturing data to show a holistic picture of gun violence on school property * Understanding the drivers that lead to school shootings* Danger of swatting hoaxes that falsely report a school shooting in progress* How school shootings are different from terrorismDavid Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database and a national expert...
2024-01-2619 min
Digital Politics with Karen JagodaGun Violence on School Properties with David Riedman K-12 School Shooting DatabaseDavid Riedman, Founder and Independent Researcher of the K-12 School Shooting Database, joins Deepak Puri, CEO of The Democracy Labs, to peel back the layers of the challenges of predicting and preventing school shootings. One significant step is to collect data and fill in the missing pieces to get a better sense of who is most at risk of being involved in a school shooting and actions that can be taken to protect students and staff. Deepak and David talk about: Differences between mass shootings and school shootings Getting a holistic picture of gun violence on...
2024-01-1525 minDigital Politics with Karen JagodaGun Violence on School Properties with David Riedman K-12 School Shooting DatabaseDavid Riedman, Founder and Independent Researcher of the K-12 School Shooting Database, joins Deepak Puri, CEO of The Democracy Labs, to peel back the layers of the challenges of predicting and preventing school shootings. One significant step is to collect data and fill in the missing pieces to get a better sense of who is most at risk of being involved in a school shooting and actions that can be taken to protect students and staff. Deepak and David talk about: Differences between mass shootings and school shootings Getting a holistic picture of gun violence on...
2024-01-1525 min
Back to School ShootingsKeeping schools safe with evidence instead of assumptions (clip from NEJM interview)Clip from my interview on the New England Journal of Medicine Intention to Treat podcast.I’m on the show with Dr. Cornelia Griggs, a pediatric trauma surgeon and education director of the Center for Gun Violence Prevention at Massachusetts General Hospital.David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database and a national expert on school shootings. Get full access to School Shooting Data Analysis and Reports at k12ssdb.substack.com/subscribe
2024-01-0716 min
Back to School ShootingsSchool shooting is final link in chain of failures (clip from Freakonomics Episode 561)Clips from my interview with Stephen Dubner on Freakonomics Radio Episode 561.* How and why the K-12 School Shooting Database was created* Identifying someone in crisis before it escalates to violent public suicide* Need public education, playbook for school officials, and standardized reporting systems* National Poison Control Center is an example of an accessible system that can help anyone during an emergency, this does not exist for stopping mass shootings* My personal experience as a high school student during the DC Sniper AttacksDavid Riedman is the creator...
2024-01-0721 min
Back to School ShootingsPerry High school shooting: Interview on Iowa Public RadioI was interviewed on Iowa Public Radio to analyze the Perry High school shooting on January 4, 2024. One student was killed, four students were wounded, three staff members including the principal were wounded, and the teenage shooter commit suicide in a school hallway.During the interview we discussed:* School shootings are deliberately planned for weeks, months, or even years* Plots often involve bombs but are different from terrorism* Most school shooters are not mentally ill* Need for crisis intervention programs in every school* Must enable students and community...
2024-01-0623 min
EM Weekly PodcastProactive School Safety and the Reality of Shootings with David RiedmanThis is a must listen episode! This week's guest is David Riedman, researcher and creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database. We discuss the surprising realities around shootings and violence at schools that often go unreported in the media. How can emergency managers help schools be more proactive with safety planning and preparedness? David shares insights from the data and patterns seen in the 300+ school shootings in the database. We also talk about the role of gun detection technology like ZeroEyes, the company David now works for, that uses AI and cameras to immediately detect firearms and provide alerts. Tune...
2023-09-2752 minTalking About KidsWhat data suggest about school shootings with David RiedmanSend us a textSchool shootings are all-too-frequently in the news. When they are, there is a good chance that my guest’s work will be cited. David Riedman is the co-founder of the K-12 School Shooting Database, which contains detailed information on all school shootings in the United States from 1970 to present. David, an expert on security and crisis management, has spent a lot of time with this information, and his conclusions about our society’s response to school shootings might surprise you. More information about David, including a link to the K-12 School Shooting Database is a...
2023-05-2930 min
The Todd DeVoe ShowSchool Shootings and Emergency ManagementThe K-12 School Shooting Database research project is a widely inclusive database that documents each and every instance a gun is brandished is fired, or a bullet hits school property for any reason, regardless of the number of victims, time, or day of the week.The School Shooting Database Project is conducted as part of the Advanced Thinking in Homeland Security (HSx) program at the Naval Postgraduate School’s Center for Homeland Defense and Security (CHDS).Todd DeVoe Twitter handle: https://twitter.com/ToddTDeVoeLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddtdevoe/Substack: https://em...
2022-06-2333 minThe Emergency Management Network PodcastSchool Shootings and Emergency ManagementThe K-12 School Shooting Database research project is a widely inclusive database that documents each and every instance a gun is brandished is fired, or a bullet hits school property for any reason, regardless of the number of victims, time, or day of the week.The School Shooting Database Project is conducted as part of the Advanced Thinking in Homeland Security (HSx) program at the Naval Postgraduate School’s Center for Homeland Defense and Security (CHDS).Todd DeVoe Twitter handle: https://twitter.com/ToddTDeVoeLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddtdevoe/Substack: https://em...
2022-06-2333 min