Police investigators dread the lone wolf. In 2019, NYPD Deputy Commissioner for Intelligence & Counter-terrorism John Miller said “We are seeing the emergence of the propaganda-inspired lone wolf, or small groups of people as the primary threat” in New York City. He is no beat cop. Miller is a journalist who turned to law enforcement, rising through the public affairs ladder, swapping between high-profile news posts (he co-anchored “20/20” with Barbara Walters in 2002) and police work. If anyone would know propaganda, it’s him.
In yet another example of a “lone gunman,” this time using a vehicle to slam through into the building, start a fire with some kind of accelerant, or use what the BATF called “rudimentary” explosives, and then exit the building to begin firing inside. The target was a Latter-day Saints (Mormon) church in Grand Blanc Township, Michigan. The killer was identified by authorities as Thomas Jacob Sanford, 40, a local who grew up in the neighborhood and served as a U.S. Marine. Four people (so far) have been identified, victims killed by the attack.
Sanford’s neighbor described him, that he “seemed like a nice guy.”
What is going on? Churches, ICE offices, television stations, the NFL’s New York headquarters, Charlie Kirk, and Donald Trump have all been targets of lone wolf attackers, mostly willing (or have as their planned end) to snuff out their own lives in the act of violence toward unarmed victims. There have been several cycles of this kind of lone-wolf violence in the past. In 2011, Jared Loughner shot Rep. Gabby Giffords, killing six and wounding 13 (including Giffords). It was a case of a mentally ill shooter, but has been repeatedly—and incorrectly—framed as a political shooting.
In early 2012, James E. Holmes shot up an Aurora, Colorado movie theater playing “The Dark Knight Rises,” injuring 70 with 12 dead. That summer, three more shootings resulted in 13 more dead and 15 wounded in three separate incidents. In 2015, Dylann S. Roof acted alone in a bid to start a race war, killing nine at a Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Roof was one of only three federal death row inmates whose sentences were not commuted by President Joe Biden at the end of his term.
In 2016, Omar Mateen killed 49 and wounded 53 at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando. On the phone with negotiators, he pledged allegiance to ISIS. In 2016, former Army enlisted soldier Micah X. Johnson ambushed Dallas police, killing five officers and wounding others. In the last half of 2017, 87 victims were killed in the bloodiest year on record since 2001. The congressional baseball attack wounding Rep. Steve Scalise (shooter James T. Hodgkinson had a list of Republicans with him); the Charlottesville, Virginia vehicle ramming where James Alex Fields, Jr. killed a protester against the neo-Nazis and injured 35; and the Route 91 Harvest festival shooting in Las Vegas that killed 60 and wounded over 400 marked that year of violence.
The Parkland High School shooting and the Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue shooting killed 28 and wounded 24 in 2018. In 2019, the Poway synagogue shooting, the El Paso Walmart, and others killed six more. In 2021, there was of course one killed in Washington, D.C. on January 6th, and many others wounded, but that wasn’t a lone-wolf attack; 18 were killed and another 18 wounded in the Boulder, Colorado supermarket shooting and the Indianapolis FedEx shooting.
In 2022, 19 children were shot and killed in Uvalde, Texas. Two teachers were also killed and a total of 17 were wounded before 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, who had himself attended the elementary school he attacked, was killed by police, 74 minutes after he began his deadly assault. Another 10 were killed at the Buffalo Tops Friendly Market in upstate New York. Payton S. Gendron, 18, a white nationalist, chose Black victims. His federal death penalty hate crime case is still proceeding while he is imprisoned with 11 life sentences with no possibility of parole after conviction on state murder charges.
In 2023, 30 more victims were killed in the Nashville Covenant School shooting, at an Allen, Texas mall, and other places. The Covenant School shooting investigation was just completed this year by the Nashville Police Department. They concluded the killer, Audrey Hale, 28, was sane when she committed the crime; that she chose her victims at random; that her motive (she was killed by police in the attack but left a suicide note) was “notoriety”; that she acted alone. Hale, like Ramos, had attended the school she attacked.
Also in 2023, on October 25, Robert Card, 40, killed 18 and wounded 13 at a bar in Lewiston, Maine. Card was reported as having mental problems by others in the U.S. Army reserve, where he served. At one point, deputies were ordered to seize Card’s weapons. Card committed suicide while police hunted for him after the spree. A later examination of Card’s brain showed he suffered extensive brain damage, possibly from traumatic brain injury while acting as a grenade instructor.
And of course, now we have two attempts on the life of Donald Trump, and the New York City shooting by 27-year-old Shane Tamura, who the New York City medical examiner’s office says suffered from Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. C.T.E. is a brain injury, which Tamura believed resulted from playing high school football. Tamura, before his death, in a suicide note, asked that his brain be studied. He shot himself in the chest to preserve his brain.
Then there’s the Minnesota church shooting, Charlie Kirk’s assassination, and now this church shooting. I won’t mention the arson at the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion, or random hate crimes against Jews, which remain a constant problem.
It’s the lone wolf, driven by propaganda, mental illness, brain damage, and fueled by a ceaseless media drumbeat, along with politics. Or it’s the availability of guns. But the last killing was done with a truck. Certainly, guns take the most lives, but two years of gun crime in Chicago eclipse all the lone-wolf shootings since 2012 in the U.S. However, the politicians in Chicago think that’s not a problem, but just how things are in the big city.
I don’t have the answer, but I do know that the lone wolf is a dreaded threat. Because police don’t have a good way to stop it. They know how to stop gang violence, but that means going to war with the gangs, which is not always politically practical (it leads to police abuse and George Floyd type problems). They know how to stop criminals with guns, but that means profiling, which is not always politically practical (or legal). They know how to protect crowds in planned spaces, like Times Square or parades.
Police still don’t know how to stop the lone wolf, the “nice guy” or “normal gal” who decides to do the unthinkable, or who becomes radicalized by propaganda, politics, some perceived injustice, or religion, and emerges into the spotlight only when they have completed their carnage.
Perhaps the answer is not with the police. It seems we have a societal sickness, and we’ve been ducking the diagnosis for far too long. We can choose between paranoia and the Paraclete. I choose the latter.
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Is it new? Probably not, and if anything there's less murder now than decades ago. If there is something new it's about where said killings occur. The thing that's new is making it national news, 'cause news media needs content - and much of it would have just been local news back in the day.
Moreover, it's not like Americans have a unique issue with mental health or political violence compared to other developed nations. The difference is the easy access to guns which make it much easier to kill more people at one time, which most other developed nations do not allow easy access to such weapons.
But there's little point in rehashing the arguments about mitigating gun violence, or for having better access to mental health treatment - because prevention is for some reason anathema.
Can you tell me more about your last two sentences?