The Office of School Safety within the Wisconsin Department of Justice provides crisis response
and recovery following a school shooting as part of its mission.
The Office also operates a threat tip line, threat assessments, and safety preparedness
for schools.
Its director, Trish Kilpin, has been managing that crisis response in the minutes and days
following the Abundant Life Christian School shooting.
She joins us now, and thanks very much for being here.
Well, thank you for having me in highlighting school safety.
What does your crisis response look like?
Well, it's very comprehensive.
We have built a coalition of folks across Wisconsin to be part of crisis response and
recovery teams.
And so we had spent time last summer and the summer before training folks, inviting them
to an academy where I was able to lead them through some evidence-based practices on how
to help schools recover.
And so we were able to draw on those teams that we already developed, and they supported
part of the redification process for the school so that every child that was able to was reunited
with their family.
And now we will be working to empower staff to meet the needs of children in ways that
work to get them back to learning most effectively.
What is that like in the immediate aftermath of something like this when you go in and
are literally hands-on with these people who have experienced this?
It's heavy work.
It is.
It's heavy work.
And it's work that I have a deep passion to make sure we get right.
We want to make sure that our efforts do no harm, and really in the most horrible tragedies,
there's not like one thing that we can say to make it all better for people, but we can
hear them and listen to them, and they can feel the love and the warmth from the community.
And so we've created with them, had them create opportunities for their community, their church
community to gather and support each other.
And that's been really a beautiful process to see.
Your office also runs the Speak Up Speak Out tip line, which I understand has taken thousands
of calls in the past four years, including more than 400 that were potentially lifesaving
in the last year.
Did anyone ever call about the 15-year-old student at Abundant Life?
We don't have any tips pertaining to this prior to the incident, so nothing that came
through so about that individual.
So the police chief said in one of his briefings that this was a targeted shooting, and you
say targeted violence is preventable.
How so?
You know, when somebody decides that they're going to engage in a school shooting or an
act of violence, they typically behave in ways that are observable to others, and it's somewhat
predictable, sadly.
They're in the process of unraveling as an individual, and really most school shooters
show that signs in the months and days and weeks before the event, where we see significant
depression, agitation, mood swings, and then we see that they spend much time planning
and preparing for this act doing research, and that's often observable to others.
More than 82% of the time, other students often know of a student's plan to attack,
so if people in the community see that somebody could be unraveling or they're seeing signs
that somebody is thinking about school violence, they need to report that.
And, you know, we've had over 385 tips to sue so about this, about people planning school
attacks, and so we're able to get that to the local level and have an assess to prevent
that from happening, which as we can see, the aftermath is so great, we need to work
for focus on prevention.
What is the primary driver for people who would commit this kind of violence?
Is it bullying?
Online?
Is it kind of engaging in the darkest corners of the web?
That's a really good question.
So most school shooters do start with a grievance or an upset, and then the individual often
makes a decision, and they progress down that pathway to violence.
But newer research is really showing that it's often in a shared belief system, what we
call an overvalued belief system, that they want to use violence to redress their problem
or solve their grievance.
So it's not only about the bullying, you know, it is something that we need to be paying
attention to and resolve early, so nobody gets to that point of desperation, but it's
also about reshaping some of the thinking that there, you know, we often see that they find
other people who endorse their thinking, and then it grows, and it's part of child development
that, you know, people are not well versed at this, but it's also somebody who's thinking
in a really dangerous way.
Meanwhile, the office of school safety is funded only through September.
In the aftermath of this shooting, it now seems, though, that Republican legislative
leaders are inclined to fund your office.
What's your reaction to that?
Well, I'm not surprised, truthfully, that there's a growing commitment to making sure
that we have funding to continue.
We need to be able to keep doing what works here in Wisconsin.
There have been many school violent incidents that have been averted, have been prevented,
and we need every tool possible.
Schools deserve, or, you know, to be able to count on our office, to know that our trainings,
our program, SUSO, is all going to be available to them, and I just think it's very worrisome
that we need even to consider stopping this funding, preventing us from moving forward
and giving schools and communities and families what they need.
Trish Kilpin, thanks very much.
Thanks for having me.
Can you hear me?
Can you hear me still?
I have a question for you.
I had meant, before we spoke, to ask you about the number of calls that have come into your
speak-up, speak-out, over four years.
What is that number?
I think it's like, well, I have to run it every day, because it keeps growing, but more
than $13,000.
Okay, good.
Just received, and, you know, $389 before the shooting, and now it's even more for planned
school-attacked.
Yeah.
And there's hundreds for weapons and school grounds that have been able to be obtained and
prevent balance.
Yeah.
Well, thank you.
Thank you for the work you do.
Very much.
Thank you.
I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to share this information, and I welcome another
opportunity.
Good.
Thank you so much.
All right.
Bye-bye.
Bye.