Peter Langman, psychologist and school-shooting researcher, will present insights and findings into the different profiles of school shooters and the factors that go into their violent acts at the Gary Ransdell Hall auditorium tonight, WKU announced.
Langman has been invited to speak at WKU by the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences and the Green River Regional Educational Cooperative as part of the Mary E. Hensley lecture series. The lecture will be free and open to the public.
The lecture, titled School Safety: Identifying 3 Types of School Shooters, will discuss the psychology of school shooters. The presentation will showcase a typology of school shooters, dividing them into three distinct categories: psychopathic, psychotic and traumatized. Langman will provide real case examples to demonstrate the range of the perpetrators and the various factors in their crimes.
“Langman’s work is crucial to understanding actions we can take as community members, teachers, and leaders in support of safe school environments,” Corinne Murphy, Dean of the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences, said in an email to Herald. “Through this critical analysis, we demystify the seemingly random acts of school violence, dissuading the perception of profiles and actively supporting safety and wellness in our schools.”
Langman served on Pennsylvania’s Joint State Government Commission’s Advisory Committee on Violence Prevention. His recommendations on preventing school shootings were presented by the American Psychological Association to President Obama in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting. He has written several books, his most recent being Warning Signs: Identifying School Shooters Before They Strike.
There will also be a Q&A session at 10 a.m. Wednesday with Langman in the Gary Ransdell Hall Student Success Center, Jessica Basham, communications specialist for the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences, said in an email to faculty on Tuesday.
News reporter Cameron Shaw can be reached at [email protected].
