Plenty of people abuse animals. But some have especially cruel methods.
By Arnold Arluke February 21
Arnold Arluke, an emeritus professor of sociology and anthropology at Northeastern University, is author of “Just a Dog: Understanding Animal Cruelty and Ourselves.â€
Inevitably, a mass shooting is followed by a public account of the “warning signs†the killer may have evinced in the months and years before the attack: bullying, isolation, vacant gazes, loss of parents, violent ideations, school expulsion, depression, explosive outbursts. One of the most common, though — hurting animals — is also the only one that is sometimes illegal and, therefore, the only one that could theoretically be used to bring troubled youths into the mental and criminal justice systems before they do something horrible.
Before he confessed to killing 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, Nikolas Cruz, too, allegedly abused animals. In elementary school, Cruz began shooting squirrels and chickens; as a teenager, he is said to have killed frogs, tried to maim a neighbor’s baby potbelly pigs and tried to crush animals trapped in rabbit holes. On Instagram, he boasted about killing animals and posted images of dead ones.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/02/21/how-reliably-does-animal-torture-predict-a-future-mass-shooter/?utm_term=.ccf911fdbca9
