So those puzzle pieces now are coming together and they add up far more to dangerous behavior not just nuisance behavior. Rose from tragedy in washington to chemical weapons in syria we talk to david sanger of the New York Times and gary sam mortar of harvard, he is a former proliferation expert in the obama administration. As we get into this agreement and as we get into the destruction phase which is supposed to take place in november i can imagine the Assad Government saying wait a second im not going to give up my chemical weapons if youre sending weapons to the opposition. So this whole thing could become very complicated for the administration if it interferes with what i think is an effort on the part of the white house to step up support for the opposition. Rose tragedy in washington and chemical weapons in syria. Next. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose we begin with the tragedy in washington. Investigators look for clues as to why fworpler u. S. Navy reservists opened fire inside a Washington Building inside the Washington Navy yard on monday. The f. B. I. Has identified the shooter as 4yearold contractor aaron alexis. Yesterday he walked on to the historic naval base and killed the 12 employees before police shot him dead. In his address to the nation last night, president obama called the attack yet another mass shooting and a cowardly act. Joining me now from washington maryellen otoole, she was one of the f. B. I. s most senior criminal profilers and is the author of the book dangerous instincts. Here in new york former f. B. I. Deputy director tim murphy and my colleague cbs news Senior Correspondent john miller. I want to begin with john miller and lead me through all of this. The what questions are we asking should beasking and take advantage of the experience of tim and maryellen. The motive. Are we dealing with terrorism or a sick individual . As we get more granularity it looks like were dealing with someone who has emotional and mental issues who acted out yesterday. In those cases, when you get to motive its often very unsatisfying because if you can find why they think they did it it doesnt make sense to us. Rose mary ellen, youve looked at this. Tell me what you see in this man well, what i see someone with a lot of cop tra dictions, incob consistent behavior. Some people say hes a sweet young man. Some people say hes very aggressive. The concern is what he has been in the past acting out in an aggressive way its very disproportionate to the offense. Going back to 2004 when he shot the tires out of some construction workers, is 2010 when he shot around through his neighbors ceiling, his behavior when hes aggressive is disproportionate to what happened and when i see that behavior i refer to that as an injustice collector. And when you too old that the likelihood that there could be not just mental issues but even serious mental issues, that can make him an extremely dangerous individual. Rose and should we have seen signs . I mean, obviously people do all kinds of irrational things leading up to doing something thats much, much, much worse. And tragic. But should we have seen this and should rational people have said thats irrational and we have to be warned . We did see signs. We saw signs after each arrest and when he was interviewed for his behavior and we saw signs when he was in the military and he created what theyre calling a pattern of misconduct. So those puzzle pieces are now coming together and they add up far more to dangerous behavior, not just nuisance behavior. And as someone whos done hundreds of threat assessments over the years i know sometimes the general public will look at behavior and theyll say, well, this is a young man with problem if my colleagues and i on the other hand will say this is a man whos dangerous. Rose and whats the difference . Well, when you look at someone whos dangerous, that means they can act out in a violent way towards their neighbors or towards their coworkers. This individual is very hypervigilant to any kind of criticism, as evidenced in his prior contacts with Law Enforcement. You cant go to work everyday, you cant have roommates and neighbors and not at some point have a fight or an argument or disagreement. When this has happened to him at least we have multiple incidents where hes pulled out a gun. So as his life continues and he has more life trauma his coping behavior is to pull out a gun. Thats a huge red flag. Rose subpoena there a triger . A trigger incident he . A trigger something that causes people to go from someone who is an injustice collector who a grievance collector, to someone who wants to walk in and shoot not only someone who may be responsible for grievance but other people as well . There are probably multiple triggers here but whats important is the thinking behind this behavior would have preexisted this crime maybe as much as several years. What i mean by that is they have to begin to think about what it would be like to solve their problems by killing all their coworkers. How would they do it . Its fueled by other instances of mass homicide. So much that thinking evolvings probably years ago and it came to sort of its fruition yesterday. But its definitely not snapping behavior. This took a long time for him to get to the point where he decided this was how he was going to handle his issues, his problems, his complaints, his need for revenge. You know, there was an incident on friday of last week where a supervisor took him on the side and said you installed one of these cubicles wrong. One of the i. T. Things. Mary ellen, is it possible that something that small could have been a last straw . I think its it certainly is, john, especially if there were other people around that are either heard it or he thinks heard it that hi would feel this sense of humiliation. Thats a thats a very bad emotion for someone who is an injustice collector. If they feel theyve been publicly humiliated. It may have been o a scale of 110 between him and his supervisor a 2. He, on the other hand, probably saw it as a 10 plus because of the circumstances. So that could have been the straw. And its not just shes absolutely right, charlie. Its not just this case. The bureau has handed or responded to a number of these offenses and then they take a look back. They do a scrub just like theyre doing on this individual getting his whole life laid out in exactly what were the preattack indicators and in all the past event there iss been preattack indicators when you look back. But the problem with the preattack indicators the family knows about us, friends know about it, the psychiatrist know about it. Law enforce system never brought in on the picture or its brought in in disparate areas. Seattle event happens, texas an event happened. Rose and people who know the indicators dont know what to do about them . And dont know who to report it to, especially when it comes to Mental Health issues. So the bureau and other agencies have looked back to determine what are the preincident indicators and what are the triggers . Rose and what would you add in terms of indicators . I think the indicators are that. You have to event in seattle. You have a reported event in texas. You have its come out that the navy cited him for eight different misconduct events. Whos looking at that in the hole . Those are all different type of indicatorss. I have to say there always is a trigger from the past suspects that weve had there was always a triggering event. It was a change of job, a relationship problem, a domestic problem, a work other business problem. Rose l. I think a picture emerges here as tim and mary ellen have framed it of a guy whos not where he thinks he should be. He dropped out of high school, got an equivalency degree. He didnt finish college, he was back in school again. He listed on his resume on the classified site for resumes where you get Security Work reporting live from a clearance that he hoped to make 30,000 to 40,000 which is aiming pretty flow the i. T. Field. So i think he looked at you know, this guy has a college degree, hes doing better. This guy got promoted in the navy, i didnt. And this is building up and hes probably blaming people around him. Rose tim, whats the f. B. I. Doing right now . Well, today even this far a day later theyre most likely still at the scene. The Evidence Response Team is still at the scene. Theyre doing trajectory analysis, behavioral analysiss there, victim assistance and witnesses probably set up there. Theyre scrubbing this individuals life all over the country. In other words you have new york j. T. T. F. , inpatient intel with the f. B. I. Looking at his background up here. At the same time you have seattle offices of the f. B. I. And their state and local partners doing the same thing as well as texas. I think we have to get anothertoanother question here and this is the provocative question for television which is mary ellen told me a long time ago that one of these guys doesnt see the last one on television and go out and do a mass shooting basically. But disturbed individuals who are already thinking about doing Something Like that see the last guy and that tends to accelerate their plans. I could be that guy. That could be me. Rose the whole world could be talking about me. About my name. So when is the conference of Television News executives where they get together with Law Enforcement professionals and say how do we handle these guys . Because if you look at the last two years theres been one of these after another after another, you can start with aurora, you can start before that, you can go through newtown and say how do we redefine making that guy famous for a week if that is his or her ultimate goal . Rose how do you answer the question yourself . I would say its a worthwhile discussion. And i think the Empirical Data that the news media would probably demand before they said were going to either cover these less or cover them in a different way. There was the shooting, these are the consequences, we can have one day of walltowall coverage because people need to know. But what do you do on the second day . Do you keep mentioning the killers name . Do you use his pictures . Do you talk about his problems . Do you go through his collection of injustices dorr you say the next guy is watching this now and hes thinking that could be me. How would we minimize that. The question i think we have to have and mary ellen might fill this in is how much effect does the last guy have . Rose mary ellen . How much does the last guy have . I think the last guy has a huge effect and it e it may be three last guys before this one. But i think this copycat effect is really one of the pink elephants in the room but its its so important. Is we give it lip service, but to these individuals that carry out very similar plans, theyre mission oriented, they want maximum lethality, they want to stop the world and be on t. V. For a week long period of time, its hugely important. Thats part of their motivation from my experience is to have that power and that thrill seeking experience. Rose do we know from all those that have been studied that these are people who have a low selfesteem or a high selfesteem and dont think the world understands them which is it . They see themselves differently depending on the case were talking about, columbine versus Virginia Tech versus the shooter yesterday. So in columbine, for example, erik harris was very arrogant and really held himself in high regard. And this shooter yesterday may be less so. So its degrees. But when you start to look at the behavior and how theyre going to rectify their life, those are the common threads. But theyre not all cookie cutter personalities and i think its also important to point out if they do have Mental Health issues they all dont have the same Mental Health issue. And so, you know, i know theres talk about rounding up all the people that have Mental Health issues and keeping guns out of their hands and the question is, well, who do you round up . The depressed ones . How about the psychopath i can ones . So we have to recognize their differences but we also want to recognize their commonalties and i think from that that i agree with tim and john, there has to be a wrap around approach to how we address this. Its no longer just a Law Enforcement problem issue. I mean, one of the questions is how does an individual like alexis fly under the radar screen no . So lets take it on paper which is 2020 hindsight and unfair. But i am the u. S. Navy. Am i going to take a guy that shot out tires of cars that he thought was blocking driveways, fired a gun through his neighbors floor because of noise complaints . Am i going give him a secret clearance. Am i going to let him work in secure government facilities. Now the answers to that are well he wasnt prosecuted for those. So while the arrest charge was there, he wasnt convicted, how does the same person buy a gun the same answer . So part of this is do we need to improve that radar in those background checks . This is a case where you have an i. T. Specialist with a security clearance. These the same questions theyre raising about contractors, snontd, the n. S. A. Leaks. Are we looking at these people hard enough. Rose are we . Well, certain agencies are and certain arent depending on whether youre a contractor or federal employee. So it varies but with four to five million individuals with security clearances and the urgency to get them down there was pushing government over the last few years to speed up these backgrounds and now hindsight again unfair looking back are we rushing some of these too far . Are we not making good decisions on looking at the whole person and either eliminating them or taking their clearances away. Rose youre former Deputy Director of the f. B. I. Suppose turn director of the f. B. I. Today and the president of the United States call i dont say into the oval office seasoned and says what do we do . What do we do as Public Officials . What do we do as Law Enforcement. What do we do as journalists . What do we do in the Health Care Field . Where do we begin to take steps that somehow we can at least make some progress in stopping this because it seems to be an epidemic. Its an interesting question and the answer is theyve already done that. So i think it was this year, in january of this year the white house brought d. H. S. , the department of Homeland Security and the f. B. I. Together and said how do we respond better to an active Shooter Event . And so they charged d. H. S. With the f. B. I. To going out there and determining the state and locals, making sure everybody is getting the training they need from the command staff down to the Police Officer. Rose and that works . That works perfectly. Rose i want to come back to how it works perfectly but go ahead. But part of that plan, from what i understand that plan to be, is that they were supposed to work with the communities and try to work their way through preattack indicators discussing educations with schools telling them what preattack indicators were so those were included but i dont think to the level they need to be to help solve this problem. Thats one of the intersections here thats a very difficult one. If you look at the aurora shooter heres something where his school referred him for psychological help where the psychiatrist helping him wrote up theres indicators that this individual is dangerous and then the person left the school. Well, then he wasnt there problem anymore. There wasnt a reach out the the local policetor county to say we have concerns about this person. And the bar is set incredibly high for medical professionals and psychiatry and psychology about whether you can form Law Enforcement. If you think that they are an imn imminent danger, if theyre about to do something tomorrow you can breach patient contractualty. Other than that youre supposed to keep that counsel. Thats another thing that after the shootings people say we need to take a second look at that because in yesterdays case we had someone who had been in and out of treatment. In aurora we did and others we have and we have to ask where does patient contractualty weigh against Public Safety . Rose what does Law Enforcement do . But to borrow mary ellens phrase its not a cookie cutter solution. Lets take aurora as a model hoochlt ears somebody who created a notebook that his pictures of him shooting and threatening language. Thats the thing where Law Enforcement cant show up and arrest him but they can go there conduct an interview, ask questions, they can then begin to make an assessment. Is it the fix no, but it puts them on the radar. Rose id love to know if there are people headed down mary ellen has establish shed sees a building rage. Are there people that somehow that rage has been seen, spotted and somehow been able to channel it away from a violent act . Mary ellen . Oh, most definitely. And i wouldnt use the word raej, actually. In these cases where theyre more predatory in nature, the missionoriented go in with a lot of weapons. These shooters in these cases are almost hypoemotional. Meaning without emotion. And the witnesses and the survivors are probably going to tell us not sure yet, but i would expect theyre going to say yesterday he walked coolly and calmly, he didnt seem to be upset, he just seemed to be very matter of fact about what he was doing. Thats certainly been the case in other Mass Shootings of this type. So i would expect that hes, in fact, not rageful on the surface but actually hypoemotional and sometimes often times thats even worse because you can look right at someone like that and you cant tell whats going on with them because its all inside. Rose factor in now at this point in the conversation guns. What does and wheres the connection and what do we know from all the cases youv