The effort the police department puts into finding you is directly proportion to the severity of the crime. If you rob a convenience store of $75, it’s not too hard to get away with it if you plan ahead; they’ll give up looking for you very quickly. Rob a bank of $7500 and you better have a really good plan, because they’ll put a lot of effort into finding you. Rob multiple banks and you are literally some detective’s primary job. Murder someone and they will never stop looking - even if the case goes cold, every now and then they take it out and see what they can come up with.
If you shot up a school I simply cannot see how you could get away with it. Your ingress and egress from the school will be traceable somehow. If it’s a student who shoots the place up, as specified in the OP, they’re doomed, because the police would absolutely, positively investigate every single student who goes there. In GREAT detail. Federal agents would be summoned to help. Not a stone would be unturned, not a clue passed over. The connection between student and school means the shooter cannot avoid investigation, and that investigation would be astoundingly thorough - and would be necessary only on the one in a hundred thousand chance the shooter somehow escapes the school without anyone knowing who it is.
It is if anything more difficult to get away with crime than it used to be - I think that’s a big part of why there’s less crime. It was quite a bit easier 40 years ago, a hell of a lot easier 60 years ago, and ludicrously easy 120 years ago (when crime levels were much higher than I think people realize.)
I agree - with a school shooting up close and personal, the shooter isn’t going to escape for long; but a sniper could murder a number of people from afar and escape, if they were careful, did their murdering quickly, and then moved on. Key would be to have no obvious ties to the location or persons of the victims.
Another thought: I cannot recall a single instance where a school shooting was ever carried out by a girl/woman. Might help the suspect avoid suspicion since she wouldn’t fit the profile of a school shooter. (Assuming she can remain masked from any cameras or eyewitnesses, her body figure doesn’t give her away, her voice isn’t heard, she is known for good behavior, good grades, no disciplinary record, no known motives, etc.)
Based on the way the question/s are written it could happen. For the second quote, is a crime considered “unsolved” unless you convict someone? I’m thinking of the OJ murders. Everyone knows who did it, but (correct me if I’m wrong) the crimes are officially unsolved. So perhaps you could have a very well-funded, trained, and legally advised kid go in and shoot his school up, then surrender and lawyer up. His dad or billionaire evil uncle assembles a new dream team, and though everyone would know who did it, the kids actually gets found not guilty and walks. That’s cheating the spirit of the question I think, but we’ve seen it happen where investigators got their guy, tried him, and still lost.
Going by the first quote, I think (as others have pointed out) that you’d have to have a kid shoot up a school completely unconnected to him. Could you have a situation similar to the Washington snipers where you have an older person with special knowledge train the kid, plan out the crime, then drive the kid to an unknown school across the country and send him in? It wouldn’t matter that nobody from the school would recognize the new kid - maybe even have him wear a mask; just plan his entry at a time and place where lots of students are congregated, slip in and shoot the place up, then ditch the weapon & mask and run out with all the other panicking students after 5 minutes of shooting.
Take advantage of the chaos and jog away with the other kids, hop in the get away car several blocks away and leave. Didn’t the Washington snipers get stopped once or twice at road blocks but just got waved through because police didn’t know who they were looking for (and had the wrong make of vehicle)? Yes they’ll find the gun and kid’s DNA, but who will they compare it to? Then the older guy can take the kid to a remote hide out, kill him, and torch all the evidence. How would that get solved… especially if he gets overcome with guilt and hangs himself even further away and leaves no note or confession?
I think he would have been caught anyways eventually because:
He left his gun which could be traced by the serial numbers.
People knew he was a psycho and as the police start looking around for a male about his age, they would have found him.
I really think someone would have turned him in. I mean lets say he made it home. Someone would have asked where he was all day and what happened to his gun.
He took an Uber ride to get to the school. he would have been traced thru that.
He would have been - as that was his intention. (as evidenced by all the comments about “famous school shooter” that he allegedly made) - you can’t be famous if no one knows you name)
Thats why I said ‘if he was inclined’ - he had the opportunity to “get away” - he didn’t take it.
I also said we would likely know “who” pretty quickly -but finding them may be a whole different issue.
Perhaps, but if you murder someone you have a38% chance of getting away with it. But that’s just one person at a time, a mass shooting is a different scenario. Also, schools have a lot of security cameras and a very large number of witnesses.
I suspect murderers who are careful and aren’t killing someone with an obvious connection (aka there is no reason for the police to even know their name when they start listing suspects) and who wear gloves, etc, probably are most of that 38%. Those True Crime shows make it seem like the odds are 1%, but they are almost half.
I suspect that perhaps 5% of “solved” murders are a false conviction of someone who didn’t commit the crime, as well, (false conviction rate is probably 5-10%) so that means the real killer probably gets away with it closer to 50% of the time.
Though like a poster pointed out above, maybe we’d have a better society if everyone believed the odds of getting away with murder were zero. We’d definitely have a better society if the odds were zero - lots fewer would happen.
What opportunity? His face would have been plastered all over the news. He didn’t have a car. Let’s say he steals a car and escapes town. Now what? It’s just a matter of time before the authorities spot the vehicle with the stolen plates. (if he doesn’t get caught in a roadblock first). Anywhere he stays, people may recognize his face from the news. And don’t get me started on boarder crossings.
It’s not impossible for him to stay free at least for a while. The Barefoot bandit was able to survive in the woods for years. Of course, people didn’t think he was a mass murderer. There are people who have stayed completely hidden in the woods somewhere for decades, stealing stuff from other people to survive. So maybe.
Or maybe he could steal a yacht from a marina and escape…except he probably doesn’t know how to sail.
The shooters are troubled kids, male, and associated with the school.
It is not adults, professional killers, females – yet — and for this reason, they get caught. The mental reason why they commit the crime have already been covered.
I am striking out on coming up with a logical reason for an adult with no ties to a place or it’s peoples doing this and just training a kid to do do it. Why? All the other reasons for murders do not gather around a mass school shooting. So far, have not they all been tied to the school in some way personally?
How old was the Texas Tower shooter? And didn’t he have ties to that university?
Even without adult education schools, trade schools, places that cater to adults, where this spree killing is rare to almost non-existent?
So we will probably always be dealing with these troubled kid and the chances of them even wanting to get away with it is a non-starter.
For completion of the get away, I think you need something like the guys in the car trunk but because they are not going to mess with something with the potential for the effort going on solving this kind of crime gives then nothing they might want.
IMHO. they are always going to get caught/killed. So. I don’t think anyone will get away with it. Those that do this particular crime don’t want to get away with it.
Given the magnitude of the crime, I don’t believe a student or anyone for that matter would get away with it.
Our city had a bank robbery a few years back. One suspect went in while suspect #2 remained in the car. They were pretty disciplined. #1 was in and out of the bank in less than 2 minutes. He approached one teller and got money from one drawer and exited the building to a running car. Suspect #2 did not speed away breaking any laws. He simply made 2 right turns and a left into a busy parking garage.
From the moment they pulled in front of the bank until they disappeared in the parking garage took less than 5 minutes. Within 30 mins from the initial call, we had a really good picture of both of them by way of a traffic camera (not a red light camera) and discovered that the vehicle was stolen. We basically followed them into that parking garage and switched camera locations. 15 mins later we had a video of them parking the stolen car on a level and walking up 2 levels to the drivers own car. As the car left the garage, we were able to obtain his license plate number. Both suspects were arrested that evening.
The best way to get away with a crime…maybe
Have absolutely no motive
Have absolutely no connection to the victim(s)
Do not have ANY accomplices
Be as far away from the crime as possible. (DC Sniper)
Create an alibi.
Tell no one
Do not research anything on the about the crime being committed anywhere.
Don’t commit that crime again.
If a crime against a person is committed…picking the right victim could be the difference between a case being worked diligently or not
Is it a given that nearly all American high schools are outfitted with CCTV covering the vast majority of hallways, outside parking lots, entrances, rooms, etc., or is there still a sizable number of schools that don’t have this sort of footage?
I retired from law enforcement a few years ago so my information is a bit dated but we had about 25 high schools in my surrounding area meaning we also had about 25 middle and elementary schools. All of the newer schools have CCTV, some of the older schools added CCTV along with other security measures and the other schools have nothing.
In all, I would say about 75-80 % are equipped with CCTV and added security measures.
The county where my wife teaches all the schools have CCTV cameras all around the schools.
The school she teaches in is one of the older schools and they routinely catch students doing things on camera because the cameras are virtually everywhere.
It seems like the only reason those guys got caught was because they made the stupid mistake of leaving their own license plate on their #2 get away car assuming there would be no witnesses (people or camera); basically the equivalent of walking into the bank with their government issued IDs stenciled across their backs like pro athletes. Had they simply stolen another plate and put that on their #2 car, all that video footage would have been limited to a general physical description of how many people were involved, the make of cars they used, and when they paid for parking (I’d hope they used cash not a credit card).
Having someone’s picture isn’t identification of that person; nor does knowing the exact moment they walked through the door and how many magazines they loaded during the shooting spree. There are ways to “get away with it” both deliberately and non-deliberately even with CCTV being in a building; the thousands of unsolved murders show that. Its not always a matter of the law not trying hard enough; sometimes there simply isn’t evidence to be found.
I agree a school shooting probably won’t go unsolved, but the OP asked whether it was possible, which it clearly is.
I have this book but have not yet been able to bring myself to read it. I have read Sue Klebold’s book, and it’s beyond heartbreaking. Thank heavens the Parkview shooter’s (I know his name but won’t use it here) parents are both dead.
BTW, when I was the thread title, I was thinking that someone could walk into a school, shoot some kids fatally or not, and get away with it because it turned out to be understandable, as revenge for incessant bullying, rape (of themselves or a female relative), etc. A shooting happened at my junior high in 1972 (I never knew about it until I read about it on that school’s Facebook page) and while nobody was shot, the shooter fired a couple of shots into a wall and several kids had minor injuries from jumping out a first-floor window. More than one person said that the shooter’s target totally had it coming. :eek:
While this didn’t take place at a school, SOMEONE has gotten away with it for a decade! We’ve discussed this case extensively on a true-crime board I sometimes post on, and a lot of us believe that the police know exactly who did it, and are twiddling their thumbs because he was a cop, or related to one. :dubious:
Well Mike, it terms of it being possible to get away with it…yes you’re right because most anything is possible. I would say however it is very very unlikely.
You’re also correct in that a great deal of homicides do go unsolved. One reason that skews that statistic is the fact drug related or gang related homicides are not investigated with the vigor or diligence that other homicides are investigated. In some cities, there is just too much on the plate of investigators to beat the street looking for someone who got killed by rival gang members knowing that your case load is piling up with other cases. Those unsolved homicides are figured into the overall equation.
