Wild-eyed faithful who are not afraid to die

The list of tragic national murder cases continues to grow, from the brothers in the Boston bombing, to the young school killer in Newtown, the sniper who killed firefighters in upstate New York, the shooter at a shopping mall in Portland and the kidnapper in his bunker in Alabama, the kidnapper of four firefighters in Atlanta. The city of Chicago had 44 murders in January 2013 alone, almost as many as my city of San Diego had in all of last year. (Let’s not forget to mention the Aurora, Colorado, movie theater killer or the former alcoholic army soldier who shot the Sikh temple in Wisconsin, both in 2012).

What many of these murderers in public places have in common is their desire to become internationally infamous in a matter of minutes and their need to commit suicide or have the officers who responded do so for them. (Lady Gaga is famous; the Tsarnaev brothers, former LAPD officer Christopher Dorner, Adam Lanza, Seung-Hui Cho, Dylan Klebold, and Eric Harris, and James Holmes are now infamous.)

It is easy for police officers to get into a rhythm while working in the field, where almost all ordinary people and most criminals cooperate with them. While many law enforcement agencies have had their occasional cases of violent mental illness, wanting to come out in the middle of a shooting and have the police make the decision for them, most criminals are neither suicidal nor homicidal.

But if 99 percent of even the most angry and aggressive people give up and eventually give up, and are put in handcuffs after a high-risk vehicle stop, a prolonged chase, or a wrestling match, what about the ones that don’t? Are they afraid of the police, or what they stand for, or the consequences they can bring? In their minds, they have absolutely no reason not to do what they are planning. They already know that the police will come armed to their situation. Only they know if they will surrender to the forces of order, shoot to try to kill them before they commit suicide, or simply make it impossible for the police not to kill them.

Whether the incident is an active shooter situation at a school, university, shopping malls, church, workplace, or as part of an ongoing crime spree that began with the murder of a spouse or all members of the family of the shooter, these actors want to go out big and make themselves known forever in their communities and even around the world.

Shocked friends, surviving family members, neighbors, co-workers, and acquaintances will tell you how shocked they were that such a “quiet man” could do such a thing. But these shooters, with their martyr complexes and unwarranted narcissism, who have lived such short or long lives of quiet despair, don’t care.