Petula Dvorak, in today's WaPo, notes the work of Antoinette Tuff, bookkeeper at Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy in Decatur, Ga, in preventing another young gunman from committing another mass killing.
Anyone interested in how to prevent such a crime-in-progress should hear her successful effort.
Tuff did absolutely brilliant negotiation work.
She continually reassured him, preventing him from impulsive action.
She treated him with the respect that he was obviously hungry for, keeping his likelihood of narcissistic rage, the most frequent precursor of violence, at bay.
She provided him with the very justifications that he hoped to believe, so that he would not act out with hopeless, suicidal rage.
And she made a connection with the assailant, so that he would trust and follow her persistent, comforting yet effective direction.
Unlike many, who, giving in to their own self-righteous fury, would have played directly into the assailant's all-too-present handbook of suicidal rage.
Better than many FBI hostage negotiations, that have ended far more tragically.
