Assassination Motives
Park Dietz, MD, MPH, PhD
The nation awaits the FBI’s announcement of the motive of Thomas Matthew Crooks in shooting at President Trump in Pennsylvania. The reasons we want to pin a motive on a criminal depend on where we sit. Understanding the why is useful to those of us who analyze a criminal to help identify him, catch him, predict his behavior, or assess his mental state at the time of the offense. But for the public, the desire to know why stems from the need to feel safe—feeding the illusion that knowing will help protect us from victimization—and the need to project the blame from human imperfection onto external targets, such as extremist groups, political foes, and the ideologies with which we disagree.
In fact, however, every criminal has multiple motives, though one may predominate in any particular case. For assassins, two motives predominate: grievance and performance.
In a 1978 meeting with the U.S. Secret Service in the office of Dr. Shervert Frazier, my Chairman at Harvard, I suggested they screen for “injustice collectors” as the sorts of people who would attempt assassination. Since then, others have widened the concept to that of grievances. But grievance is a broad category, encompassing all manner of extremism, personal and political grudges, and anything else stoking anger. As has become clear in recent decades, grievances that once might have been resolved among reasonable people through civil discourse are often inflamed by the repetition, hyperbole, and appeal to emotions that have become characteristic of social media. Those without a social network capable of providing sensible feedback when their beliefs veer astray are particularly vulnerable to acquiring and nurturing grievances, hence the prevalence of loners (often those with paranoid, schizoid, or autistic traits) among those acting violently on their grievances.
The less familiar performance motive occurs when the assassin seeks infamy. During the trial of John Hinckley, the theme I developed for the prosecution team was “fame without work.” This theme was inspired by Hinckley’s desire to have his photograph on the cover of Time magazine, which I thought originated in his envy of the oil paintings of his siblings hanging in the family home, with no picture of John in sight. He reveled in the memory of being transported by well-armed U.S. Marshals in a helicopter. He was rewarded with a cover on Newsweek. He told me, “I got everything I was going for.”
But neither grievance nor performance is sufficient, as other necessary conditions are achieving sufficient proximity to the target to employ the available weapons and a willingness to die.
The distance at which an assailant has sufficient proximity to the target depends on the weapons available. Blunt instruments or edged weapons generally require proximity within 15 yards, handguns or shotguns 50 yards, and rifles 200 yards, except for the best trained shooters with the best weapons. The longest distance from which a U.S. assassination has occurred was Oswald’s 93-yard rifle shot. The critical importance of proximity underscores the value of predicting which of the many people with grievances will approach the target victim, which is an essential element in assessing threats and other inappropriate communications. Concentric rings of perimeter security surrounding public figures are designed to prevent proximity, but outdoor venues are the most difficult to control.
To plan, prepare, and execute an attack with little chance of both survival and escape requires that the assailant believe the benefits of success outweigh the risks. Those benefits may be perceived by the assassin as achieving infamy of historic proportions, shaming those they believe have mistreated them, or ridding the world of a perceived threat.
Crooks’ motives will not remain unknown for long. They will soon become clear from his personal writings, Internet search history, and the interviews of those who knew him best.