Academic Study Links Mass Shootings to Community Mobbing

Dr. Kenneth Westhues, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, University of Waterloo, Canada, writes:

"Most of the people who go postal, however, in academic as in other workplaces, have been mobbed there in preceding months or years."

     Seeking answers to explain the pandemic of mass shootings in workplaces and colleges in the recent history of North America, with emphasis on the United States, Dr. Westhues studied academic and workplace mobbing/group bullying. Westhues found, with few exceptions, a link between these mass shootings and the mobbing of the shooter in the workplace and educational institution that became the "massacre theater":

http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~kwesthue/vtmassacre.htm

     In nearly every mass shooting, Westhues found that a programmatic system of workplace or academic bullying had systematically isolated, scapegoated and humiliated the victim and virtually groomed the shooter for the role of monster. The role of psychiatry, police, and administrative bureaucracy as "threat assessment teams" and "safety prevention" was not only an utter failure, but, moreover, prompted the very acts of mass violence they sought to prevent.      In the above-linked, peer-reviewed academic journal article Westhues has found a link between mass shootings and community mobbing, that has eluded authorities, University officials, and, obviously, the Mainstream Media.      Westhues makes clear that key instigators willfully initiate the mobbing process in both academic and work theaters. These are made up of faculty and students, and, co-workers and management, respectively. The modus operandi is thus:

 A common way mobbings play out is that one or a handful of voluntary participants, who typically have strong feelings about the target, call down on the target a debilitating bureaucracy, an organized array of social-control specialists who take aggressive action not from ill-will or deep conviction, but as routine performance of their job responsibilities. This was very much the case in the mobbing of Cho in the student residence, which compounded the effect of the mobbing in Cho's home department.

http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~kwesthue/vtmassacre.htm

     The effect of the mobbing initiated by key agitators is to bring down the weight of the entire institution/bureaucracy on the mobbing victim. The end game is to thoroughly isolate, humiliate, and, if need be, destroy the mobbing victim under the collective ill will of the institution:

Mobbing is defined by contagion of opinions, so that virtually everybody in a workplace recoils against the very mention of the target’s name. It is the weight of collective ill-will that gives mobbing its power.

http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~kwesthue/vtmassacre.htm

     Several years before the VA Tech massacre, a student named Joe Newbury was mobbed at VA Tech by some of the same faculty members as Cho! He wrote an insightful essay on the subject called The Truth About the VT Shootings. The VA Tech faculty, the local police, the local Police Chief, and, even the FBI, are all implicated as villains in Newbury's account, that, in some ways, is worse than Cho's:

http://truthaboutvtshooting.blogspot.com/

     Community mobbing a.k.a. "gang stalking" is an extension of the mobbing process into the very community in which the target/victim lives. In the United States today, the federal government has clearly institutionalized the gang stalking Program across all of the states, providing the financing and logistical support that could not come from any other source than federal government.      It is clear that the gang stalking Program has been implicated in workplace violence. This fact has been confirmed by the author through police records obtained through the California Public Records Act:    Candice Nguyen from KION is doing a story ion this phenomenon called "Gang Stalking". It has nothing to do with "gangs", rather it is a form of cyberbullying. The intent is a psychological impact and socially ostresizing the targeted person. With tools available to track someone (Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, etc) it has made people more vulnerable to this. It has implications to workplace violence, love relationships gone bad, etc.

http://www.stopos.info/lt-richard-pub-rec-request.pdf

     The upshot of the media blackout on academic and workplace mobbing, and, the gang stalking Program, has been an exponential increase in violence, including mass shootings in workplaces and college campuses across the country in recent years.

     Half (50%) of all school shootings recorded in U.S. history have occurred in the past 5 years:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_shooting#United_States

     Statistics show workplace bullying affects 75 percent of the workforce and the media ignores it:

Statistics[6] from the 2007 WBI-Zogby survey show that 13% of U.S. employees report being bullied currently, 24% say they have been bullied in the past and an additional 12% say they have witnessed workplace bullying. Nearly half of all American workers (49%) report that they have been affected by workplace bullying, either being a target themselves or having witnessed abusive behavior against a co-worker.

Although socio-economic factors may play a role in the abuse, researchers from the Project for Wellness and Work-Life[1] suggest that "workplace bullying, by definition, is not explicitly connected to demographic markers such as sex and ethnicity" (p. 151). Because 1 in 10 employees experiences workplace bullying, the prevalence of this issue is cause for great concern, even as initial data about this issue are reviewed.

In 2008, Dr. Judy Fisher-Blando[7] wrote a doctoral research dissertation on Aggressive Behavior: Workplace Bullying and Its Effect on Job Satisfaction and Productivity.[8] The scientific study determined that almost 75% of employees surveyed had been affected by workplace bullying, whether as a target or a witness. Further research showed the types of bullying behaviour, and organizational support.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workplace_bullying

     Media reports of the pandemic of mass shootings over the last two decades are incomplete, leaving out many high profile multiple homicide shootings:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/20/us/worst-u-s-shootings-timeline/index.html
http://timelines.latimes.com/deadliest-shooting-rampages/

http://www.denverpost.com/theatershooting/ci_21123378/interactive-timeline-history-u-s-mass-shootings

http://www.newsmax.com/US/mass-shootings-us-colorado/2012/07/20/id/445971

External links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobbing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Westhues

http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~kwesthue/vtmassacre.htm

http://truthaboutvtshooting.blogspot.com/

http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~kwesthue/westhues070824.htm

http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~kwesthue/unkindlyart.htm

http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~kwesthue/mobbing.htm

     An excellent academic paper on mass murder in the workplace in contemporary America and Canada linked to mobbing:

http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~kwesthue/howarda0708.htm

     Here is what a commercial website offering corporate HR advice on workplace violence and mobbing issues has to say on the magnitude of the problem:
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It seems that bullying in schools is a top concern nowadays. News stories reveal the harsh reality of bullying in middle and high schools across the country. But is this something that extends beyond the classroom and into the workplace?

Studies show that nearly 50 percent of workers have been exposed to bullying or some other form of workplace harassment. With such a staggering number, HR managers are being asked more and more to respond to claims of workplace bullying and mobbing – even at the supervisory level. It’s not something that should be taken lightly, and failure to handle a situation correctly can lead to unhappy employees, an unhealthy work environment, thousand of dollars in lost productivity, and costly lawsuits.

http://www.hrlaws.com/audio/YE2941

     Professor Kenneth Westhues exposes the link between community mobbing a.k.a. gang stalking, and, mass shootings:

http://gangstalkingismurder.wordpress.com/

http://my.nowpublic.com/world/academic-study-links-mass-shootings-community-mobbing

      The question remains with a mass shooting becoming a nightly news event every couple of weeks, why is this angle being ignored by the MSM and so-called "alternative media"?

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