Stony Brook study charts history of violent school threats in eastern Suffolk

The majority of students who threatened violence or brought a weapon to an eastern Suffolk public school over a 20-year span had psychiatric disorders and been victims of physical abuse, according to a new report by Stony Brook University child psychiatry experts.

While previous studies have focused on school shooters, the new findings, published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, are the result of what they believe is the first comprehensive study of students who had made a threat. Researchers studied the characteristics, symptoms and diagnoses of students sent to child and adolescent psychiatrists after a school threat.

"Students who make a threat need to be understood beyond that threat itself and need to understand their underlying problem." said Dr. Deborah Weisbrot, the study's lead author and a clinical professor in the psychiatry department at the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook. "And, really going into depth as to what these kids needed led to revelations about their psychiatric diagnosis and what they needed in terms of treatments."

The research team examined threat assessment evaluations of 157 students from 19 school districts in eastern Suffolk County who were referred to Stony Brook's Child and Adolescent Outpatient Clinic — now known as the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Outpatient Clinic at Stony Brook Medicine — by school staff between 1998 and 2019.

The students, who were on average 13 years old, shared many similarities, the study found.

• Most had one or more psychiatric diagnoses, such as attention deficit disorder, hyperactivity, depression, anxiety or learning disorders, or were on the autism spectrum.
• Roughly half had a history of psychiatric medication treatment and were receiving special education services.
• Almost 90% reported experiencing significant traumatic life experiences; more than 52% dealt with physical abuse, while 43% had a history of being bullied.

In 63% of the cases studied, evaluators recommended returning students to their prior schools, the study found. Psychotherapy was suggested for almost 80% of the youths, and medication for nearly 90%.

Verbal threats were made by 80% of the students in the study, while close to 30% either brought a weapon such as a knife to school or a bullet, researchers found. 

"Only a very small minority were found to be emergently in need of a hospitalization or intervention by the police," Weisbrot said.

Dr. Victor Fornari, chief of the division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, estimated that about 20% of youths under the age of 18 meet the criteria for at least one psychiatric disorder.

"So it's not surprising that those youth would be the ones who are at higher risk of exhibiting a variety of behavioral disturbances including aggression," Fornari said. "However, the vast majority of youth and the population with psychopathology are not violent, so it's a very small minority of this sample that has aggressive tendencies."

A growing percentage of threats by students who need psychiatric care now come via social media, Weisbrot said, adding that "even kids who make social media threats who said, 'Oh, it's nothing. It's a joke. Everybody does that.' Even those students had significant issues of concern."

In its conclusion, the report recommends a more thorough mental health evaluation of students who've made a threat that goes "beyond simply assessing the threat itself and should include identifying underlying psychiatric problems."

"Psychiatric evaluation of students who issue threats of any type can lead to revelations about psychiatric diagnoses and crucial treatment and educational recommendations," the report states.

By Robert Brodsky

robert.brodsky@newsday.com@BrodskyRobert

Robert Brodsky is a breaking news reporter who has worked at Newsday since 2011. He is a Queens College and American University alum.