Apologies. I screwed up that post. I'd started it meaning to try to tick thru common themes that might lie behind some of the rash of random highway shootings that we've been seeing this year. But pretty soon I was listing every motivation I could think of, whether they could help explain the national rash or not.
In retrospect, I should have stuck with themes or motivations susceptible to quick changes. For that reason, I probably should have left mental health themes out. While these crimes probably all involve metal problems, one way or another, we wouldn't expect changes in the occurrence of mental illness to roll thru the population quickly enough to cause the fast increases we have seen.
I do think that we have to be looking for something organized and conspiratorial, or something 'viral' that is spreading itself undirected. But I think that the risk of either would be enough to get anti-terrorist agencies involved, no? They wouldn't wait for evidence of terrorist activity to come in on the cases, would they?
<BBM for Focus>
Unless there is an established pattern of domestic terrorism related highway/interstate shootings indicated by the FBI VICAP database which the public is unaware of. Or a recently intercepted order from Al Qaeda or ISIS activating sleeper cells or jihadist lone wolves to carry out highway shootings in the US.
A few years ago at a CUE Missing Person Conference, I attended a very informative presentation by the BAU VICAP Supervisor of the FBI's Long Haul Trucker Serial Killer Initiative which was secretly established at Quantico, VA in 2004. This very successful initiative wasn't released publicly until 5 years later in April 2009.
________________
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-10-05-1Ahighwaykiller05_CV_N.htm <Map>
FBI makes a connection between long-haul truckers, serial killings
A bureau database includes more than 500 female victims, most of whom were killed and their bodies dumped at truck stops, motels and other spots along popular trucking routes crisscrossing the U.S.
April 05, 2009|Scott Glover
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/apr/05/local/me-serialkillers5
Michael Harrigan, who oversees the Highway Serial Killings Initiative, said the program helps local police "connect the dots" to slayings outside their jurisdictions. He said most of the victims led high-risk lifestyles that left them particularly vulnerable.
"We don't want to scare the public and make it seem like every time you stop for gas you should look over your shoulder," Harrigan said. "Many of these victims made poor choices, but that doesn't mean they deserved to die."
Though most of the entries in the database pertain to unsolved slayings, cases that authorities consider "cleared," or solved, remain in it so that investigators may potentially link additional crimes to a known perpetrator. There are also entries on sexual assaults and missing-person cases linked to highway locations. FBI officials declined to provide The Times with a more detailed breakdown of the database's contents.
The program's success depends largely on local police departments' voluntarily providing data on seemingly random killings, sexual assaults and other violent crimes to the FBI, where it is stored in a massive computer database. FBI analysts can query the computer to spot patterns that might otherwise go unnoticed.
<snipped - read more>
______________
Serial Killer ~ Killer Truckers Documentary HD
[video=youtube;ta1agO4x_4Q]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta1agO4x_4Q[/video]
