The Colorado and Atlanta Mass Shootings: Boys Who Hurt Us Are Boys Who Hurt

For Immediate release:

Contact: (202) 531-9322 Glenn Barker or Dr. Warren Farrell, e: warren@warrenfarrell.com; h/o: 415-259-6343 (Pacific time), thewhitehousecouncil@gmail.com

March 25, 2021

By Warren Farrell, Ph.D

The two mass shootings have left virtually every American feeling some degree of insecurity. We all want to prevent mass shootings, but we differ as to how.

In Dr. Warren Farrell’s research for The Boy Crisis, he uncovered 63 red flags of depression and suicide that warn us that a boy or man may be hurting. A mass shooting is both a multiple homicide and a suicide (either literally or practically)—that is, a boy or man hurting enough to also end his own life.

The Boy Crisis identifies four things that mass shooters have in common:
1. They are male (almost 100%)
2. They are boys who are hurt (e.g., the 63 red flags)
3. They are dad-deprived (about 80-90%)
4. They have guns (by definition)

1. (Male) and 2. (Hurt). What is happening to boys and men that is creating such pain and anger that they have become almost all of our mass shooters? Boys and men who hurt us are also boys and men who are hurt. They are committing both homicide and suicide (either literally or practically). Whether, as with Atlanta shooter Robert Aaron Long, who was haunted by his sex addiction in conflict with a religion that prohibits non-marital sex; or as with the Colorado shooter Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, who was both bullied for being a Muslim and also paranoid, we are not being pro-active in our sensitivity to the 63 red flags of depression and suicide Dr. Farrell identifies in The Boy Crisis–red flags that would help us care for these young men before they no longer care. Our ignoring of these boys and men is so complete that the new White House Gender Policy Council mission statement is the issues of women and girls, and completely ignores the issues faced by boys and men--issues that lead to their homicide and suicide.

3. (Dad-deprived). Why are so many of the boys and men dad-deprived? For example, all five of the deadliest school shooters in this century for whom we have family backgrounds—100%--are dad-deprived. See below. About 80-90% of the mass shooters in general for whom we have family backgrounds are dad-deprived. Examples include: Adam Lanz (Sandy Hook); Elliott Rodgers (UCSB); Dylan Roof (Charleston); Nikolus Cruz (Parkland); Stephen Paddock (Las Vegas). Yet father involvement is being completely ignored as a contributor.

4. (Guns). These hurt males have guns—often multiple high-powered guns.

The most-ignored contributor to mass shootings: Dad-deprivation

With schools opening up, we need to prepare for what we can prevent: school shootings. Of the six deadliest school shootings in this century, family background is available for five of the shooters. All five—100%--are dad-deprived.

Here are the highlights about the family background of the deadliest school shooters in the 21st century. (The first five, bolded, are ones for whom we have family background.)

1. Seung-Hui-Cho; 2007 - 33 dead - VA Tech. Seung-Hui-Cho was dad-deprived for the first 5 years of his life, 1984-1989. ("To ease his family’s plight, the dad, Sung-tae Cho, left his wife behind to be a laborer in the Middle East, working on oil fields and construction sites in Saudi Arabia for most of the 1980s.”)
2. Adam Lanza; 2012 - 27 dead - Sandy Hook, CT. Adam’s parents divorced when Adam was 16 and he lived with his mother in what was reported to be an extremely combative relationship. In a New Yorker article, Adam’s father, Peter Lanza, said he had not seen Adam for two years before the shootings.
3. Nikolas Cruz; 2018 - 17 dead - Marjorie Stoneman High School - Nikolas Cruz’ father died when Cruz was 5 years old.
4. Chris Harper-Mercer; 2015 - 10 dead - Umpqua Community College, OR - - Chris lived with his mother during the separation and divorce of his parents. He continued to live with his mother and remained with her when she moved to Oregon for work. His father had not seen him for about two years following his son's move out of state.
5. Jeffrey Weise; 2005 - 10 dead - Red Lake Senior High School, MN. Dad committed suicide when Weise was 8 years old.
6. Dimitrios Pagourtzis; 2018-10 dead - Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas- Dimitrios’ dad’s status undetermined. It is known he had access to his father’s guns, but not how or why, or how much contact Dimitrios and his father had.

Source: Richard Warshak and Warren Farrell, “Brief Note on Relationship to Father of the Six Deadliest School Shooters in the 21st Century,” December 18, 2019

White House Gender Policy Council Excludes Males - The Boy Crisis

For Immediate release:

Contact: (202) 531-9322 Glenn Barker Dr. Warren Farrell, e: warren@warrenfarrell.com; h/o: 415-259-6343 (Pacific time), thewhitehousecouncil@gmail.com

March 8, 2021

The Coalition for a White House Council on Boys and Men calls upon President Biden to immediately expand the mandate of the newly created White House Gender Policy Council from its exclusive focus on women and girls to include equal attention to issues facing men and boys.

Announced on January 19, 2021, the Council’s aim is "to guide and coordinate government policy that impacts women and girls, across a wide range of issues such as economic security, health care, racial justice, gender-based violence, and foreign policy, working in cooperation with the other White House policy councils." It has been enacted by executive order March 8th 2021.
Watch WH Press Conference Video Now

We call upon the White House to immediately expand this council in a truly gender-inclusive way to reflect the needs of men and boys. For example, there are currently seven federal offices of women's health in the United States. There are zero federal offices for men’s health. Half of the population is left out of the Gender Policy Council! All of our sons, excluded. All dads, excluded. All gay men, excluded. Even transgender men, excluded. The singular exclusion of men’s issues from the GPC is astonishing in what could otherwise be an historic recognition of the equality of all Americans as a right to not be divided by gender.

An inclusive and balanced Council would go a very long way toward levelling the playing field for men’s dramatic rates of suicide and other health issues, the bewildering lack of male role models leading to gangs and enormous incarceration rates, school dropout rates and other educational issues, and the damaging rates of family violence affecting boys and men. This includes recognizing the real needs of boys and men of color who face challenges and issues such as high rates of incarceration and poverty, who would now be further systemically oppressed under the current structure of this Council. 81 percent of Americans between the ages of 10 and 24 who die by suicide in this country are male. 70 percent of people who die by opioid overdose are male. Boys are the primary victims of community and gang violence and youth homicide and are more likely to be victims of fatal child abuse.

The source of many solutions does not lie in yet another gender exclusive council being added to the existing plethora of councils addressing girls and women’s issues, when not a single council has yet focused on boys and men’s issues.

This White House must challenge the social and institutional bias against on our boys and men as it continues to challenge the social institutional bias against girls and women.

We do ourselves a huge disservice when we turn the complex realities facing males and females into some kind of contest. Humanity requires us to care about both by word and deed. We are not saying that males should take the place of females on the GPC but are requesting that they not be excluded. Both women and men lose when only one gender wins.

Someone’s Knockin’ at White House Doors>

July 1, 2020

Video

Democratic Presidential Candidate Kirsten Gillibrand supports creation of a White House Council on Boys and Men—joins Candidate Andrew Yang, Fed Chair Jerome Powell, and conservative commentators in recognizing that there is a National Boy Crisis

August 6, 2019

Kirsten Gillibrand told Warren Farrell, the chairman of a multi-partisan coalition calling for a White House Council on Boys and Men, “I think we need a national commission because I think it’s real.” She was referring to the problem of how society fails our boys.

Gillibrand wants children to have more access to resources such as Big Brothers and Big Sisters: “So much, particularly for boys, is they need role models, they need mentors as girls do, but especially in those teen years. It is an issue that I will focus on as President of the United States to make sure all of our children thrive.” Full video interview here: https://youtu.be/ATvWgjMyy5Y

Democratic Presidential Candidate Andrew Yang said, the proposed Council’s emphasis on the education of boys deserves support: “I have two young boys myself, For whatever reason, our culture is ignoring the fact that we have so many young men who feel like they’re getting pushed to the sidelines at schools.”

Yang elaborated that “schools that don’t really meet the needs of a lot of boys. We emphasize conformity and rigidity. A lot of boys aren’t really well-designed for that. And then they get on the workforce, and the workforce doesn’t have a place for them. Almost one out of five prime working-age American men is out of the workforce.” https://youtu.be/ATvWgjMyy5Y

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has sounded a similar alarm. Tying youth unemployment to the opioid crisis, he told CBS 60 Minutes: “The opioid crisis is millions of people. They tend to be young males. And it’s a very significant problem. And it’s part of a larger picture of low labor force participation, particularly by young males.” https://youtu.be/VL1vEFoKK3Y?t=112

The Coalition for a White House Council on Boys and Men believes these issues cut across the political spectrum and deserve the bi-partisan attention it is receiving. Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson recently decried the high incidence of father absence: “More children are growing up without fathers at home. Nobody benefits from that at all. Why aren’t we sounding an alarm in this society about that?”https://youtu.be/HbbO_LUxfi0

Tucker’s colleague, Fox News commentator Laura Ingraham, believes the boy crisis merits national attention. Known for her skepticism about expanding the reach of the federal government, Ingraham supports the creation of a White House Council on Boys and Men: “I’m not usually one for promoting new commissions or studies, but in this case, I think it’s long overdue.”

“Just on the issue of suicide,” Ingraham said, “When I saw these numbers—I have two sons—it shocks you. Ages 15 to 19 years boys have three times the suicide rate of girls. They have four and half times the suicide rate of girls between the ages of 20 and 24. That’s just one the issues we have,” Ingraham added. “We have drop-out rates that are higher and opioid use that is higher.” https://youtu.be/VL1vEFoKK3Y

The Commissioners for a White House Council on Boys and Men are asking President Trump to create a council to respond to the public health crisis robbing boys and men of their mental and physical health and their economic viability.

Details of the proposal to create such a Council are available on the website: http://whitehouseboysmen.org/
News Media contact: Philip Cook, thewhitehousecouncil@gmail.com (202) 531-9322

Democratic Presidential Candidate Andrew Yang, Fed Chair Jerome Powell, and Laura Ingraham Agree: The Nation Is Suffering a Boy Crisis

WASHINGTON, D.C. — July 29, 2019 — News Release from: The Coalition to Create a White House Council on Boys and Men. http://whitehouseboysmen.org/

In a rare bridging of political divisions, Democratic Presidential Candidate Andrew Yang, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, and Conservative TV Commentator Laura Ingraham all decried the public health crisis facing U.S. boys and men.

Yang spoke to Warren Farrell, the chairman of a multi-partisan coalition calling for a White House Council on Boys and Men. “I have two young boys myself,” Yang said. “For whatever reason, our culture is ignoring the fact that we have so many young men who feel like they’re getting pushed to the sidelines at schools.”

Yang elaborated that “schools that don’t really meet the needs of a lot of boys. We emphasize conformity and rigidity. A lot of boys aren’t really well-designed for that. And then they get on the workforce, and the workforce doesn’t have a place for them. Almost one out of five prime working-age American men is out of the workforce.” Watch the video interview here: https://youtu.be/fl_i67q50wQ

Fed Chair Powell sounded a similar alarm, tying youth unemployment to the opioid crisis, “The opioid crisis is millions of people. They tend to be young males. And it’s a very significant problem. And it’s part of a larger picture of low labor force participation, particularly by young males.”

Farrell, author of The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It, described his research that indicts dad deprivation as the prime cause of boys suffering a crisis in their social and emotional development. In response Yang lamented that “40% of kids are born to single parents today, and 90% of those cases are single moms. So if you’re a little boy growing up with a single mom, the mom’s generally working. You don’t have enough time, and then you don’t have strong male role models.”

At the other end of the political spectrum, Ingraham, known for her conservative views about big government, conceded, “I’m not usually one for promoting new commissions or studies, but in this case, I think it’s long overdue.”

“Just on the issue of suicide,” Ingraham said, “When I saw these numbers—I have two sons—it shocks you. Ages 15 to 19 years boys have three times the suicide rate of girls. They have four and half times the suicide rate of girls between the ages of 20 and 24.” “That’s just one the issues we have,” Ingraham added. “We have drop-out rates that are higher and opioid use that is higher.”

The Commissioners for a White House Council on Boys and Men are asking President Trump to create a council to respond to the public health crisis robbing boys and men of their mental and physical health and their economic viability.
Yang quotes retrieved from: https://youtu.be/fl_i67q50wQ
Powell quotes retrieved from: https://youtu.be/VL1vEFoKK3Y?t=112
Ingraham retrieved from: https://youtu.be/VL1vEFoKK3Y
http://whitehouseboysmen.org/
News Media contact: Philip Cook, thewhitehousecouncil@gmail.com

Video: Creation of the Staten Island Council on Boys and Men

May 9, 2019: Borough President James S. Oddo and Dr. Warren Farrell, co-author of tThe Boy Crisis announce the creation of the Staten Council on Boys and Men"

For Immediate Release

May 8, 2019

Contact: Alexey Chandler

Phone: (718) 816-2198

Staten Island Borough President and Award-Winning Author Warren Farrell, Ph.D., will discuss the revelations in his new book, ‘The Boy Crisis’; Will Announce the Creation of a Borough Hall Council on Boys and Men; Call on the Federal Government to Create a White House Council on Boys and Men

STATEN ISLAND, NY –Staten Island Borough President James S. Oddo will join with Dr. Warren Farrell, co-author of The Boy Crisis, to discuss the Boy Crisis in America and the need for a Borough Hall Council on Boys and Men. Staten Island will become the first government agency attending to the ways we can prevent the boy crisis, with the ultimate goal of creating a White House Council on Boys and Men.

Dr. Farrell is a former board member of the National Organization for Women, and who in 2009 was invited by President Barack Obama to be a leading adviser of what was planned to be a White House Council on Girls and Women. According to Dr. Farrell, “the boy crisis resides where dads do not reside,” and that it was dad-deprived boys behind the vast majority of mass shootings, crimes, and ISIS recruits.

There are 70 different metrics which demonstrate the undeniable truth that a boy crisis exists in America:

• Between the ages of 10 and 14, boys commit suicide at almost twice the rate as girls.
• Between the ages of 15 and 19, boys commit suicide at four times the rate of girls.
• Between the ages of 22 and 24, male suicide is five and six times that of females.
• More black boys between the ages of 10 and 20 are killed by homicide than by the next nine leading causes of death combined.
• While the rate of obesity amongst adolescent girls has stabilized, the rate for boys is increasing.
• Young men have gone from 61 percent obtaining a college degree to a projected 39 percent.
• Our sons are twice as likely as our daughters to be killed by accident.
• We are less likely to read to our sons.
• Women constitute 75 percent of those who seek professional help to prevent suicide; men constitute 75 percent of those who actually do commit suicide.
• Worldwide, boys are 50 percent less likely than girls to meet basic proficiency in reading, math, and science.
• A third of boys are raised in father-absent homes.
• In 1920, American males lived on average only one year less than females; today it is five years less.

WHO: Borough President James S. Oddo, Dr. Warren Farrell, co-author of The Boy Crisis, and community stakeholders

WHAT: Announcement of Staten Island Council on Men and Boys and Call on the Federal Government to create a White House Council on Boys and Men

WHEN: Thursday, May 9th at 11:30am

WHERE: Staten Island Borough Hall, 10 Richmond Terrace, Room 125

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To arrange an interview with Dr. Farrell, please contact Kevin McVicker at Shirley & Banister Public Affairs at (703) 739-5920 or kmcvicker@sbpublicaffairs.com.