By SHANNON O. WELLS
One Pitt student expressing an intention to inflict harm or pain to another may not amount to anything, as in the proverbial “idle threat.”
However, if that expression comes to the attention of Pitt’s Threat Assessment and Management Team, it’s going to get some scrutiny.
“Student threats — posting something online, saying something disturbing to a roommate and then doing something that’s actionable, in these cases, (the team members) can do a lot of the investigation work,” said Scott Argiro, Pitt’s assistant vice chancellor in the Office of Public Safety and Emergency Management.
“They can reach back to prior high schools, prior educational institutions where this person has been, because past behaviors are a pretty good indicator of future behaviors.
“We can drill down on any other criminal activity, into the background or (take) any other disciplinary actions that may lead to further substantiating the threat and to understanding the capability or the potential to carry out the threat,” he said.
Argiro, who serves as Pitt’s threat assessment coordinator, provided an overview of the team’s mission and approach at the Campus Utilization Planning and Safety Committee (CUPS) meeting on Oct. 7.
Mandated by Department of Education a few years ago, the Threat Assessment and Management Team was initiated and organized by Ted Fritz, vice chancellor for public safety and emergency management.
When Argiro joined the University, following 23 years at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, he was named threat assessment coordinator and leads the University’s Department of Integrated Security, including oversight of security systems and protocols, threat assessments and security team management.
A multidisciplinary group that meets and operates on a regular basis as needed during crisis situations, the team, Argiro explained, is based on the idea that “universities are held to a higher standard.”
“And we want to protect those who are here to receive an education, provide an education, and do all the things in between that we all participate in. So it’s our obligation to identify those threats and work together to mitigate them,” he said. “Using principles of threat management, the team is available to receive and review, discuss and evaluate threats and act on threats, and use all of our resources here in the University to create mitigating strategies.”
Argiro said Detective Sgt. Pat Laughlin and Commander David Basile in the Pitt Police Investigations Unit “are responsible for a lot of the legwork, the groundwork, on investigating a threat.”
Although student-to-student threats are most common, the team also gets involved with faculty-to-faculty and faculty-to-student threats. “Harassment(-oriented) things,” he said.
Threats come to the attention of the team in a variety of ways.
“Predominantly, they’ll come in through anonymous tips, through the police department or the Care and Resource Support Office,” he said. “Maybe they’ve encountered a student who’s having difficult transitioning (to university life) … maybe they told a roommate something that’s a little bit disturbing, and it becomes a potential threat, either a harm against themselves or harming somebody else.
“That’s a referral we might receive, and that (could be related to) mental health, but that could come from (Care and Resource Support), and either they would proceed with it, or now we have something that’s called the BIT team.”
Led by Brian Dubenion, Pitt’s inaugural associate dean of student culture and community, the Behavioral Intervention Team (BIT) is an ongoing campus entity that can help with behavioral intervention.
“It’s a newly founded team here at the University, and we work very closely with them,” Argiro explained. “We receive the threat and we call a team to action. The ‘bat signal’ goes out, we’ll have a Teams call, and we’ll discuss different options and a lot of historical knowledge on how we’ve handled threats in the past … and then we start the process.”
Police will initiate background checks, starting with the student’s prior high school or university, followed by interviews.
“Like any investigation would go down, you want to find out if you do have the true facts, if there is credibility to the threat,” he said. “And then we provide an essential assessment: Is that going to be an immediate suspension for a student through Student Conduct, or is it going to be some type of counseling or some type of outside action?
“It could be an arrest, or some type of further legal process.”
Once the information is gathered, the team reconvenes to make a final recommendation.
If it involves housing, the team may work with the student and emergency housing, “or we’re going to decide maybe it’s a suspension, and we’ll petition Student Conduct, and suspension will go into place,” Argiro said. “The Threat Assessment Team does not make these decisions. We evaluate the whole totality of the circumstances, and we make the recommendation to the responsible party.”
Argiro said security guards around campus hired through Allied Universal are all trained through the Threat Assessment and Management Team.
“They’re most familiar with their surroundings. They know who’s coming and going, so we tell them to be aware,” Argiro said, adding that everyone in the Pitt community plays an important role in the threat assessment process. “If something seems unsettling, it could very well lead to a threat.”
Regarding warning signs, Argiro said a key, if “not very pleasant,” word used in the threat arena is “leakage.”
“Nearly all individuals that are involved in a threat, whether it’s a mass shooting or some type of critical incident, there’s been some sort of red flags that have been put out there. There is always leakage,” he said. “They’ve told a friend they’re planning something nefarious, or they’ve told a relative and so forth.
“You hear a lot about these on the news that comes out afterwards. If you have some information like that, you always want to push it forward as soon as possible.”
Responding to a CUPS committee member’s question about the University Counseling Center, Argiro stressed the integral relationship between it and his team, in the context of maintaining patients’ privacy rights.
“The Pitt Police are way ahead,” Argiro said of the Pittsburgh Higher Education and Assessment Response (HEART) Team. “A parent calls in and says, ‘Hey, I had a bad conversation with my (son or daughter) who is a student last night,’ or ‘I didn’t hear from them last night’ and it’s the morning. ‘Can you go check on them?’
“If the HEART team has a reason to believe that there’s a mental health issue, we’re paired up with them. They can respond out and actively, at the scene, provide mental health support,” Argiro said. “That’s key.”
Shannon Wells is a University Times reporter. Reach him at shannonw@pitt.edu.
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