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RECOGNIZE THE WARNING SIGNS. PREVENT THE THREAT.

Category: Real-World Experiences

  • “When Observation Matters: A Real-World Account of Behavioral Awareness in a Place of Worship.”

    News & Resources

    When Observation Matters

    A Real-World Account of Behavioral Awareness in a Place of Worship

    From a letter shared by Mike Moore, Pastor of Shiloh Bible Church in Harrison, Arkansas

    Threat awareness does not begin with knowing exactly what another person intends to do. It begins much earlier — with observation, recognition, context, and the willingness to pay attention when something does not fit.

    A firsthand account from Mike Moore, Pastor of Shiloh Bible Church in Harrison, Arkansas, provides a powerful example of why those principles matter in the real world.

    Something Was Different

    Mike arrived early at his church one Sunday morning, as he routinely did, to make sure everything was ready for the congregation. A member of the worship team approached him about an unfamiliar man in the building who, for reasons he could not fully explain, made him nervous.

    Mike, who also had law-enforcement experience, located the man and began observing him. He noticed several things: the way he was dressed, his blank stare, the backpack he carried, unusually long pauses before answering questions, attempts to change the subject, and aspects of his movement and gait.

    “Being a student of Glenn Foster trained me to notice these things and more.”

    — Mike Moore

    Observe First. Do Not Assume.

    One of the most important parts of Mike’s account is what he did not do. He did not claim to know the man’s intentions simply because his behavior seemed unusual. He continued to observe, maintained distance, and had someone contact law enforcement so the situation could be evaluated safely.

    When officers arrived, Mike continued trying to understand the situation. He asked the man whether he had any weapons. After a long pause, the man acknowledged that he did and stated that he had a machete under his coat. Officers then escorted him from the church.

    No one had to wait for an overt act of violence before recognizing that the situation deserved additional attention.

    The Value of Behavioral Training

    Mike credits training he received from D. Glenn Foster in identifying deception and reading people’s movements with helping him recognize that the situation warranted closer attention.

    “If I had not taken Glenn Foster’s class on identifying deception and reading peoples movements, I may have never noticed this potential threat to my church family.”

    — Mike Moore

    That lesson reaches well beyond one church or one incident. Glenn Foster’s decades of work in behavioral observation and the principles developed through his professional training helped establish an important part of the behavioral foundation that informs Behavioral Threat Assessment Prevention — “BTAP”.

    What This Account Teaches Us

    • Context matters. Something can deserve attention without automatically proving malicious intent.
    • Behavioral changes and abnormalities matter. Pauses, movements, responses, appearance, actions, and other observable details can help form a larger picture.
    • Observation comes before conclusion. The objective is not to diagnose, profile, or investigate someone on your own.
    • Knowing when to elevate a concern matters. Recognition becomes useful when it leads to an appropriate and measured response.
    • People already present may notice first. Security personnel and law enforcement cannot be everywhere. Employees, staff members, volunteers, teachers, clergy, coworkers, and others may be the first people in a position to recognize that something has changed.

    The Training Ends. The Awareness Continues.

    “BTAP” is designed to help organizations strengthen the same fundamental capability illustrated in Mike Moore’s account: pay attention, recognize meaningful indicators, understand context, and know when a situation deserves additional attention.

    Learn more about Behavioral Threat Assessment Prevention and how Kinesic Media can bring “BTAP” Training to your organization.

    Introducing BTAP
    Contact Kinesic Media

    This article is based on a firsthand account provided by Mike Moore and is shared with his permission. The account describes his experience and the training he received from Glenn Foster. It should not be read as a claim that training can predict or prevent every threatening situation.

  • Brown University: What the FBI Findings Teach About Planning, Grievance, and the Limits of Observation

    Incident Analysis

    Brown University: What the FBI Findings Teach About Planning, Grievance, and the Limits of Observation

    The federal investigation offers a useful prevention lesson precisely because it does not support an easy explanation—or the assumption that every planned attack produces obvious warning signs.

    Editor’s note: This article discusses a fatal mass-shooting investigation for the purpose of examining prevention-related findings. Kinesic Media avoids graphic detail and unnecessary focus on the attacker.

    On December 13, 2025, a gunman attacked Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, killing two students and wounding nine others. Two days later, Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Dr. Nuno Loureiro was murdered in Brookline, Massachusetts. In April 2026, the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts released findings connecting the crimes and describing what investigators learned about the attacker’s planning and grievances.

    What the FBI Found

    After a multi-agency investigation that included more than 490 leads, more than 260 interviews, and extensive examination of physical and digital evidence, the FBI concluded that the attacker acted alone and that the crimes had no nexus to terrorism.

    Investigators determined that planning for the Brown University attack began years before the shooting. The FBI assessed that the attacker’s victims were symbolic: Brown University and Dr. Loureiro represented personal failures and perceived injustices that had accumulated over time.

    The FBI also described long-term grievances, interpersonal conflict, social isolation, suicidality, and a growing belief that the attacker had been treated unjustly. Federal investigators cautioned, however, that mental-health stressors alone could not explain the attacks.

    A Critical Finding

    The FBI specifically noted that the attacker’s transient lifestyle, long-term planning, and social isolation created little to no opportunity for bystanders to observe and contextualize the significance of his behaviors. That finding is important because it demonstrates both the value and the limits of behavioral threat awareness.

    What This Case Teaches

    1. Planning can develop over a long period

    The attack was not described as a sudden act arising from a single bad day. Investigators found incremental planning and preparation over several years. Long timelines can create opportunities for prevention—but only when behavior, communications, preparation, or other relevant information becomes observable to someone who recognizes its significance.

    2. Grievance can become part of a developing pathway

    Grievance is common and, by itself, is not a predictor of violence. Most people who feel wronged never commit violent acts. In this investigation, however, the FBI assessed that accumulated grievances were part of a larger pattern that included perceived injustice, personal failure, planning, isolation, and commitment to violence.

    3. Observation requires access to behavior

    This case is a reminder that prevention frameworks have limits. If an individual is isolated and significant planning occurs where family members, coworkers, peers, educators, or others cannot observe it, there may be little information available to report. Behavioral awareness is not omniscience.

    4. Avoid simple explanations

    It would be misleading to reduce this attack to one cause—mental health, grievance, academic failure, firearm access, or any other single factor. The FBI’s findings describe an interaction of multiple circumstances over time. Responsible threat assessment works the same way: it considers the totality of available information rather than relying on one label.

    What This Case Does Not Prove

    The Brown University attack does not prove that every isolated person, every individual with a grievance, or every person experiencing mental-health difficulty is dangerous. Nor does it prove that the attack could necessarily have been prevented if someone had simply “paid attention.” The FBI explicitly described the lack of bystander opportunities to observe and contextualize the attacker’s planning.

    That distinction matters. Prevention improves when organizations learn from documented behavior without turning lessons into profiles or hindsight assumptions.

    The BTAP Connection

    For BTAP, the lesson is not that participants should try to identify the next attacker. The lesson is that observable behavior should be taken seriously when it changes, escalates, combines with other concerning information, or appears within a meaningful context—and that organizations need a process for getting that information to the right people.

    Sometimes warning information exists and intervention is possible. Sometimes the information is fragmented. Sometimes, as the FBI found in this case, opportunities for observation may be extremely limited. A credible prevention approach has to acknowledge all three possibilities.

    Sources & Further Reading

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