FBI investigates new year’s day truck attack as terrorism; expert Mary Ellen O'Toole weighs in

Mary Ellen O’Toole has spent her career studying the criminal mind. One of the most senior profilers for the FBI until her retirement in 2009, O’Toole has consulted and worked on some of the FBI’s most high profile cases involving infamous criminals. O’Toole’s work has included consulting with schools, universities and private corporations involving mass homicides and threats of violence. She consulted on the Columbine High School shooting as well as the shooting at Red Lake Minnesota and the mass school killings in Finland. O’Toole was the lead researcher and author of the FBI’s seminal work in school violence, The School Shooter: A Threat Assessment Perspective.

Listen to O'Toole's George Mason Access to Excellence podcast episode where she describes the Mason Forensic Science Research and Training Laboratory (FSRTL) - a five-acre forensic taphonomic research facility on the Science and Technology Campus in Manassas, Virginia. George Mason is one of eight locations in the world capable of performing transformative outdoor research in forensic science using human donors.