Application of The Terrorist Radicalization Assessment Protocol (TRAP-18) to the case of the Army-Navy recruiting center attacker in Little Rock, Arkansas

Tassin, C; Allely, CS

Abstract

We applied the Path to Intended Violence (PTIV; Calhoun & Weston, 2003) model and the Terrorist
Radicalization Assessment Protocol (TRAP-18; Meloy et al., 2015) to study the case of a lone-actor jihadist
who carried out a fatal shooting at a joint Army-Navy recruiting center in Little Rock, Arkansas, on June 1,
2009. The PTIV model examines incidents using six progressive stages: grievance; violent ideation; researching
and planning; preparation; probing and breaching; and, attack (Calhoun & Weston, 2003). The TRAP-18 is a
structured professional judgment (SPJ) tool and comprises of 18 behavior-based warning signs for terror
incidents. The findings from the retroactive application of the TRAP-18 in this case show that in the week before
the attack, the perpetrator exhibited five of the eight proximal warning behaviours and five of the 10 distal
warning behaviors. The retroactive application of the TRAP-18 and PTIV to cases of targeted violence assist
with identifying a timeline of behaviors, which in turn provides insight into pathway to violence and warning
signs that someone may be a threat of violence.

Citation

Tassin, C., & Allely, C. (2022). Application of The Terrorist Radicalization Assessment Protocol (TRAP-18) to the case of the Army-Navy recruiting center attacker in Little Rock, Arkansas. Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression, https://doi.org/10.1080/19434472.2022.2118349

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Aug 24, 2022
• Publication Date: Sep 13, 2022
• Deposit Date: Sep 14, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 14, 2023
• Journal: Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression
• Print ISSN: 1943-4472
• Electronic ISSN: 1943-4480
• Publisher: Routledge
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/19434472.2022.2118349
• Publisher URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/19434472.2022.2118349
• Additional Information: Additional Information : This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression on 13 September 2022, available at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/19434472.2022.2118349