An independent investigation reaches the same conclusion we’ve been pointing to for years.
WHAT THE INVESTIGATION FOUND
In March 2026, a man with a 2016 federal terrorism conviction attacked ROTC students at a Virginia university. Virginia’s Attorney General appointed independent counsel to investigate. Their conclusion: the university’s own threat assessment team was, in the investigators’ words, “an effective threat assessment infrastructure in place to assess risk.” The investigation further found that had the university known what was already known elsewhere, it is highly likely they would have removed him from campus before he ever attacked. Neither his federal probation officer, who had explicit authority to disclose the risk he posed, nor the FBI, who had investigated his original case, ever shared the concerning behaviors and history with the university.
The team was ready. The information existed. The information never arrived.
EVEN THE INVESTIGATION HAD A BLIND SPOT
By the time that report was finished, the university had already spent $9 million on security improvements: extended criminal history questionnaires, increased police presence, restricted building access. The money moved in one direction. The report’s own findings pointed in another, toward a notification gap between a probation officer, the FBI, and the university, not a gap in cameras or door locks.
That’s not a failure of the investigation. Independent counsel did exactly what they were asked to do, investigating exactly what went wrong at that university. What no single-case investigation sees is recurring failures, pre-incident warning signs that existed but were scattered by gaps, have played out repeatedly in schools, workplaces, and communities for decades. The gaps lead to blind spots that only become visible after studying hundreds of cases. Blind spots can be killers for many reasons, even for investigators who are unaware of the underlying, recurring gaps and failures.
THE GAPIDEMIC VALIDATED AGAIN BY YET ANOTHER INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION
This is the same pattern that repeats in school shootings, workplace violence, domestic violence, homicides, suicides, and more, in every sector, year after year, decades running. Independent investigators keep reaching the same conclusion we’ve been naming all along: capable people, functioning teams, and real resources, undone by information that never crossed the gaps caused by silos, bias, egos, turf wars, and many others.
Another validation of the recurring problem (Gapidemic) exists, and so does the field-tested solution.
Rick Shaw | Subject Matter Expert, Pre-Incident Prevention | First Preventers Framework™