PORTLAND, Ore. — In President Donald Trump’s speech Monday, he said we need to do a better job of identifying and acting on early warning signs of mass shootings. He said that takes a partnership between federal, state and local agencies.
KGW wanted to know how Portland-area law enforcement agencies monitor threats online and where people can go to report something.
The Clackamas County Sheriff's Office, Hillsboro Police Department, Beaverton Police Department and the Portland Division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation each said it really takes all of us working together to bring attention to threats and hate online. Their investigations typically start with a tip from someone.
“A lot of times we rely on the community if they see things, the internet is so large that for us to really monitor everything that goes on is almost impossible, if not impossible,” said Beaverton Police Sgt. Kevin McDonald.
Police departments say many concerning posts are not shared on mainstream websites.
“To be successful in that kind of environment, we want to find these things early in that threat assessment phase and to do that well, we need the help of the community and we need the help of our partner agencies, so there's great teamwork among the law enforcement agencies here in the state,” explained Special Agent in Charge for the Portland Division of the FBI, Renn Cannon.
Cannon says when the FBI gets a tip, they first open what is called a threat assessment where they can check publicly available information, their own databases, and criminal histories to try to figure out if there is a legitimate threat there. If there is, they open an investigation.
Beaverton Police say they do something similar.
“The internet is massive, so it is difficult,” McDonald said. “Internet investigations can be very challenging and they may not be local. They may be from another state, another city, sometimes even another country, so it's wherever that path leads us, so it can be a challenge.”
Officers say they also monitor social media posts surrounding big events in the area to see if there are any red flags.
If you see something suspicious, police say you should take a screenshot and send it to authorities so they have something tangible to go on.
The FBI also has several guidelines online for what to pay attention to.
“A lot of times, people ask me, 'How do I know when I should call?'” Cannon said. “Well, you can Google ‘Making prevention a reality' or you can Google 'Pre-attack behaviors from the FBI’ and we've got a couple documents online that give a lot of details as to the specifics of our analysis. What are things that should be of concern, and if you read those things, if you're seeing something that's concerning to you, and you read those documents and you think, you know, I should call this in.”
It may sound cliché, but experts say if you see something, say something.
“All of us working together as a community to keep ourselves safe, we can’t do this alone, we need the community to help and so that’s what we ask,” McDonald said.
Tips can be called in to police department’s non-emergency phone numbers or anonymous tip lines. You can also submit tips on each agency’s social media account. To submit a tip online to the FBI click here.