Photo: Leon County Sheriff's Office
The Secret Service has released its findings in the case of Scott Beierle, the Florida man who opened fire in a yoga studio in 2018, killing two women and injuring five others before shooting himself. The agency said that Beierle displayed warning signs for decades and suggested that the rampage could have been prevented.
The agency's National Threat Assessment Center found that Beierle was a self-described misogynist who openly admitted Hitler and was described as a Nazi in online communities. The report noted that he was kicked out of the military and fired from several teaching jobs for inappropriate behavior towards female students. He was also barred from some public places and arrested multiple times.
The report stated that Beierle's friends and family feared him, with a former roommate saying he reminded them of Ted Bundy. His parents slept with their doors locked, and in one instance, he was removed from a birthday party for his niece for touching young girls.
He even foreshadowed the 2018 shooting in an 81-page novel he wrote as a teenager. In the story, a middle school boy murdered his female classmates and then committed suicide before the police arrived.
"Tragedies like this one are successfully prevented every day with behavioral assessment programs," said Steven Driscoll, the threat center's assistant chief. "Nothing about this attacker's behavior should be considered normal. His misogyny was extreme, and it began at a young age."