ATLANTA — The writing is usually on the wall.
Sometimes, it's a hit list of sorts. Sometimes it is a manifesto online. And sometimes it's verbal comments to friends.
According to the FBI, most mass shooters have written something about what they plan to do online before they attack.
After a local cyber security expert heard that, he knew he had to act. He created a team to try and find those messages - and do something before they strike.
"I'm worried that someone who read that manifesto might come to the church Sunday morning and find the quickest way to get to the stage," Patrick Kelley, the CEO of Critical Path Security said.
He doesn't want to be scared.
"We just felt like we had to," Kelley said. "We are afraid to go to church. We are afraid to go to the grocery store. We are afraid to drop our kids off at school. And if we have some - any - way that we can make a change, we have to."
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That's why he started "Leargas" with his business partners in November - to try and find those threats before they strike.
"This is one of those situations where you look around the world and say, 'it's terrifying. We have to do something'," he said.
That's why he and his group created the program that monitors sites like 8Chan, where the El Paso shooter posted the manifesto attributed to him. The idea is to get the information shooters post online to police before they have a chance to act.
Kelley said his program picked up this most recent manifesto, but it was too late.
"We have records that it came in within 20, 30 minutes," Kelley said. "It was fast. And I don't know that we were in a place where we could have given law enforcement enough to respond to that event quick enough to do something."
Private security companies and the FBI all monitor those sites, but it can be difficult to discern who really wants to hurt people.
Former US Attorney Bret Williams has worked with the FBI and says it's a difficult balance.
"You want to stop the next mass shooting, but on the other hand, are you starting to investigate, monitor, what's called, icoy crimes," Williams said. "It's crimes where someone has thought about a crime."
Williams said once the person is under investigation, their family, friends and co-workers are questioned.
He said with the "real world impacts" brings "tension." And while it might be a difficult position, Kelley thinks it's one worth taking.
"We can do something about this," Kelley said. "We can start."
The website where the El Paso shooter posted, 8Chan, has been taken offline, but Kelley worries too many people saw the manifesto before the website went dark.
His team said it has already helped stop several threats so far this year.
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