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- Evaluate your information and your time frame. Is this an emergency? If so, act accordingly and call the MIT Police. If you have a little time, read these pages, evaluate your information, see what you do and do not know, what you might find out unobtrusively, what would be difficult to find out.
- Contrary to some newspaper accounts, violence does not usually "come out of the blue". Think of violence as a process. Try to assess how far along things are in a process that might lead to violence.
- It is less effective to ask "Is X a dangerous person?" (since almost anybody could be dangerous) and more useful to ask "Is this a dangerous situation?" Think about the person(s) of concern, about targets, about the setting, about recent events.
- Take a systems approach. Think of your information in context. Think of your resources in context. Work with appropriate others. Don't handle this alone. Ask others to help evaluate the information you have and the options. This is especially important if there are cross-cultural, cross-gender, and ethnic issues to consider.
- Take all threats seriously but be sensitive to the fact that making a threat and actually posing a threat may be different matters. Many people who pose a threat do not make a threat. Many people who make a threat do not really pose a threat.
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