A troubled mind

A broken individual who was possibly abused as a child and desperately in need of attention may be behind last week’s multiple bomb threats that impacted over 70 institutions across the island, mental health experts believe.

The police have written off the threats as hoaxes, which had the country on edge throughout Thursday and Friday.

The contents of two daring emails sent to several schools also suggest that the perpetrator(s) may be savvy with the use of computer software to protect his or her identity, reasoned a cybercrime expert as he detailed the difficulties law enforcement faces in probing such occurrences.

Over the years, there have been multiple false bomb threats, mainly issued to courthouses, call centres, and schools, but last week’s round of hoaxes, the first of such magnitude in the island, sent schools and other critical infrastructure, including a hospital and a courthouse, into a frenzy.

Late Friday evening the police reported that they had taken one person into custody, and also suggested that the threats could have originated overseas. Deputy Commissioner of Police Fitz Bailey also noted that the United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was assisting with certain aspects of the investigation.

Still, the trauma and fear experienced by students, staff, and parents who battled traffic jams to get to their children is still fresh in many Jamaicans’ minds.

The majority of the threats were made via emails on both days, with only two – those against the courthouse and hospital – made via phone calls.

The second of the two emails, which arrived on Friday, spoke in seven sentences of multiple explosives on school compounds and promised death. However, Thursday’s email, which first jolted the emergency services into action, was much more cryptic.

“I hated everyone around me from birth. Hypocritical scum, mocking me and forcing me to become part of a biowaste society,” read an email seen by The Sunday Gleaner. “When I was a child, my father raped me and my mother didn’t c are.”

“I felt the pressure from every scum that spoke in my directi on. Endless reproaches. It is convenient to morally destroy a child in childhood and make him a malleable slave who is used to being afraid,” continued the email, which outlined a dysfunctional family, tales of school bullying, and malignant thoughts of suicide.

The email went on, though incoherently, to speak of the perpetrator’s involvement in gun crimes, and the drinking of victims’ blood.

REFOCUS ATTENTION ON MENTAL HEALTH

“I am happy the police have declared it is a hoax,” offered clinical psychologist Georgia Rose, noting that the contents of the emails would suggest a perpetrator who was not quite in touch with reality. Rose also rued the psychological effect the emails may have on the wider society.

“The notes don’t seem very coherent. They seem a little rambled, and if they were authentic, what they would have suggested is someone who is in need of significant and immediate mental health support,” she said, pointing to the constant mention of sexual abuse, mistreatment, neglect, and suicide.

President of the Jamaica Association of Guidance Counsellors, Angelica Dalrymple, said that although the threat has proven to be a dud, the contents of the emails refocus the light on mental health in Jamaica, especially that of children who have suffered trauma and neglect at the hands of parents and guardians.

“I think there may be some amount of experience in the contents of the email. Like so many of our children, the emails suggest a person who has been hurt from childhood,” she explained. “This is a real narrative of the ills imposed on children by the education and social systems that taboo mental health and glorify academic prowess. This negates the human psychological needs of our children.”

“It is so crude for parents to pay scant regard to their God-given role to provide good parenting for their children. It is unfortunate that this is the avenue used for the expression of deep hurt. Such an individual may need closure, psychotherapy, and to release pent-up feelings, and mental freedom,” she charged, noting that the emails seemed more about seeking attention than inflicting real harm on individuals.

FINDING THE PERPETRATORS

The Ministry of National Security spurned the actions of the perpetrator(s), bemoaned the implications on the resources of the security services, and warned that the culprit or culprits will be brought to face the full extent of the law.

Local cybercrime experts, however, had mixed views about the ease at which that can be done.

Only one of the emails contained a useful domain for the sender. That was listed: desolate@beeble.com. The Beeble project is listed online as an email and cloud storage platform with “unprecedented security and privacy without third-party access”.

Lieutenant Colonel Godphey Sterling, head of the Jamaica Cyber Incident Response Team, said this makes it that much more difficult to decipher the sender, especially if that individual employs additional cyber techniques to either hide his or her identity or frame unsuspecting email users as being the perpetrator.

“Without the email header and the metadata from the recipient machine, we cannot do much. The recipient’s machine is where the email would be extracted from,” Sterling offered, adding that such probes could take days, but that he is confident in the cybersecurity capabilities of the security forces.

“That would show the identifiable route the email took. Based on the analysis of that data, further action may or may not be taken,” he said.

“The degree of difficulty will be determined by the degree of obfuscation that was used.”

Another cybercrime expert, who has spent years in the security services, chuckled at the perpetrator’s decision to use email to send the fake threats. According to him, the sender would be easily detectable by the police, who are granted certain privileges based on anti-cybercrime cooperation treaties.

PROSECUTION

Meanwhile, Andrea Martin Swaby, senior deputy director of public prosecutions, explained that the sending of threatening data to cause harm or harass persons is a criminal offence, within which nefarious emails would be included.

“If the perpetrator is outside of the [Jamaica] jurisdiction at the time of sending the data, it is still a criminal offence in Jamaica, where the data is sent from a device which is outside of Jamaica to persons in Jamaica,” Swaby explained, noting that such offenders could be targeted under the Extradition Act.

“However, based on the extradition regime, the offence would also have to be criminalised in the state from whom extradition is sought. Extradition can only be granted where there is dual criminality in both states.”

corey.robinson@gleanerjm.com