Based on psychological data compiled by Dr. Raymond DiGiuseppe, a professor at St. John's University, Empire State Building gunman Jeffrey Johnson, 58, shouldn't have had enough aggression to shoot his former coworker.
"It's very rare to find people at this age, you know, becoming aggressive at all," DiGiuseppe told Business Insider.
DiGiuseppe and colleagues developed what they call the anger disorder scale. And according to that scale, anger and aggression levels drop on a "slow but steady basis" from the age of 18 up to 65.
Police believe Johnson opened fire yesterday outside the Empire State Building, killing a former coworker before being shot to death by police.
For this to have happened at Johnson's age, DiGiuseppe said Johnson would have had to experience the three R's of aggression — revenge, resentment, and rumination.
Johnson was laid off from Hazan Import Corporation about a year before yesterday's shooting, and psychologically speaking, he must have been very focused on the revenge and resentment that comes with that, DiGiuseppe said.
"This was not an accidental shooting," DiGiuseppe said. "He went right up to this guy."
Despite yesterday's shooting, society is actually less angry now than it has been in the past.
"Aggression is really down," DiGiuseppe said. "People are kind of less aggressive now than they were in the past. This is really an anomaly."
Here are pictures of the chaos yesterday morning. Warning, some are graphic >
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