As family and friends continue to search for understanding in the tragic deaths last week of four members of the Browning family in Cockeysville, a University of Maryland sociologist says too much emphasis has been placed on the 15-year-old suspect’s privileged upbringing.

Baltimore County police announced on Sunday that Nicholas Browning, who attended Dulaney High School in Cockeysville, confessed to fatally shooting his parents and two younger brothers two days earlier.

But Tanya Sharpe says authorities and the media have made it seem unbelievable that an honors student from an affluent home could be responsible for such a horrible crime.

“The news reports started off with him being an Eagle Scout and painting a pretty picture as if this doesn’t happen in suburbia,” Sharpe said.

This story continues below
Advertisement

“It’s almost as if they were asking how this could possibly happen in Baltimore County, but this kind of thing happens across the board, whether one lives in an urban, suburban or rural area,” Sharpe said. “It’s a crime that knows no racial or socioeconomic boundaries.”

According to Sharpe, Nicholas — who police say had never been in trouble with law enforcement — could have been spurred to violence after experiencing some kind of trauma.

“It could have been something going on within the family,” she said. “Fifteen is a critical age, so kids are going through the challenges of trying to fit into their social circles and gaining acceptance from their peers as well as trying to achieve academic success.”

Noted in her work in youth violence – Sharpe said bouts of depression and anger often come along with those challenges, and if left unaddressed, youth tend to act out in violent ways.

“I constantly see this in my work,” she said.

Baltimore County police spokesman Bill Toohey said slayings such as these are by far, a rarity in the county. “I can’t think of any juveniles murdering their families in the whole 12 years I’ve been here,” Toohey told The Examiner. “The closest thing we had was in 1995 when a man blew up himself, his wife and three kids after setting off a bomb in a minivan. That’s the closet I can come to remembering an incident where an entire family was wiped out.”

drowley@baltimoreexaminer.com