CBSNewYork | December 21, 2012

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) - In the wake of the Newtown massacre, the NYPD is examining ways to search the internet for potential “deranged” gunmen.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said that their searches would be similar to those being used to spot terrorist chatter online.

“And what we’re talking about is publicly available websites, chatrooms, that sort of thing,” Kelly said, adding that algorithms could be used. That will enable us to use, perhaps, commonly used terms that are used by people engaged in this sort of activity,” he said.

“The techniques would include cyber-searches of language that mass-casualty shooters have used in e-mails and Internet postings,” Kelly said.

Kelly said intelligence is most helpful in these cases since shooters can cause multiple deaths in seconds regardless of how deft the police response.

The NYPD’s counter-terrorism division released a 182-page report last year after studying 202 mass shooting incidents.

“So, we think this is another logical step,” Kelly said.