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| “ | You understand why I had to show everybody how vulnerable we are! | „ |
| ~ Chad Brown rationalizing his crimes. |
Chad Brown is the main antagonist of the Criminal Minds episode "Amplification".
He is a terrorist and mass murderer who plans to stage a biological weapon attack as revenge for the scientific community not giving him the respect and prestige he feels is owed him.
He was portrayed by David Dean Bottrell.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Chad Brown is a biology student who is obsessed with biological warfare, specifically with the weaponization of diseases such as anthrax. He is also a malignant narcissist who believes that his repeated failures to distinguish himself in the field are the result of the scientific community at large conspiring to deny him the success and recognition he feels is his by right.
His narcissism and instability extend to his personal life, as well; he cannot hold down a job, and his ex-girlfriend took out a restraining order against him when he started stalking her after she rejected his marriage proposal. Brown applied many times to research positions at Fort Detrick, but was rejected every time after failing the psychological examination; whenever he was asked about whether it was appropriate to sacrifice a few lives in order to save many, he always answered "yes".
He entered the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy in 2004, and wrote a thesis on terrorist attacks using homemade anthrax samples. The thesis raised red flags with many of his professors, but it won praise from his thesis advisor, virologist Lawrence Nichols, an anti-weapons proliferation activist who was demoted for performing unauthorized experiments with influenza. Nichols took Brown under his wing and allowed him access to his private lab, where he kept samples of anthrax.
"Amplification"[]
After the bookstore where he works turns him down for promotion, Brown takes revenge by releasing Nichols' anthrax in the building, killing three people. He tells Nichols what he did, believing that his mentor will be proud of him. Nichols is horrified, however, and they get into an argument that ends with Brown killing him and shattering a vial of the anthrax. Brown then stages another anthrax attack on the park where his ex-girlfriend rejected his proposal, sickening 25 people, 12 of whom die. This attack attracts the attention of the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU).
The BAU profiles the killer as a disgruntled scientist who had been fired or disciplined by his employers, and who is obsessed with fringe political causes. The profile leads them to Nichols, but agents Derek Morgan and Spencer Reid discover his dead body, and in the process, Reid is exposed to the anthrax. During the next few hours of self-quarantine, Reid realizes that Nichols must have had a protégé who is carrying out the attacks to hit back at the scientific community that rejected him and Nichols.
The BAU identify Brown as the killer, and deduce that he is going to attack the D.C. subway system based on his thesis, in which he described such a scenario. They also theorize that he will attack the subway line leading to Fort Detrick because it is in keeping with his M.O. of attacking places he associates with rejection. Morgan and Supervisory Agent Aaron Hotcher head to the subway station with Ford Detrick's chief scientist, General Lee Whitworth, in tow.
They find Brown just as he is about to drop anthrax-filled light bulbs onto the track, which would kill everyone in the station after the train ran over them. Whitworth tells Brown he has to take him into custody so he can help develop a cure for the anthrax strain. Overjoyed that he is finally being noticed, Brown sets down the anthrax and agrees to help, on the condition that the government name the cure after him. At that moment, however, Morgan arrests Brown, as the "agreement" between Brown and Whitworth was a ruse, developed with the BAU, to get Brown to surrender by playing to his inflated ego. Hotchner then finds that Brown had indeed created an antidote, which he uses to save Reid. Brown is then imprisoned for life for terrorism and murder while his strain of anthrax was sealed in a storage vault at Fort Detrick with the other pathogens that pose a danger to the American people.
Trivia[]
- Brown is inspired by multiple real-life criminals:
- The Amerithrax case, a series of bioterrorist attacks against government officials, involving prime suspect Bruce Edward Ivins.
- Timothy McVeigh, a terrorist and mass murderer guilty of the Oklahoma City bombing, in the interest of a false flag terrorist attack to make America scared and angry over threats he imagined. McVeigh was assisted by an accomplice, Terry Nichols.
- The library attack is loosely derived from "the great book scare", a panic involving the inaccurate belief of library books transmitting diseases.
External Links[]
- Chad Brown on the Criminal Minds Wiki
